by Lowry, Chris
It was blocked with a row of cars, smashed together in what might have been an Avant Garde art sculpture in a mid sized Midwestern town where the locals tried to figure out what it was about.
I wasn't too concerned with the accident that created a wall of twisted plastic and metal, two deep in some spots.
I was more concerned with the rotting walking zombies pressed against the wall, as if the weight of them could push through.
A herd. A bunch. A big group all pressed into the block of space between the two buildings, a natural corral.
Just as I hit the punchline and Brian guffawed.
A chortle really, a quick intake of air and expulsion of wind with noise.
I froze. He froze.
The Z did not.
The back row turned, almost as one, which attracted the attention of the next few until all of them started shuffling our way.
We had bullets.
It could have been a zombie bloodbath, just like shooting Z in a barrel.
Except we didn't have one hundred bullets between us.
So, we ran.
Back the way we came, and around another corner where we discovered something new.
"Shit!" Brian huffed.
We were used to not screaming.
I guess our walk along the street into town attracted attention too.
More Z, shambling and shuffling, not as many as behind us but too many to fight through.
Then the second herd made the corner and we were trapped.
"Door," I pointed and led us toward the discount storefront. All windows, all covered in brown paper and faded shoe polish paint that told us it was going out of business.
The grime on the windows said it had gone long ago, which was why we passed it in the first place.
No reason to plunder an empty spot.
But a good reason to hide in one.
The Z converged on us.
Brian grabbed one metal bar in his hands, the Boy pushed on the other, and they managed to crack the door open with a squeal while I covered our backs.
We made it in, pulled the doors together.
I ripped off a belt and tied the handles closed.
"That won't hold," breathed Brian.
"Time," I grunted.
The Boy screamed.
I whipped around, gun ready and aimed at the man standing over him.
One shot, one kill and his plastic head showered the floor and walls with shards of filling.
I bet the Z could hear my heart thudding through the windows.
"Okay?" I held out my hand to help him up.
He pushed it away and shoved back to his feet.
"Startled me," he snarled and aimed his gun at the shadows moving on the paper in the window.
There were thirty or so mannequins gathered together in small groups of five on the floor.
I slung my rifle and grabbed two around the torso, carried them back to the door and stacked them in front.
I made two more trips before Brian joined me, then the Boy.
We created a pile of obstacles, one more thing the Z would have to push through or slow them down if they got in.
When they got in.
"If you see a rope or belt, grab it for me," I kept pulling my waist up as it slid down.
The zombie world diet had left me too little butt to hold up my pants.
We did a quick check of the building, but other than the dummies and dust, it was empty.
The back door was boarded shut, too tough to break out.
I guess whoever owned the place thought a break in would come from the alley, or there were enough eyes on the glass front that it didn't need additional security.
"Roof?" I pointed to the ceiling as the Z horde built up on the outside enough we heard glass crack.
It hadn't shattered yet.
We only split up our eyes as we searched the ceiling for roof access.
But buildings built in the fifties or sixties in small town wherever the hell we were used ladders from the outside, not in because we couldn't find anything that would let us out.
The glass sounded pained as more weight pressed against it.
The mannequins shifted on the dirt on the floor, scraping in a terrifying sound as we cowered in a corner of the one room.
"I'm going to draw them off," I said.
I checked the load in my rifle. It was a bolt lever Winchester seven shot and it was stupid to bring on a hunting trip.
It would have been smarter to grab a couple of 9 mm pistols, which we had four boxes of ammunition for, but Anna told me the rifle looked cool, and I kinda looked cool carrying it.
Which made me smile.
And since I hadn't smiled enough since the Z showed up, I carried the rifle.
Seven rounds, plus ten in my pocket.
A hundred zombies.
"Shoot that window," I told the boy and pointed across the room.
The glass stretched the entire front of the building and I directed him to one corner.
That pane would shatter and draw the Z in that direction long enough for me to smash and crash through the other side.
The plan was to bust out of the other side, make noise and be a huge distraction to the rest of the herd, get them to follow me and buy space for Brian and the Boy to get loose.
"When this happens," I told them. "Run. Don't stop."
"We can help you," the Boy growled.
"And if I need it, do it," I said.
He looked down to check his gun and I made sure Brian saw me shake my head.
I could handle myself, and he knew it.
I'd been through worse.
Getting chased by Z was practically my specialty.
"But if I don't need it," I reached under the Boy's chin and pulled his eyes up to look in mine. "Get to open space and wait. I'll meet you on the road back to camp."
He nodded, but I could tell he didn't like it.
I wasn't worried. Brian would make damn sure to keep the Boy safe.
He knew what I'd gone through travelling halfway across the US to find them.
How many times I'd turned back to help the group, putting my two oldest children in danger longer each time.
"I got this," he said.
"We got this," the Boy said.
I watched him aim as I pounded across the floor toward the glass.
He fired and the pane shattered.
Phase one of the plan done.
The Z swarmed toward the noise, just like we knew they would.
I used the butt of the rifle to smash the glass on the other side of the room.
It shattered out, showering the sidewalk in glittering shards that caught the rays of the afternoon sun as it peeked under the awning.
Beautiful if there weren't so many rotting corpses to mar the landscape.
I shimmied out onto the sidewalk, slicing the back of my pants on a sharp edge.
Then I needed a belt to hold up the waist and a flap.
But I didn't have time for a belt.
Because phase two started working even faster than we planned.
Five feet between me and three Z who turned like one and groaned together.
It almost sounded like brains, which would have been funny if they weren't reaching out for my head.
I slid back, pants forgotten, and sent three bullets into the stooges.
And that got everyone's attention.
The whole herd, both sets combined decided I was a tasty morsel worth chasing.
Which was the plan.
It worked great.
But for my butt flapping in the wind.
I had to run with one hand holding up the waist of my jeans, the rip in the backside growing longer as the fabric tore from movement.
I turned to glance over my shoulder, check if the Boy and Brian were running the opposite way.
A Z darted into my path.
I crashed into it with one thought.
"Z don't dart," as we went down in
a tumble of screams, grunts and groans.
I was pleased I wasn't the only one making noise.
"Z don't scream," I said as I shoved up off the ground.
My pants were toast. The fall was too much, leaving both legs dragging behind me, only hanging on by the seams at the bottom.
I still gripped my gun and aimed it at the rag covered zombie squirming on the ground.
"Don't shoot," the Z screamed.
Then he stood up, both hands in the air.
"You're naked," said the kid.
I glanced down.
The front half of my jeans pooled on the tips of my boots, the back half stretched out like a shadow behind me.
"We're gonna be dead if you don't get moving," I said.
The Z lumbered closer.
I didn't have to convince the guy to sprint.
I might have run faster too if a naked man was chasing me.
CHAPTER TEN
We met Brian and the Boy on the edge of town.
I did not appreciate their laughing, especially when the new guy joined in.
I used to be better at flirting, which I wish I could do with Anna.
There is something to playful banter and the promise of what might be.
But like many things now, and the way of things as they are, flirting is something that is lost.
At least among the survivors.
Maybe the Z flirt with each other. The way the drool hangs from a black lip, the sound of a moan on the wind.
Who knows?
Flirting though with adults was, if not gone, then set firmly aside in favor of practical decisions.
It was not extinct among the teens.
I blame the hormones. I watched Bem and Tyler exchange glances, and little giggles. Soft brushes of one arm against the other.
The father in me railed against it. Her youth blazing like a fire, and me wanting to build a wall around her.
But I saw it in the Boy too. The way he grinned at Hannah, the winks he shared with the other women, Peg, and Anna and the rest.
I envied him. I envied his light hearted nature, and ability to make friends so fast, a gift from his mother to be sure, because I was a shallow extrovert in the past life.
All surface and no depth.
I did not make friends well, though I had a share of acquaintances.
Friendship for me was hard won, and once done, hard fought to keep.
Easier to be alone I think, than to worry what others feel, care, say or do.
I kept many friends in books, and in movies, who shared their ideas through writing and images.
But even that took a toll on me. It made me a lesser man.
I joked when called out on it. "If a Scotsman wants to talk to an equal, he prays," when people I knew would comment on my solitude.
Defense mechanisms, actions designed to keep everyone at a distance.
Traceable to a childhood trauma, no doubt, and easy enough to blame others for it. If I were the type to blame.
My son, the flirt, the friend. My hero.
I watched him move next to the small kid hidden in a hoodie and layers.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Small hands lifted the hood back from long dirty blonde hair, crisp blue eyes staring at him from under a layer of grime.
The kid I thought was a boy was a girl.
And my son knew it, in an intuitive sort of way.
“He scared me,” she said and glanced past him to look at me.
I probably imagined the crimson stain creeping up her cheeks, based on the way she looked in the distance so fast.
“I don’t blame you,” said the Boy.
They laughed again, all three of them while I stood there flapping in the wind.
I mean, I’m all for streaking, but there is a time and place.
At the forefront of a Z herd is not it.
“Think we can find me some pants and get moving?” I suggested.
I didn’t wait to see if they followed, but I could tell they did.
Brian supplied the cat calls the whole way.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Three miles later, we found a house.
It had clothes, and food, and some supplies we could use.
I dressed in pants from the closet, cinching a belt tight because they were a little too loose in the waist for my new post apocalypse Z diet.
“Sheets,” Brian called to the Boy and his new friend who introduced herself as Karen.
She was a couple of years older than him, from what I gathered, a couple inches shorter from what I observed.
Too hungry, too scared and too alone on her own for quite some time.
Surviving.
It’s what we do now.
“Towels,” the Boy called back.
Karen stuck by his side, holding a black plastic trash bag open as he stuffed items into it.
“What’s your story?” I asked.
She shrugged.
“Dad,” the Boy admonished. “Leave it, okay.”
I watched him walk down the hall, searching, and the young girl followed in his wake.
“She’s quiet,” said Brian.
“It’s a good practice.”
“Yeah, but we’re helping her.”
I kept my mouth shut.
Maybe she was the last person alive in that town and used our distraction as a chance to get away.
Until she ran into me.
Or maybe there was something more.
There was usually something more now.
But she would share when she was ready.
Or we would learn about it some other way.
Our shopping spree didn’t last too long. The owners, wherever they were, had not left much, but we scored soup and spaghetti noodles, lots of both.
I made sure we emptied the cabinets, double checking for spices and even ketchup packets from fast food joints that some people collected in drawers.
Hundreds of them.
Then we checked the garage and a five gallon gas can full next to a lawnmower.
Brian plopped it in a wheelbarrow and we took turns rolling it back to the bus.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bem and Tyler were missing.
I checked the outside of the bus to be sure and hopped up on the hood to gain access to the roof and checked the tents.
They were empty.
I saw Brian and Peg come out of the woods lugging blue five gallon containers of water.
That was the rule in camp. Blue for water. Red for fuel. Never mix the two.
I slid down the side of the bus and landed with a grunt on the ground.
"Where are they?" I growled.
"Hunting," Brian took a step back.
That he didn't have to ask who I was talking about told me something.
He had seen them go.
"It's okay Dad," the Boy walked around the back of the bus, his new friend Karen trailing after. "She can take care of herself."
I knew she could.
When we found her back in Arkansas, she had been three days up a tree as a zombie pack circled the bottom.
She was smart and ingenious, and she was with the scout I trusted the most.
"That's not the point," I said. "I told you no one goes off alone."
"I didn't," the Boy answered.
He was getting to be tall, almost as tall as me.
The edge of manhood was upon him, a time when he would normally be getting nervous about the girl he wanted to ask to a homecoming dance.
Not in this new world.
"She didn't either," he pointed out.
