I grabbed her by the arm, and we all ran toward the grassy plaza across the street, trying to escape for just a minute the endless violence of both the living and the dead.
* * * * *
The large grassy hill of the plaza occupied six city blocks: three north-south by two east-west. On the corner near where we entered, we saw a playground, with trees, fountains, statues, and benches throughout the park. The dead seemed to have deserted the place in the heat of the late morning sun. As we ran along one of the walkways, the wails from the hospital receded, though I swore I could hear a different, higher-pitched sound from somewhere else nearby. It faded as well as we ran.
We stopped under a tree to catch our breath and saw no dead in pursuit from the hospital, so we calmed down a little. At the westernmost edge of the plaza, at the top of the hill, there was a large, modern building of glass and concrete, four stories high. Popcorn pointed to it. “We going to the library?”
Tanya looked at me. “You want to? I don’t see any of them. It looks pretty good, and we can see all around if any start coming from the buildings at the edge of the square.”
“Yeah, I think we should. You know how Milton loves books.” I looked at Popcorn and smiled, though I knew pleasantries or kidding around were wasted on him. “Besides, you probably need some more books to help kids with their lessons, don’t you?”
Popcorn glared at me. “Don’t make fun of me, old man, just ’cause you’re sleeping with her.” I knew I could always count on him to remind me why I didn’t like other people’s children, tragedies notwithstanding.
Tanya had said they avoided pissing Popcorn off, but like I just said, you really didn’t want to piss her off, either. She grabbed him by the ear and yanked him around. “ ‘Her’? Who’s she—the cat’s mother?” she hissed. “Now, I know you didn’t just call me ‘her’. And I know you didn’t say anything disrespectful.”
The kid flushed and squirmed. Even in our mad world, I was glad there were people like Tanya, not just to chop off zombies’ heads, but more importantly, to make sure that human relations stayed on the right footing. “No, Ms. Wright.”
She yanked his ear so he was facing me. “Now, say you’re sorry to Mr. Caine, too.”
He glared at me twice as sourly as he had before, with his eyes narrowed to slits and his teeth bared, but his back was to Tanya. “I’m sorry, Mr. Caine.”
“Thank you, Popcorn, but I’m not sure this is the time. Let’s get going.”
We made it up the hill to the library, still with no sign of the dead. All the windows on the ground floor were smashed out, but on the upper floors, almost all were intact. There were no signs of a fire or other damage. With so many windows, and with nothing of immediate, practical value inside, I doubted anyone had tried to hole up in there, so it hadn’t been the site of a siege or a pitched battle.
We stepped through the broken glass doors and into the main reference room. It had been cursorily ransacked, with most of the books and magazines still there, just scattered around on the floor, but with the windows gone, everything had been ruined by the weather. With the whole east side of the building being windows, the room was well lit, so we could see well. We still seemed to be alone. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said.
“You sure?” Tanya never sounded nervous, but she definitely sounded like she didn’t like or approve of the idea.
I kept looking around. “There’s nothing worth taking here. There aren’t any of them on this floor, so they probably aren’t upstairs. And if there are, we can always just run out here. And we can still see if any are coming from other buildings, like you said.”
I should’ve remembered Milton’s analysis: I was giving logical arguments, and that would’ve worked with Jack, but I could see that Tanya just had a bad vibe from the place. On the other hand, I also suspected there weren’t many buildings outside the museum where you wouldn’t get a bad vibe. Most of all, I knew I had to have books—I had to—and Milton had observed the power that my will had over me.
I led the way to the back of the reference room, to the stairwell door. It was a fire door and had a small window, the kind made out of glass with wire mesh embedded in it. The stairwell beyond was pretty dark, but I couldn’t see any immediate threats. I motioned to Tanya to get ahead of Popcorn and be ready. I opened the door.
The light from the room made it much easier to see in the stairwell, which still looked empty. There were no sounds of anything moving on the stairs, either. I went in, and we started going up as quietly as possible.
We made it to the second floor landing, and I looked through the window on the fire door there, into a big room of books. It looked relatively undisturbed, with still no sign of the dead anywhere. We entered. At the southern end of the room, to our right, another fire door gave access to a second set of stairs. Some bookshelves lined the walls, and a row of them ran down the one side of the room.
On the other side, by the windows, there were tables, study carrels, chairs, and the dried-up remains of several large potted plants. Only one window was broken, and the plant by the broken window had gotten enough rain to survive and was looking quite hale, while its fellows were just dried sticks. Funny how the same rules apply in any kingdom—plant, animal, or undead. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time and you survive, while the guy next to you is killed and eaten. And sometimes the guy next to you does fine, and you’re dinner. Funny.
Although some of the furniture was tossed about, again there didn’t seem to be any signs of a battle or siege—no blood, bullet holes, bodies, or burn marks. With only one broken window, there was no weather damage to the books. I thought of giving Milton directions, so he could come here whenever he liked, since it was a lot less risky for him. I walked over to the row of book shelves, while Popcorn climbed onto a desk by the door and Tanya looked at the shelves along the wall.
On this floor, we were in the fiction and poetry section, which was just what I wanted, of course, either for myself or Milton. We had brought a duffle bag for our finds, and I laid it on the floor, unzipped it, and started tossing books into it. I wanted them all, but books were about the heaviest thing we could choose to bring back. On the other hand, we had to hurry, so I couldn’t pore over every choice. My earlier kidding aside, I also knew that Tanya really did like to teach Popcorn and the other kids, so I asked her to pick some as well, while I walked over to the windows.
I looked down on the plaza, and saw no motion whatsoever. It was a hot and sunny day, so maybe we would get lucky and all the dead would stay indoors. From this position on the second floor, plus the elevation of the hill, I could see the roof of the hospital—and the EMS helicopter parked there. I would have to tell Jack about that, though I doubted we could get to it.
Looking back down at the floor of the library, I was again surprised, this time by a woman’s purse on the floor by one of the carrels. I gave it a nudge with my foot, and some stuff spilled out—a wallet, Kleenex, lipstick, a bottle of Tylenol, and a bottle of nail polish. Pink with sparkles, to be exact. I grinned as I picked up the Tylenol and the nail polish. I walked over to Tanya, tossed the Tylenol into the bag, and handed her the other little bottle. She wrinkled her nose at me. “I don’t think I’ve worn nail polish since before I was married, Jonah.”
“Milton asked for it.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Are you saying that… you know… that he’s…” She shot a glance over to Popcorn and lowered her voice. “You mean that he plays for the other team? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…”
I smiled. “No, I didn’t mean it was for him, I just meant he asked for it. I mean, he mentioned it. I mean… just slip it in your pocket. Books ready to go?”
“Sure,” she said as she zipped up the bag.
I tested the duffle to see how much it weighed. It was heavy, but not impossible to carry. We could even pick up something else small, if we saw anything on the way back to the museum.
As I
turned toward the door we had come in, I heard Popcorn hiss, and saw him crouching on top of the desk he had been sitting on.
The handle on the door next to him was moving.
* * * * *
Like the zombies on the third floor of the hospital, the ones in the stairwell must’ve been pushing on the one at the front of their group, because the door suddenly opened and the first zombie staggered in, almost falling on its face.
Before Tanya and I could run to help Popcorn, he’d launched himself off the desk, just as he’d leapt the first time I watched him train. He hit the zombie from the side, driving a spike through its right temple as he brought the other spike down on top of its head. He spun in midair, twisting the spikes and pulling them free.
As Popcorn landed on his feet, the zombie—what had been a middle aged woman, still wearing her glasses—swayed for a moment, eyes rolling back in her head, tongue lolling. Then she slumped to the side.
Tanya and I rushed over to Popcorn as the second zombie made it through the door. Pushed by its fellows, it tripped over the first zombie and fell on its face. I brought the bat down, smashing its skull and spattering its rotten, reeking brains on the front of my jacket.
Popcorn, meanwhile, had thrown himself at the door and was trying to force it shut, but one undead hand was clutching the edge of the door and stopping him from closing it. I got next to him, and we pushed as hard as we could. With a popping and crunching sound, the door severed the four dried-up fingers and closed all the way. The fingers fell to the floor in a pile of desiccated flesh that I knew I’d remember the next time we ate Vienna sausages back at the museum.
As Popcorn and I struggled to hold the door shut, Tanya slid the biggest table over and told us to get out of the way. Popcorn went first, and then I slid aside just as they slammed the table against the door. Eventually, the zombies could push past this barricade, but we only needed time to get to the other stairwell.
Unfortunately, as I looked on in surprise and alarm, the other fire door opened, and in lurched another big, fat, lethal pile of undead flesh.
Chapter Ten
I didn’t know where the hell they were all coming from, but it was definitely becoming a problem. It was as if every floor except the first was crawling with the book-loving undead. I raced to the other side of the room, and with a snarl, I shoved the tip of the bat into the forehead of the first zombie. It had been a large man, and it staggered into the ones behind it.
Still wielding the bat more like a spear, I hit the zombie in the forehead again. I shoved it all the way back into the stairwell, throwing the other zombies off balance. I shut the door, then threw myself against it. Immediately, the undead began to beat on it.
“Popcorn, leave Tanya to hold that table, and slide one over to me!”
Popcorn sprang to do so, and we secured the door. But now, if we stepped away from the tables on either side of the room, the dead would start to push past our barricades. Plus, both entrances were now blocked, and we had no idea how many were in the two stairwells. I was struggling to make a plan, and half considering just calling on the walkie-talkie to finish it. “The window!” Tanya said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Go look out the window, Popcorn, make sure the lawn isn’t crawling with them!”
He ran to the window. “No,” he answered, shaking his head, “nothing out there. It’s still deserted.”
“Good,” I said. “What’s under the windows? Concrete? Grass?”
He leaned a little out the broken window. “Bushes. It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Okay. Toss the bag of books out, then go out the window. Tanya, go out right after him, then I’ll go.”
She nodded. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it would have to do. The windows went from the floor to the ceiling in this room, so it was just a matter of stepping through the broken one and hoping the bushes broke our fall.
Popcorn dragged the bag across the floor and heaved it out the window. He watched it land, then jumped right after it. As soon as he had gone out the window, Tanya was across the room and had stepped through the opening after him. I heard the bushes rustle both times, and no screams, so those were good signs. But the door Tanya had been securing immediately started to open; undead hands wriggled around the edge, their eager, greedy fingers grasping. I could hear their moaning now, rising in pitch, almost as though they sensed victory, and it even seemed as if the zombies pushing against my door redoubled their efforts in response.
I left my table and ran to the window. Better to get out before they could see where I went, so they might not dive out the window after us. If the fall didn’t kill us, it definitely wouldn’t hurt the undead, and we’d have a mob of them chasing us down the lawn, plus however many their moaning attracted.
Outside, Tanya and Popcorn waited for me several yards away. I took the step out the window. The bushes were a good break for the fall.
The three of us ran down the hill, heading for some trees near the southeast corner of the plaza. I kept looking over my shoulder to see if any of the dead were tumbling out the window after us, but none were.
At the trees, we stopped and looked around. We were all pretty hot and worn out, so we drank from our canteens and tried to calm down a little. No question that it had been tense in the library, but now we were out and halfway done with our work. We moved quietly along the street, heading east toward the river.
As Tanya had said, most all the storefronts were restaurants or office buildings, useless to explore, but one undisturbed window caught all our eyes. It was a toy store, of all things. The window wasn’t smashed, and everything looked as though it hadn’t been disturbed in a year. Like most non-chain toy stores, it was extremely high-end stuff—Brio, Playmobil, Steiff—all stuff that I’d never been able to afford. I tried the door, but it was locked.
“Too bad,” I whispered. “Jack seemed excited about people raising kids.”
“Forget it!” Tanya whispered.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Just then, a human form emerged from the gloom in the store. He had been an older man. There were no big wounds on him, but his right forearm, mouth, and chin were covered with dried blood. He must’ve crawled in there to die, locked himself in, and been trapped since.
Something about us really set him off. Maybe it had been his store, and some part of him still regarded us as vandals and thieves. With a gurgling roar, he raised his two bony fists above his head and charged at the door. His head and fists all hit the glass at the same time, and it was enough to smash through. And all that glass shattering and crashing to the ground was loud—really loud.
Loud enough to wake the dead, you might say.
* * * * *
The zombie storekeeper staggered onto the sidewalk with us. Tanya dropped the bag so she could wield the machete better. But she didn’t need to. Popcorn was behind the guy, and that’s the only opening we needed. The boy sprang onto his back and plunged both spikes into the old guy’s temples.
The zombie’s hands flew up, his eyes rolled back, and he took one step forward before falling on his face. As soon as he did, Popcorn was back on his feet, but he was pointing into the store and gasping, “Look out!”
An old lady zombie was coming at us through the shattered door. She was hunched over almost double. The left shoulder of her dress was shredded and soaked in blood from two massive wounds on her neck and shoulder. I guessed she had been the old guy’s wife. He must’ve eaten her after he turned, and they’d gotten to spend nearly a year getting cozy in the store together. In a different situation, I would’ve found their story touching and sad, but right now all I could think was that “Till death do us part” made a lot more sense.
She was nearly on Popcorn, so I swung the baseball bat upward into her face. The blow straightened her up to a standing position, and she staggered back a couple steps into the store. I went in after her and brought the bat down hard. It crushed her skull, splattering her brains onto the wall next to her.
; As she fell backward, I turned to go, but I knew that I had to have something for all this trouble. These two territorial bastards had just alerted half the town; we’d be lucky to get out alive now. I grabbed a stack of Playmobil sets with my free hand and stepped out the door.
“What are you, nuts?!” Tanya yelled as I tossed them into the duffle bag and shouldered it. All over, the dead were coming out of doors. Fortunately, there seemed to be a lot more of them back toward the plaza, while the way to the river still looked passable.
“Out in the street! Between the cars!” I yelled. “Popcorn, get up on the cars, you can move faster! Go! Go!”
Tanya was ahead of me, with Popcorn jumping from car to car next to us. The dead were mostly staggering around on the sidewalks, bumping into each other and into the wrecked vehicles, so it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed.
“Up ahead, on the right!” Popcorn warned us. A big, dead guy had navigated between the cars and was moving to intercept us. Tanya didn’t hesitate. The machete flashed, and the headless trunk swayed a second before collapsing to the pavement.
I heard Popcorn give a yelp. A zombie from the sidewalk had grabbed his left ankle and had tripped him up. Tanya shrieked and ran back toward us as I jumped onto the car bumper.
The zombie was pulling Popcorn by the ankle as it pulled itself onto the car hood to sink its teeth into his leg. I couldn’t get a good swing at its head; Popcorn was in the way.
He wriggled around and, shoving the zombie’s face back with his foot, he plunged a spike into its left ear. Popcorn twisted the spike around in its brain before pulling it out.
The zombie’s head snapped back, its eyes wide, like it had just heard something really interesting. Then it twitched, lost its grip, rolled onto its left side, and slid off the hood, leaving a long trail of thick, black blood across the metal. Popcorn rolled over and got up.
[Dying to Live 01] - Dying to Live Page 11
