Maybe she would get lucky. Find somewhere to stay for a day or two. Figure out where she was. Get some decent clothes and supplies. Get a car running.
With a sigh, she leaned forward and started walking.
At least she had shoes now. Her feet didn’t hurt nearly as bad.
She crossed the interstate overpass, stopped to investigate a truck.
It was a big Ford, doors unlocked. The interior of the vehicle was pristine. The owner must have been a clean freak. There were no keys in the ignition and the battery was dead. No fuel either.
She hopped off the running board and slammed the door shut.
“Darn it.”
She continued on, listening to the crickets chirrup and the breeze stir through the waist high prairie grass that hedged the road. She realized all of a sudden that it was really quite a pleasant evening, and the realization made her falter for an instant. The valley below was green and still. The wind smelled of honeysuckle and fertile soil. There were no traffic sounds, no noisy car stereos polluting the atmosphere with profanity. The word that came to mind was “serene”. Maybe… just maybe it would not be such a terrible thing to live in this hollowed out gourd of a world.
Up ahead, a dog exited the grass onto the verge of the highway. Soma paused, afraid the animal was undead. Dogs were particularly vulnerable to the Phage, were nearly extinct by the time she died herself. But no, she could tell by the creature’s movements that it was a living dog – a real rarity!
Nose to the ground, the animal meandered back and forth along the shoulder of the road. It was a big dog with tawny fur, too far away to make out the breed, but the sight of the animal gave her further encouragement. She loved dogs. Any world with dogs in it was a world worth living in.
She considered calling out to it, thinking how nice it would be to have a canine companion, something to keep her company as she went in search of her family, but she decided it would probably be best if they went their separate ways. She didn’t know how the animal would react to her if she called it. It would probably run away from her. Besides, the animal might never have known a human master. She did not know how long it had been since the fall of man.
Maybe, if it wasn’t so big…
Smiling, Soma walked on to the next car, a maroon Chevy Corsica. There was a body inside it, female, sitting behind the steering wheel. The corpse was pretty much mummified, its shriveled fingers still curled around the steering wheel. The windows of the car were cracked but intact. It looked like the driver had gotten trapped inside her vehicle and died. Soma tried the driver’s side door and found that it was locked.
Oh, well… on to the next one.
She heard the dog bark and glanced to the east, frowning a little. The animal was standing in the middle of the highway now, staring at her. She felt a tingle of anxiety in her belly at the animal’s posture. Its legs were set wide, its ears cocked forward. She had dismissed the animal as harmless the moment that she saw it, thinking of it as she would have done before she died, as someone’s pet, a creature accustomed to man’s dominance. But the world had moved on since then, and man’s companion animals would have moved on with it as well. In humanity’s absence, they would have regressed to their original feral state. They would have had to if they wanted to survive.
Stare it down, she thought. Maybe you can bluff it.
She widened her eyes and stared directly at the dog, arching her shoulders back.
The dog lowered its head.
Maybe not.
Anxious, she cast her gaze about the pavement around her, looking for something to defend herself with. A stick, maybe. Or a big rock. The moment she broke eye contact, the animal snarled and bolted straight at her. Soma’s head jerked up and she let out a squeak of surprise. She saw the canine racing toward her at full speed. The animal’s shoulders rippled with muscle.
She twisted around in panic, looking for somewhere to run. The truck was too far away. The dog would run her down long before she reached it. Nowhere to go but the Chevy. She jerked on the handle of the driver’s side door, but it was locked.
The back door, stupid!
She tried the back door. It was locked, too.
Already, the dog had covered half the distance between them. It loped forward, snarling deep in its chest.
Soma ran around the back of the Corsica and tried the rear passenger door. She expected it to be locked as well, and nearly tumbled into the ditch when she yanked on the handle and the door swung open with a rusty squawk. She twisted clumsily on one heel, just managing to hang onto the door and hauled herself up.
The dog angled toward her. Its legs bunched and jerked under its body. Its muzzle had wrinkled back from its sharp yellow teeth.
Soma threw herself into the back seat just as the dog leapt at her. She screamed as its body, dense with muscle, collided into the door and slammed it shut behind her. She twisted around and locked the door, which was silly because dogs couldn’t open doors, but it was purely instinctive. An instant later, the big animal threw itself at the glass, barking and snapping its jaws.
Soma scrambled to the other side of the car, pressing her body against the door, trying to put as much distance as she could between the snarling hound and herself. The dog barked a few more times, loud enough to make her ears throb in pain, and then it fell silent. It looked in at her with bright, intelligent eyes and then dropped down out of sight. A glob of saliva oozed down the glass.
She watched, body trembling, as the dog circled around to the front of the car. All she could see was its tail. It reminded her of a shark’s fin. A moment later, the dog jumped onto the hood of the car. It lowered its head, peering in at her with dreadful intent.
“Go away!” Soma shouted, waving at the animal.
The animal had beautiful golden eyes but a frightful I’m-gonna-eat-you stare.
“Shoo!”
The dog yawned, red tongue curling out like a party favor, then resumed staring at her. Its chest billowsed in and out as it caught its breath. After a few minutes, it settled down to wait her out.
8
When she was a girl, Soma had an English Setter named Pete. Or rather, her father owned the animal, although it had always seemed strange to her to say that someone owned a dog. Pete had always seemed more like a member of the family than a thing to be owned.
He was a handsome animal with a long flowing coat of white hair with blue flecking and a feathered ruff on his neck and chest. An energetic and slyly mischievous animal, he would purposely sit beside her and fart, then grin at her and wag his tail when she pushed him away, giggling in disgust. When Pete died of old age, her father had mourned the animal as though he had lost a brother.
She did not know what breed of dog her captor was. She thought maybe some sort of Labrador mix. He had the size and powerful muscularity of a sporting dog, but the ears and coloration of a German Shepherd. She supposed it didn’t really matter what kind of dog he was. She was just trying to distract herself from the fact that he wanted to eat her.
The dog had lain down on the hood of the car, setting his muzzle on his forepaws, and was staring in at her with the patience of a spider in its web.
Don’t want to come out? those golden eyes said. That’s okay. I can wait. I got all the time in the world.
Fortunately for Soma, she had all the time in the world, too. She wasn’t going to die of heat exhaustion or dehydration, even in a hotbox like a closed-up car. Just one of the advantages of being a reanimated corpse.
That did not mean she wanted to stay in the car, though. She could wait the animal out if she had to. She could wait until the trumpet call of God. He would lose interest eventually and wander off. She was sure there was plenty of wildlife to eat now that humankind was all but extinct -- squirrels and rabbits and deer and raccoons. Much tastier fare than an old shriveled up zombie like her. But the car was uncomfortably warm, and the corpse in the front seat stank, and she was hungry herself. Her belly twisted and snarled a
t the proximity of the living creature. It had been growling at her since her run in with the survivors. Her body ached with the need for sustenance, and she was afraid that she would begin to act irrationally if she got any hungrier. Slip into the fugue state of the feeding frenzy. Try to kill the dog and eat it.
Big as the animal was, she did not think that would turn out well for her.
So… how to get out of this jam?
It was getting dark. The sun had finally slipped beneath the horizon and the last light of day was slowly draining from the sky. The clouds had taken on the cotton candy hues of twilight. She could still see, but that would not last much longer. If she was going to do anything before night fell, she had to do it now.
Before the light was gone, Soma searched the interior of the car.
As she shifted around the back, the dog raised its head and growled at her, black lips skinned back from its wickedly curved fangs. Soma looked for anything that might be useful. Weapons. Armor. Scooby snacks. Unfortunately, like the driver of the truck she had pilfered through earlier, the corpse sitting stiffly behind the Corsica’s steering wheel had also been a tidy person. The backseat was as clean as a spinster’s sitting room. There was nothing in the back she could use, either as a weapon or some means of defending herself. And the only items she found beneath the seats were a crushed McDonald’s soft drink cup and a paperback romance. Passion’s Plaything, it was named, with a longhaired and scantily clad Lothario posing on the front cover.
Well, at least she’d have something to read!
She put the paperback aside and slithered over the back of the passenger seat.
The dog rose to its feet and barked at her.
“Oh, stow it, Chomper,” she grumbled, wriggling around to a seated position.
Chomper (that was a good name for him, she thought) pawed the windshield like he was digging for a gopher, glaring in at her with avid hunger.
She looked in the floorboard, checked the glove box, then swallowed back her distaste and frisked the dead driver.
The driver was a thin woman with shoulder length blue hair. Judging by her clothes and the reading glasses hanging from her withered neck, she was getting pretty old when Jesus took the wheel. Soma scooped up her purse and looked through it. Keys. Hard candy. Pocketbook. The woman had a plethora of credit cards and a little over two hundred dollars in cash in her pocketbook. Her ID said her name was Myrtle Cooper. Birthdate March 17, 1953.
Other than that, nothing.
Not even a can of pepper spray.
Soma sat back with a sigh of frustration. Looked like she was going to have to play the waiting game after all.
Unless…
Soma narrowed her eyes. She looked from Ms. Cooper to her new pal Chomper.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Cooper,” she said, leaning forward. “I don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just… I’m kind of in a pickle here.”
She took ahold of Myrtle Cooper’s right arm and tugged on it. Chomper barked as the old woman’s rigid fingers snapped loose of the steering wheel. “Be quiet, will you?” Soma said to the dog as she began to twist the woman’s arm upwards.
The old woman was as stiff as a mannequin. She jounced back and forth in her seat as Soma tried to tear her arm off. Flakes of dead skin puffed from her blue coif. She looked like she was gritting her teeth. Take it easy! it looked like she was thinking. Soma shifted forward, biting her lower lip, trying not to giggle at the absurdity of it all. She took the woman’s elbow in her other hand, braced her feet against the floorboard and wrenched the corpse’s arm around.
With a horrid crunching sound, the old woman’s arm ripped off at the shoulder. Soma’s hands slipped and she fell back against the passenger door.
“Oh, God,” Soma gasped, horrified by the way the dead woman’s arm dangled inside the sleeve of her blouse. Hey, Myrtle, can you lend me a hand, she thought, and she had to stifle another peal of hysterical giggles. She unbuttoned the old woman’s cuff and tried to pull her arm out. That didn’t work. Her forearm was too big around to slide through the opening. As Chomper continued to bark and dig at the windshield, Soma grasped the woman’s blouse at the collar and shoulder and ripped the sleeve off. She pulled the loose sleeve off the old woman’s stiff arm and then turned to the passenger window.
“Here, boy,” she called, rolling the window down a few inches. Thankfully, it was a crank window and not one of those electric powered ones. “Here! Come get a treat!”
The dog looked through the windshield intently, body quivering with excitement, tail wagging.
“Here, boy! Here!” Soma called, pushing poor Ms. Cooper’s stiff arm out the passenger window.
The dog barked and jumped down from the hood. An instant later, he lunged up in the passenger window and seized the old woman’s arm.
“Hang on,” Soma said as the dog yanked at the stiff limb. She had to roll down the window a couple more inches for the arm to fit through.
Chomper pulled the entire arm from the car and then dropped to all fours to gnaw on it. Soma hurriedly rolled the window back up as the dog snarled and chewed on the leathery limb.
“Okay now, go on,” Soma said, peering out the window at him. “You got your snack. Go away and leave me alone.”
The dog left off with his gnawing to glare up at her, ears cocked. He turned his head to one side as if he were trying to decide if he should still eat her, too.
“Please?” Soma whispered. “Please, go away?”
As if he understood, the big dog bent his head and picked up the arm. Tail wagging, he trotted west.
“Oh, yes!” Soma cried, turning to watch the animal withdraw. “Yes! Thank you!”
Chomper jogged away, the old woman’s arm bumbling across the pavement. Near the top of the hill, he turned and bound into the grass at the side of the road, vanishing from sight.
Soma sat back in the passenger seat, closing her eyes in relief. She would wait a little while, give the dog plenty of time to forget all about her, and then make a break for those houses down at the bottom of the hill. She would have a much better chance of surviving if she could find some proper shelter, get some clothes, supplies, maybe even a weapon of some type, so she could defend herself if she needed to.
When she needed to, she amended.
She had only been herself a single day and had already had two close calls. It was a miracle she’d survived as long as she had.
She opened her eyes.
Frowned.
A jaundiced light had flashed in the valley below.
9
The glimmer was faint and had the golden tint of candlelight. It was there and gone again in an instant, looked as if someone had peeked quickly through a window and then pulled the drapes shut again a moment later. Of course, anyone with half a brain must know how dangerous it was to shine a light at night. Zombies were attracted to light. It drew them like moths to a flame. Perhaps someone had heard the dog barking and braved a peek out of their window. Perhaps it was someone like her -- a zombie who had regained his or her intellect.
The thought excited her. She was eager to find others like herself. She could not be the only one, and she had a lot of questions. Maybe they would have some answers.
Then again, it might also be a survivor, or a whole group of living human beings. If so, she doubted she would be greeted by anything other than a hail of small weapon’s fire. She would have to be careful when she walked to the houses down there. In fact, it would probably be wise to wait until daybreak to venture from the car. Creeping around someone’s property at night was a good way to get shot, even before the zombie apocalypse.
Soma leaned back in her seat, staring into the valley below. She watched those dark houses for at least an hour, but the light never flashed again, and finally she gave up looking for it. She reclined her seat a little, getting comfortable, and closed her eyes.
Might as well get some rest.
She opened her eyes, gazed at the roof of the Corsica.
Could she sleep?
She hadn’t slept since she had awakened to herself, and couldn’t remember sleeping even once after she died. Consciousness, for zombies, was a timeless, thoughtless, completely impersonal dream state, like watching a dream in a cloudy mirror through a dirty window. They did not sleep because they were already asleep.
Could she sleep now that she was herself again? Could she dream?
She didn’t feel sleepy, not like she had when she was alive. Her body hurt, but it was not the sensual ache that tempted the waking mind to oblivion. It was just pain, like a bruise or a pulled muscle. Pain was a constant for zombies, so much so that it almost became background noise. Except for the hunger.
She closed her eyes again, let her thoughts drift. What was it like to sleep when she was alive? She tried to remember. She tried to recreate those feelings in her mind.
She would curl up in her covers beside her husband, his bare flesh warm against hers, listening to the rhythmic purr of his breathing as her tired limbs tingled pleasantly. Then a gentle surrender, like releasing her body into a warm pool of water, every muscle relaxing, a sense of timelessness, of weightlessness, and then dreaming, just little snatches of dreams at first, images, sounds, disconnected but very vivid, as she sank into insensibility.
For just a moment it seemed she drifted, and she saw her husband on his knees in the garden, plucking weeds from around a tomato bush. His head was bent down and the sun was shining on the curly black hair at his nape. She watched the muscles in his arms and shoulders flex as he pulled the weeds from the earth. He was wearing an old tank top and the back of his neck was sunburned. He looked very sexy to her right then, all sweaty and dirty, and then he looked up at her with a grin, as if he had read her mind, and she started to giggle, knowing that he was about to make a lewd suggestion, an offer that she just might take him up on—
Soma opened her eyes with a sigh. It hurt to think about Nandi. She missed him so badly!
Soma (The Fearlanders) Page 6
