by T. L. Walker
Not that it really matters. I took that moment to glance over my shoulder, just in time to see the zombies spilling out of the station. If we wanted to get any of the things we had gathered – including the fuel – back to the truck, we had to move. Fast.
I grabbed hold of the gas can that I'd set on the ground, then hoisted the large bag I'd been filling with supplies onto my opposite shoulder. I didn't bother stopping to shove the clothes I'd chosen into the bag – I just ran, clutching t-shirts and pants in my free hand, feeling them flap against me as I went. Joey was already ahead of me, Luke close enough behind that I could hear his heavy breaths as he lugged a gas can in each hand, his back likely bent under the weight of the large hiking backpack he'd strapped on.
Dammit, Charlie, if you're going to worry about someone other than yourself, worry about your brother! It was my mother's voice in my head, and had I not been struggling to keep up the pace while somehow also keeping hold of the heavy gas can, I would have laughed. I could hear the undead coming up behind us, stumbling through the mess that was strewn across the road. Their own things, perhaps. They were snarling like a pack of wild dogs, so close behind us, too close...but there was the truck, not far ahead, just a few hundred yards away, and we were going to make it, we had to make it –
Just then, Joey tripped on something. I saw him go sprawling to the ground and let my momentum carry me forward, sliding to a stop next to him. I dropped to one knee and grabbed at his arm. "Let's go, Joey!"
"My...ankle..." he grunted. "And the gas can, I can't - "
"I've got it!" Luke swooped in, shoving the handle of his second into the same hand as the other one and then quickly scooping up Joey's. "Help him up, Charlie!" He moved on, not that I could blame him, and I had no choice but to struggle to my feet, pulling Joey along with me. Don't look back, don't look back, don't look –
I looked back.
They were there, practically on top of us, and I cursed Luke for not dropping the fuel and helping me carry my brother. Joey glanced over his shoulder and saw them too, and he let out a frightened whimper.
"Fuck that!" I screamed at him. "We're not dying like this, Joey! I don't care how much it hurts, run!"
Surprisingly, he obeyed. I was half dragging him, but at least now he was trying. And then Luke was there beside us, grabbing the last can from my hand and wrapping his arm around Joey's waist. A hundred yards and closing...fifty...twenty feet...ten...
"Get in, get in, get in!" Luke released Joey to drop the gas can into the bed of the truck. The door was already open and I shoved my brother toward it, swinging the duffel bag off my shoulder in the process as I prepared to climb in myself.
"Charlie!" Luke shouted. I turned, and there it was. What had once been a man was now gray-skinned and foul, half its cheek chewed off, its eyes glazed over with a gooey whitish film. My baseball bat was strapped to my back, and I immediately knew that there was no way for me to reach it in time. The knife, you idiot!
I yanked the hunting knife from my belt, but my slash was clumsy and the weapon merely got tangled in the zombie's disgusting flannel shirt. I yanked back, trying to work it loose, but at first this only succeeded in pulling the thing closer to me – until with a tear my knife came free, and I drove it upward, through what had once been an Adam's apple, straight back through its upper neck and the base of its head. I leaned against the truck, bringing my leg up and kicking out, hard, to work the knife free. The thing crumpled to the ground – no death throes for the undead, I guess – and I could barely keep myself from gagging as Luke appeared by my side again, pulling me into the cab with him, depositing me in the passenger seat on his way to grab the wheel. He turned the truck around so fast that the door swung shut of its own accord and I was sent sprawling across his lap.
"It didn't get you, did it? No bites, no scratches, no blood in your orifices?"
"Orifices?" I couldn't help but repeat.
"Your eyes, your mouth - "
"I know what an orifice is." I shimmied off his lap and into the passenger seat. "I just can't remember the last time I heard someone actually use the word. But I’m fine." I turned to check on my brother. "You okay, Joe?"
He nodded, but his face was white and pinched with fear and pain. "We should have left when we had the gas," he whispered.
"And miss out on all the action? I think not. Been spendin' most our lives, livin' in a gangsta's paradise..." I sang softly. My brother merely scoffed and looked out the window, but when I cut my eyes at Luke I saw that he was smiling.
I guess that's the moment I became addicted. To something, anyway...
Knowing all of the lyrics to “Gangsta’s Paradise” will not help you in the zombie apocalypse.
*******
Luke was speeding down the road at nearly eighty miles an hour, and though part of me wanted to remind him that we should be driving a bit more cautiously, I couldn’t focus on anything except the fact that my hands and arms were coated in sticky blackish-red goo – what I supposed was the zombie version of blood – and that there was a rushing sound in my head. Looking back, I know now that it was an adrenaline high like nothing I'd ever experienced, a thousand times the strength of a runner's high.
It was, in a word, amazing.
My knife was still clutched in my hand. I wanted to put it away, but I knew that I should at least wipe it off. My shirt was already ruined, anyway, so I pulled it over my head and cleaned the blade.
"Christ, Charlie, some decency would be nice," Joey grumbled from the back seat. But when I looked at Luke, the corner of his mouth was quirked up.
"I guess 'decency' goes right out the window when one is covered in the blood of the undead," I shrugged.
"You should wash that off of you as soon as you can," Luke pointed out.
"Trust me, I'm counting the minutes. I'm not sure I could stand the smell much longer than that."
Everything still seemed to be in order at the farm – the gate had remained shut and locked, and when we pulled up to the house Mike opened the garage door so that we could park the truck inside. He was closing it again when my mom stepped into the garage and saw Luke and I helping Joey out of the truck. She blanched at the sight of us: her son, clearly injured, and her daughter shirtless and covered in blood.
"Charlie...Joey...are you..." Her voice trailed off as she reached out for us, her hands visibly shaking.
"We're fine, Mom. Joey fell and hurt his ankle, is all."
"But...you're covered in..."
"I had to, err...kill...a zombie. One good shower with a lot of soap and I'll be good as new."
"You had to...to kill one of them? What in the world happened out there?!"
"Mom, can we talk about this later?" Joey asked weakly. "I can't handle Charlie's stench anymore, and on top of that, I need to sit down."
"Oh, dear, of course, of course." Mom hurried back into the house while Mike helped Luke half-carry Joey inside. I followed in their wake, knowing that I would need someone to gas and fire up the generator so that I could take a proper shower. I watched our mother continue to fuss over Joey for a few minutes while Luke and Mike unloaded the truck, but finally I had to speak up.
"Um, not to say that Joey's ankle isn't very important, but we don't really know what is causing dead people to rise again, and, uh, I've got a lot of this stuff on my arms and hands and whatnot...Think someone could handle the generator so that I can wash it off?"
"I'll do it," Luke offered. "Mike, would you mind helping?" The two of them went back out to the garage, and several minutes later I heard a dull roar as the large generator kicked on.
"Thanks!" I practically shouted as they came back into the house, and I was on my feet and rushing up the stairs to the bathroom before they could respond. It had only been a little more than a day since my last shower, but it felt like an eternity, and though my adrenaline high was far from wearing off, my stomach was in knots and the smell and feel of the so-called 'blood' was starting to make me feel sick
.
I knew that I couldn't waste too much time – time was fuel, fuel that we still didn't have enough of, at least not for luxuries like this – but once I was standing under that hot water and scrubbing myself down with my mother's homemade mint soap, it was hard to not forget myself. It wasn't until I heard a banging on the door that I realized how long I must have been in there, but that sound certainly broke me out of my reverie. I quickly rinsed off the rest of the soap as the banging continued, turning the water off and stepping out of the shower as soon as I could. I wrapped a towel around myself as I opened the door, and of all the people in the household (including my mother, the only other woman) it was Luke who they'd sent to fetch me out of the shower. As soon as he saw me standing there, dripping wet and clad in what now seemed to be a far too small piece of terrycloth, he spun away from me, mumbling, "Sorry, I didn't think – “
"That I'd actually open the door when someone knocked on it so urgently?" I joked.
"I...yeah, I guess. It's just...Cheryl is busy with Joe, and Mike's just a kid...someone needed to come up here and tell you..."
He couldn't seem to spit out the words, so I did it for him. "To stop wasting water and fuel?"
Luke glanced back over his shoulder at me, then quickly looked forward again. "Well, yeah."
To this day I'm still not really sure why I reached out and touched his elbow. "And that's the only reason you came up here?" I was teasing him, and lightly at that, so I was more than a little surprised when he turned around and looked directly into my eyes.
"I suppose I wanted to make sure that you were okay, after...what happened earlier."
"What happened? You mean...killing that thing?" He nodded, and I shrugged. "Of course I'm okay. More than okay, really. I feel..."
"Alive." It was a statement, not a question, and when I looked up at him I noticed a softness in his eyes that hadn't been there a moment before.
"Yeah," I agreed. "I guess that's it." My hand was still on his elbow, and almost without thinking I ran my fingers up his arm, taking hold of the edge of his sleeve and tugging it lightly, encouraging him to step toward me as I moved closer to him. My pulse was racing and my mind was clear of every thought except one – that I wanted to fuck somebody. Any half-attractive man who was both old enough and not related to me would have sufficed, I think, but in this case that left only Luke, who was here, right here, and of course other than my towel I was naked already, anyway.
So I let that fall to the floor.
"Charlie..." Luke's voice was strained. "I don't think – “
Oh. Of course he doesn't want me like that.
"I...okay, sure. Sorry," I mumbled, my face flushing in embarrassment. But as I bent to pick up the towel, he wrapped his hands around my upper arms and pulled me against him.
"It's not that I don't want to." His face was inches from mine, his eyes wide and sincere. "But if I'm not mistaken, what you did today...that's the first time you've done something like that. I don't want you to act on the way you feel now and end up regretting it later."
You've got to be kidding me. "I'm sure you think you're being very noble," I said, "but either one of us could die tomorrow, or the next day, or shit, even later this evening. So if I want this, and you want this, what's the point in holding back?"
He stared at me for what seemed like forever, and then, just as I was about to pull away in frustration, he finally covered my mouth with his. I let him kiss me for a minute, maybe two – I’m not quite sure how long it was. I lost track of time, because damn was he a good kisser...but I knew that we didn't have all day, so soon enough I began herding him toward my bed. He stopped kissing me long enough to breathe, "What about the others?"
"I can be quiet," I smiled. "Can you?" I pulled his shirt over his head and kissed him again, fumbling with the button of his jeans. He reached down and guided my hands, helping me undo them and then hurriedly kicking them off before dropping down onto my bed. I let Luke pull me onto his lap and I straddled him, thinking about how I'd never been with someone I'd known for so short a time, how I'd not been with anyone other than Dave in so many years...
But then I recalled that moment earlier in the day, that moment when I realized that I could actually die, and I suddenly understood that none of that ridiculous, self-conscious bullshit was worth considering at all right now. I leaned down, my nipples brushing against Luke's chest, and I felt more than heard it when he moaned softly into my mouth as I kissed him once again.
Get it while you can, where you can.
(If you don't know what I mean by 'it', you're too young to be reading this.)
*******
I sent Luke back to the kitchen well before I made my way downstairs. He couldn't have been with me for more than ten minutes, and I tried to tell myself that I didn't care if anyone suspected what we'd been up to...but better safe than sorry, right?
I ran a brush through my short but mussed-up hair and chose a worn pair of riding jeans and a soft, faded t-shirt from the few clothing items of mine that my mom hadn't given or thrown away. When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I had to stop myself from giggling. Talk about a post-sex glow. It had been good, too, really good, which had made it extremely difficult to be as quiet as I would have liked. Enjoy it while you can, Charlie, I told myself, because it was a one-time thing.
At least, that seemed to be the safest way to look at it just then.
Finally I forced myself to meet everyone in the kitchen. Joey was sitting with his foot propped up while Mom put dinner together. She was baking something in the oven; knowing her, she'd missed using that damn thing more than she missed anything else. Mike and Luke were picking through the stuff that we'd brought back from our run, and when he heard me enter the room Mike glanced up and gave me a grateful nod. "Thanks for the clothes," he mumbled. Then, "I'm glad you're okay."
I couldn't keep myself from smiling. "Thanks. I guess I'm glad I'm okay, too." I winked at him. I could see Luke watching me out of the corner of my eye, but in that moment I thought that it would be best to not meet his gaze. Instead I moved over next to Joey, and only then noticed that Holden was cowering under the table. "What's wrong with him?"
"I think he doesn't like the smell."
"The smell?"
"That awful stench those things give off. I mean it's okay now, at least to us...but he probably still notices it."
"Poor Holdy," I grimaced. I bent down to scratch his head; he sniffed my hand tentatively and let loose a small whine, but at least he let me pet him. "And you, Joey, how are you doing?"
"Freaked out. Ankle's sore. But I'll live."
"That's right you will, because you're not going out like that again. And to bring back what? Some gas for the generator and not much else." Mom wasn't looking at us, but I could hear her voice shaking and I almost felt bad for worrying her as much as we'd obviously done.
"We actually picked up some useful stuff, Cheryl." It was Luke who spoke up for us, and I wasn't sure whether I appreciated or resented him doing so. "Mike here needed some clothes, we must have a couple dozen MREs, and some of these bullets and shells are even going to fit in our guns. This, though...this is probably our best find." He waved his hand over the bottles of medication that were spread before him.
"Where did those come from?" I asked, bending down to pick up a bottle labeled 'Lortab'.
"You and Joey unknowingly grabbed a couple...I took some from the glove box of a car...found the rest here and there. Pretty much just picked up everything I saw without looking at the labels. Some of it is useless, but that right there is a decent pain med, and there are some antibiotics as well. What would be really nice is if we can wait a few days...hope that those things clear out of the immediate area...and then go back and pick that convenience store clean."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" my mother grumbled.
"They were stuck in there for days – at the very least. They're going to be wandering around looking for their next meal, not hangi
ng out in the parking lot drinking beer and waiting for us to come back." Luke was trying to make light of things, but he also had a point. Unfortunately, neither Joey nor Mom seemed to understand that.
"Are you joking?" my brother snapped. "Go back? We almost died!"
"There's nothing we need from there that we can't find a suitable replacement for here on the farm," Mom insisted.
"For now, maybe. But if we do end up needing anything, and if we can find it there, better to go back sooner, when there's less of a chance that the area will be crawling with those things." I knew that this wasn't what they wanted to hear, but I had to agree with Luke. "We'll give it a couple of days and talk about it again."
"You can try." Joey set his jaw and looked out the window, then suddenly sat bolt upright. "Uh...we have a problem."
The rest of us followed his gaze, and my first thought was, what have we done? I couldn't be certain that the dozen or more undead that were stumbling out of the woods were from the convenience store, but from what Joey and Luke had said, seeing this many of them all at once, during the day and this far out in the country, had to be rare. "The generator," I whispered.
"I'm on it." Luke was on his feet and out the door, and moments later the whirr of the generator was silenced and the oven clicked off.
"Sorry, Mom.” Perhaps my apology was unnecessary, but at the moment I didn’t know what else to say. “Joey, think you can at least get the kitchen window, if Mike and Luke and I take care of the rest?"
Before he could answer, though, our mother was already hoisting the plywood up. I shrugged and made my way to the living room, Mike and Holden following close behind. "You really think we have to do this?" Mike asked as we latched the first makeshift shutter into place.
"I'm not sure. I think we need to keep this house as quiet and unnoticeable as possible. For all we know, any flurry of movement could attract these things."
