by M. E. Betts
"Let's go!" Shari roared, past the point of trying to be inconspicuous.
"Fuck off!" the woman replied, swatting at Shari's face and head as she continued to try to escape into the street, which would soon be flooded with zombies.
"Fuck this soppy cunt," Kandi said in a low growl. "Get back in the store, now."
Shari released the woman and retreated into the safety of the store. Two zombies followed her, attempting to make it through the gate just as Daphne closed it. Shari knelt down to lock the gate, gazing outside through the glass door. She saw the tiny woman sink into the crowd as she was surrounded. Her screams quickly turned to death throes, and then there was only the sound of the ever-roaming undead shuffling as usual, a dozen or so of them crowded around the corpse to pick the bones clean.
Shari shrugged as Daphne looked at her questioningly. "The Darwin award recipient went after her dog at the last second," she said, "just when the zombies caught up to her. She thought it was more important than her own safety, or mine." She paused. "Although she didn't know me, and she didn't ask for my help. I guess everyone is still free to make their own bad decisions, right? No one can tell her she doesn't have the right to die in vain for her dog." She sighed, rolled her eyes, and started toward the stairs that led to the upstairs room. "Well, let's get outta this room, huh?" She used the bathroom, ate a light meal, and laid on one of the two couches in the office area, her mind re-playing the scene from earlier over and over again. I have a bad feeling her screams are going to keep me awake tonight, she thought.
Kandi made a face as she lay on the other couch across the room. "Princess," she said, "she died, dear--earlier, remember? Oh--oh, I see. You mean the memory of her screams." She rolled her eyes. "Princess, what might you have done differently, in retrospect?"
She weighed, like, ninety pounds dripping wet. I could have forced her to come in here.
"I say you should have kept holding the skinny little twat by the collar long enough to throw her across the street. It would have made for a better distraction, is all I'm saying."
I refuse to accept that a part of me--a part of my mind--is as sick as you, Shari thought.
Kandi sat up on her elbow, narrowing her darkened eyes. "Says Princess Shari, who doesn't know where she ends and I begin," she said. "Watch it, because you're skating on thin fucking ice, understand? You want to villainize me, because I'm not beside myself with grief every time some twit with no survival instinct gets done in by their own bloody stupidity?" She uttered a dry laugh. "Don't you get it, princess? I'm not you, and you ought to be thankful for that...because you wouldn't be alive for very long without me."
You're one fragment of my shattered, traumatized psyche, Shari thought. I'm sure I'll manage without you.
Kandi stood up, walked across the room, and leaned down until the tip of her nose was a few inches from Shari's. "Say it again," she said quietly.
Shari stared into Kandi's black eyes, her gaze defiant and unyielding. I'm sure I'll manage.
Kandi sneered, then smiled. "Goodbye, princess," she said. Shari watched as she began to disappear down through the floor, slowly sinking until Shari saw the last of her shiny blonde curls vanish from her sight.
Shari saw the blurred, hazy outlines of neighborhoods full of homes far down on the horizon. They were about five miles south of Champaign. She came to a gradual stop, and Daphne stopped beside her.
"I just want to have a look before we go any further," Shari explained, reaching into her backpack for her binoculars. "Maybe see what we're getting into." As she peered through the binoculars, she saw the vague, shuffling forms of hundreds, maybe thousands, of undead milling around the southern fringes of the city. "Yeah, let's go around," she said as she lowered the binoculars. "Head north again when we get east of the city."
They headed east, passing a small subdivision to their left. The wind blew south as they rode past the neighborhood. Shari was already pondering Kandi's absence. She's the worst part of me. She's the cornmeal bottom to my plum cake. I'm sweeter without her.
As they passed the third cluster of houses, Shari peered to her left at Daphne and Hugo, having gotten slightly ahead them. She felt the sting of chilled morning air as the wind bit into her right eye. As she looked at them she took in the full picture. Hugo's eyes danced over Daphne's hair as it fluttered in the breeze, hanging in ribbon-like strips of crimson flapping in front of him. Her gaze began to wander past them, catching a glimpse of a shambling undead individual clad in what appeared to be a full set of matching body armor. At the distance she could clearly see he was relatively tall and young, maybe twenty-something and fairly fresh. He wasn't particularly rotted, but the color was gone from his neck and face. There was a jagged, blackening wound above his collar.
Shari anticipated Kandi's voice, anticipated hearing some crude remark or suggestion, before she remembered the incident from the previous night, when her companion had departed. Have your hissy fit, Kandy Kane, she thought. Meanwhile, I still have things to do.
She pulled back on Eva's reins and slowed her horse, the ATV slowing in turn behind her. She pulled right, yanking the bit in deeply to veer the animal in the direction of her intended target. Her hand slid down to the revolver at her hip. As her fingertips met it, her hand recoiled away a few inches.
"No," she thought out loud, unaware her lips were moving. "I'll have to get close, save the ammo, cut down on the noise and get my hands dirty." She reached forward and down into her satchel, removing a twenty-one inch titanium multi-faceted crowbar. She held it up into her field of vision, between herself and the zombie. The crowbar was skeletonized, keyed for metric nuts as it widened from bottom to top. At the narrow end was a sharp nail puller, and at the opposite end a dense knob, flat on one side for hammering and two prongs for prying on the other.
Daphne and Hugo were to her rear. She could hear the ATV's engine closing the distance between them. From her position in the lead, she couldn't see the frantic sneer playing across Daphne's face, her teeth bared to the wind. Hugo clutched hard into Daphne's sides as he bit his lip, staring past the armored zombie Shari was falling into.
Shari had brought Eva almost to a full halt as she leapt from the horse onto her victim. She landed squarely on the armored undead individual, knocking it firmly to the ground with her elbow planted in its chest and her forearm tucked under its chin. She quickly drew her knees up along its waist to secure a mounted position, pulling her arm back and slapping her palm down into the throat, pushing it hard enough to hear the lingual bone crack. She raised her weapon high above her head, readying her strike, then swiftly brought it down in the middle of its face, a quarter inch over the bridge of the nose, destroying the once handsome young mans looks all but entirely.
Shari raised her head with a smile, confident in the kill she had claimed. Daphne pulled up about three yards behind Shari, who turned slightly to look over her shoulder to see Daphne hurriedly dismount the ATV and pop its trunk compartment. She withdrew a sturdy E-tool style shovel, hastily forcing it into Hugo's right hand while he pressed the butt of his left hand into the eye of the same side. Daphne then turned toward Shari with a hard pivot on her rear heel, forcing momentum into her stride. Her right hand drew her titanium talon from its sheath, and her left hand delved into the hip bag of throwing sticks, withdrawing a large double-ended sharpened stick. As her pace quickened toward Shari, her knife caught the sunlight and flickered out a glimmer. As they locked eyes, Shari could see the grimace furrow deep in Daphne's ordinarily soft features.
Shari now noticed that Daphne's glare was fixed somewhere past her. She turned forward as she sat up on her knees. When her eyes came front and center, she began to gawk vacantly at a great throng of undead. Shari was scrambling to her feet when she reached the spot where she would pounce on her intended foe.
Daphne hadn't evaded or dodged a fight since she had freed herself from the torture and neglect that was her early life. Before them now was no small fray but a full
-blown skirmish with twenty zombies, by her count. She steeled herself for the struggle like she would for any time of combat, every sinew relaxed, calm and steady. She peered just over her shoulder to glimpse Shari hastily rummaging through her satchel on Eva, retrieving from it a fine specimen of drywall hammer to arm her free hand.
One relatively fresh zombie emerged from the center of the rest with sticky red blood caked to its face from mid-cheek to the nape of its neck. It charged forward toward Daphne, and as it got within twenty paces, she launched the throwing spike into the hollow of its throat, sending it protruding out the back and through the spine. It grounded hard onto it left shoulder, sliding forward a couple meters, its teeth still clicking in its intact head. Daphne lunged to grab her larger throwing spike.
Four more zombies, not as fresh as the first, slowly began building a charge in their direction. Shari looked down at Daphne, her eyes sorrowful and apologetic. Daphne simply pursed her lips slightly, shaking her head.
Shari snapped her mind free and threw her gaze forward as she rushed toward the four zombies. Before she could meet them halfway, the one in the rear tripped up its pace, falling and pulling down one of the others with it.
There were still more than a dozen left. As Shari reached them, she struck the one to her left across the face with the crowbar. She buried the hatchet deep into the head of the one to the right in one strong, twisting motion. The weight of the zombie on the end of the hatchet pulled her down, bringing her to one knee with the collapsing corpse. As she struggled to free the hatchet, the one she struck earlier with the crowbar latched onto her calf, struggling to pull itself forward into biting range. She sat still, watching, until she realized she was panicking, suddenly very fearful all at once. With that fear, she brought down the pointed end of the crowbar into the zombie's skull, splashing blood on her kevlar hood. After freeing her hatchet, she slowly rose to her feet, trembling, and looked forward to see the remainder of the horde moving toward them.
She turned and ran to join Daphne's side. She looked around, noting that Hugo had already taken out four on his own. She watched for a moment as he swung the shovel at the nearest zombie, a semi-rotted male. Hugo towered over the undead man, easily getting reach with his long, wiry arms. The shovel made contact with the zombie's face, issuing a flat, smacking sound that caused Hugo to pause and press his hand into his eye in distress.
Shari took out the nearest two with her drywall hammer, one after the other. The freshest ones had already been eliminated, leaving only the slower, more rotted ones. Daphne incapacitated two more with throwing sticks, leaving only five more. The three made quick work of them, the hardest part having already been accomplished. There was a larger crowd of undead in the distance, making their way down the highway, but Shari estimated that they had at least a few minutes to make their escape before the crowd reached their present location. They looted the bodies, taking only the most useful items besides the driver's licenses which Hugo collected, before they fled.
Shari sauntered back toward Eva when she was done, glancing back over her shoulder at her companions. They regarded her with concern. Daphne gazed at her questioningly, and Hugo merely looked confused.
"What?" Shari enquired, laughing. "I had it covered. We--we had it covered, right?"
Shari sat on a length of wooden fence, smoking and sulking. After evading the undead, they had ridden until they reached 130, which ran north to south, then stopped for a break on the side of the highway. Daphne, about twenty-five feet away, went through the items they had acquired, equipping Hugo with some of the tactical gear. She also armed him with a machete with a rugged D-ring guard she had found in a belt sheath on the armored zombie. Shari had suggested they take a Beretta for Hugo to use, though they had established that she would have to train him to use it, as he had little gun experience.
As she sat, Shari was trying her best not to think about the encounter they had experienced earlier, or the fact that she had caused it with her own lack of caution. To make matters worse, Daphne made sure to throw disapproving looks her way regularly.
I almost killed us all, Shari thought numbly. She supposed she should apologize, but she didn't think it would make things any better. She wondered if she should part ways with Daphne and Hugo to avoid putting them in any further danger. Her thoughts then shifted swiftly in her confused state of mind, wondering how she could contemplate the thought of leaving them, even for a moment.
Daphne made her way slowly over to Shari, sighing heavily as she perched on the fence beside Shari. Her eyes, focused straight ahead across the road, scanned the farmland that lay stretched out to the horizon. "So what's going on with you?" she mumbled after a couple minutes of silence.
Shari shrugged, her eyes also fixed ahead, easily ten miles to the east in the vaguely rolling topography. "I don't know what you mean."
Daphne uttered a dry snort. "Bullshit. You know what I mean."
Shari exhaled a large cloud of smoke through her nose. "You mean what happened earlier, with the zombies? Maybe you haven't noticed, but there are zombies all over God's creation. We're bound to run into some sooner or later." She laughed defensively. "We all have a bad day every now and then." As guilty as she felt, she struggled to express it. I should say I'm sorry. She flicked ashes around her boots, her eyes down.
Daphne nodded, still facing the road. "Yeah," she said. "We all have bad days. But you know what really worries me?" She turned to look pointedly at Shari, who shook her head. "What worries me is the fact that you're not taking it seriously. You put all of our lives in danger, and now you want to act like it never happened. Something's up with you...I don't know what it is, but I know there's something up."
She gazed at Shari a moment longer, looking for some sign of concession. When Shari's expression didn't change, Daphne sighed again before standing and starting back toward her ATV. Shari lowered her hood down over her face.
"We should get back on the road," Daphne said without turning back. "We've already been held up enough for one day."
Shari sat for a moment longer, her expression of annoyance hidden behind her kevlar hood. She rose from the fence and made her way to Eva, who was drinking from a puddle about twenty feet away. I don't know who I'm annoyed with, she thought, Daphne, or me. Or maybe both? She was suddenly conscious, uncomfortably aware, of the fact that she was waiting for an answer that wouldn't come. She mounted her horse, riding after Daphne as she started north again down 130.
It was early afternoon when they reached the northern outskirts of Champaign, having hugged the eastern edge of town via 130 in order to take the least populated route. As Shari rode behind Daphne, her eyes continually scanned her surroundings, turning to look in all directions. She had lost confidence in her ability to sense what was going on around her, and she realized she would have to compensate with extra caution. What had once been instinctual was now much more conscious and deliberate. She was beginning to accept the fact that her survival would now be much more difficult.
She leaned down to take her radio from the left saddle bag and scanned the dials. She tried the AM band first, but she only heard static. As she searched the FM band, she came across a station playing music. Turn that shit up, Shari thought. She smiled as she continued scanning through the stations. At least now we can hijack the frequencies. As she neared the end of the band, she heard a youthful female voice.
"--ammo or weapons, you'll be well-compensated. And if you're thinking of trying anything slick, I should warn you that you wouldn't be the first, but I can assure you, it'll be the last thing you ever do. If you have anything to trade with us, bring it to the radio tower on the U of I campus. We've got medical supplies and ham radios, the walkie-talkie kind. See you soon." The voice was silent for a few moments, then began to speak again. "The following message is refreshed every twenty-four hours. Hello, fellow survivors. We're looking to trade. If anybody can spare some ammo or weapons, you'll be well-compensated...." Recording, Shari thought a
s she turned the radio off and returned it to her saddlebag.
She cupped her hands over her mouth, calling out to Daphne ahead of her. "Hey!"
Daphne stopped, her ATV idling. "What's up?"
Shari stopped next to Daphne and Hugo. "There some survivors on the U of I campus."
Daphne frowned. "How do you know?"
"I just heard it on my radio," Shari said.
"Did you actually speak to them?"
Shari fidgeted, her gaze shifting up to the sky as she spoke. "Well, not really, I mean--"
"You mean what?"
"Well," Shari said, sighing, "it was a recording."
"So you don't even know if they're still alive?"
Shari shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Not exactly, but they said the message gets refreshed every twenty-four hours." Daphne narrowed her eyes, dubious, as Shari continued. "They said they had medical supplies and a bunch of radios like the one I have, only they're probably not as outdated as mine. We could get one for each of you."
"You know," Hugo chimed in, "having extra radios, or better radios, isn't really a bad idea."
Daphne shook her head. "That's a lot of risk to take just to get some walkie-talkies and adhesive bandages. I mean, isn't there a reason we bypassed the city itself in the first place?"
Shari fumbled for an argument for a moment before she responded. "But the campus might not be that badly infested."
Daphne snorted. "Are you drunk? It's a college campus, it's bound to be crawling with undead."
"Normally, yeah," Shari said. "But remember what day it was when all this started?"
"Yeah," Daphne replied, a faint light of concession in her eyes, "the day before Easter."
Shari nodded. "So at least ninety percent of those kids were probably already home with their families when the shit hit the fan. Granted, it's still a pretty populated area, but I think we can make it." She paused, noting the look of trepidation on Daphne's face. "If we get in there and it looks bad, we'll turn around."
