Cage The Dead

by Gary F. Vanucci

  “Well, it wouldn’t kill you to learn a little, right?” she said with a smile.

  “No. Guess not.”

  “All right, then. We’ll do a little reading tonight, got it?” He agreed and then ran after Solomon, who patiently waited for him to finish speaking with her. Maye had all but disappeared and was most likely bored with them all.

  “How about we head out to Solomon’s enclosure again so that you guys can play outside? Sound good?”

  “Yay!” Justin said, running around and slapping Solomon, then running toward the door, throwing it wide, and racing outside.

  “Guess we are going now,” Gaia said, making her way over to the only remaining kitchen cabinet that had some dry food left, removed one of the last remaining protein bars, and followed Justin outside. By the time she got out there, Solomon was chasing after Justin, and they were already fifty paces ahead of her.

  Suddenly, Maye was beside Gaia, who bent low to allow her to climb up and onto her shoulder and shared with her half of the protein bar.

  Gaia watched the two of them, admiring once again their complete and utter liberty with which they played. She watched Justin climb a tree and tease Solomon, and then watched as Maye joined in on the fun.

  Gaia spent the entire day watching them and exploring the rest of the zoo, which was completely abandoned to this point except for them and the remaining animals, and generally allowed herself to relax. The past few days were very stressful, and this break was just what she needed.

  She headed back into the house and retrieved her cell phone, staring at it for several moments in silence. She unplugged it from the charger, one she had found in a drawer in the nightstand just yesterday, and powered it on. She then flipped it open and saw the familiar photo of her and Adam, and she could not fight the compulsion. She involuntarily dialed the number, overcome by a feeling of longing, and listened to that same voicemail of Adam’s, telling her how much he loved her again. That elicited an onset of overwhelming sadness, the same as she’d experienced when she listened to it a few days ago.

  She put the phone down and shook off the unhappy sentiment, heading back outside to watch the boy and the gorilla play in the hopes of getting back into a positive mindset.

  Gaia lay down on the grass and studied the gap in the enclosure and its shape would indicate that a large animal rammed it, possibly trying to escape in the chaos. It bent the steel fencing in such a way as to cause several links to have snapped, enough in fact to have allowed her and Justin to slip through it. Gaia had actually tried bending the chain link back, considering that a zombie could pass through it just as easily. She managed to at least hide the breach so that the mindless undead could not even see it. She considered all of that for a while, thinking about ways to possibly improve upon her temporary fix, when she felt pure exhaustion overtake her senses and she fell fast asleep.

  She woke several hours later, Justin standing over her and shaking her awake.

  “Gaia, we have to go home now. It’s getting dark and that’s when the boogey men come out,” he explained to her in the simplest way. She nodded and stood, shaking her head and stifling a laugh.

  “Okay, hon.” She stood and saw Solomon, eating from the trees in the enclosure and looked from him to Justin. “Go get him and we’ll go home.” She needed to get more food from the freezer, something to cook for him tonight. She could heat something up for him in the microwave. And there were still plenty of cans of beans and fruit for her.

  Kristen’s father, Charles, had kept the house stocked with food. and with all the preparations, activities, and work constantly going on at the zoo, no one had even given any thought to a plan regarding cleaning the house. Gaia was thankful for that.

  They headed back to the house where Gaia spent the next hour thinking of something that she could make for him using limited equipment. She finally gave up, and simply nuked a piece of chicken for him, along with some canned corn. Then the two of them looked through and picked on of the schoolbooks to read from the backpack. It was a history book, which she began from the beginning with him, and which seemed to hold the boy’s interest.

  She would periodically check on Solomon on the porch, who occasionally ate from the leaves, and now slept peacefully on the floor beside the back door. Not much later, she and Justin both nodded off on the couch.

  Gaia awoke some time later in the middle of the night and Justin was missing from the sofa.

  She shot up in a panic, wondering where he was and immediately ran to the back porch.

  She was overjoyed to see that Justin had nuzzled up beside the gorilla, crawling up and under the big silverback’s left arm as he rested on his side. They were both fast asleep.

  Gaia could not help but feel elated at seeing that image. She felt content knowing that the two of them were indeed happy in each other’s company.

  She made her way back onto the sofa, where she fell asleep with good feelings permeating her thoughts for a change.

  Chapter 15

  Gaia stretched and yawned, then sat up on the sofa. Upon smelling her breath, she winced and then shivered. She wandered upstairs, after seeing that Solomon and Justin were still sleeping on the porch, and found the bottle of mouthwash.

  As she had done for the last few days with the mouthwash running low, she rinsed and then spit it back into the container, shuddered again with regards to both the taste and the notion of having to do this, and then continued her morning ritual.

  When she got back downstairs some time later, Justin was sleeping on Solomon’s back, which made her laugh out loud. Solomon stirred and rolled over, Justin abruptly sliding off his back and onto the porch floor, where he rolled over and shot up. He began rubbing a knot on his head where he had unmistakably landed. Again, Gaia burst into laughter at the absurdity of it all.

  “I'm sorry!” she said defensively, trying hard to contain her laughter and failing to do so as Justin stared daggers at her initially. But, a moment later, he too began to giggle.

  “Let’s get the animals fed and spend some time at Solomon’s house, okay, buddy?” she asked him, referring to Solomon’s enclosure with the same name as Justin had. He nodded and Gaia gathered her gear, sure to bring her machete this time, as the trio headed to the storage shed.

  Gaia opened the door and switched on the lights, waking Theo.

  “You stay here until I say so,” she told Justin as she stepped into the area, which stunk to high heaven. The big tiger stirred, getting to his feet, as Gaia noted that nothing remained of the zombie that was there yesterday, or the rest of the food she had left there for him. She opened the freezer and quickly gathered a tube of zoo carnivore food—a combination of meat, vitamins and minerals—along with a frozen rabbit carcass, and tossed them into the corner again for him.

  She would have to try getting him out of here and into a pen soon, though, as he had relieved himself in here a few times. The rear section of the storage shed had an overhead door, which she decided to leave open in case he wanted to leave of his own accord. She went back into the freezer and placed a piece of chicken and another of beef along the way to try coaxing the tiger into heading that way eventually.

  “Okay, come on in,” Gaia said, handing Justin a bucket and placing a few frozen mounds of beef and chicken inside, then filled a second one, and they proceeded toward the hyena and wolf pens.

  They fed the two groups of animals, but it appeared to Gaia that only a handful of the wolves were left, meaning that they might have begun to feed on their own, or had somehow gotten out, though that seemed unlikely. She had not noticed it in the hyena pen, as there were still six of them—the same she had counted several days ago.

  She would have to eventually let them out into the zoo grounds, but not before she was ready to do so. She glanced over to see that Justin was holding hands with the mighty silverback as they walked side by side.

  As they were making their way toward the enclosure, Gaia noticed something in the far distance t
hat caused her to swallow hard.

  “Wait!” she said sharply to Justin, holding her hand out against his chest and stopping him in his tracks. They both stopped and Justin looked up to Gaia as she slowly placed binoculars over her eyes, thinking she saw movement in the distance.

  There was another breach in the fence, which brought more unwanted visitors.

  In the distance, she observed what looked to be a man holding a shotgun or rifle, and he was coming their way. She wasn’t sure if he had seen them or not, either, but she needed to get them away, as she lowered the binoculars. But before she moved, she squinted, not sure if her eyes were playing tricks or not. She slowly and reluctantly brought the binoculars up to her eyes once again.

  Chills ran up her spine at what she saw next.

  “No,” she whispered. Pursuing the man was a veritable horde of the living dead. There were at least two dozen zombies pursuing him.

  “Follow me! Hurry!” she said, grabbing Justin forcibly by the hand and pulling him along as she sprinted directly away from the coming mob. She ran about a hundred paces, releasing the boy’s hand and glancing back over her shoulder to see that Solomon was knuckle-running after them. She was elated when she saw the basement door in the distance on the backside of the lab. They remained open from her first visit and she recalled that in her haste to put out the fire, she’d forgotten all about testing the generators.

  That’s as good a place as any, she thought, reasoning that Solomon could easily fit through those double doors in a hurry.

  “In here!” she said. She looked at her hand, which held the pistol and she hadn’t even remembered drawing the weapon. She holstered it and opened the doors wide, shoving Justin and shooing Solomon inside.

  She followed them in and slammed the doors shut, a little too loudly. She left the lights off as the sun was coming through the two windows well enough to see and she didn’t want to draw attention.

  “Wait here, okay?! I need to make sure they aren’t following us,” she said, thinking that she would do whatever it took to keep these two safe, even if it meant drawing the mob away from them.

  Truthfully, she hoped it would not come down to that.

  She slammed the door shut behind her, staring at the gorilla and the little boy through the glass pane on the door for a heartbeat longer before turning around. Gaia ran back up the stairs as quickly as she could and down the hall, removing her gun and machete at once. She slowly opened the door and peeked outside.

  The tail end of the mob of zombies was curling around to the back of the lab. Her heart hammered in her chest as she heard the distinct sound of a gun being discharged multiple times.

  The zombies overtook him?

  Gaia turned and ran as fast as she could, taking two and three stairs at a time, not wanting to see what had happened to the man. She turned the first landing and back toward the second, hitting the bottom of the steps and staring though the glass pane on the door once again.

  It all happened so fast that she barely even registered what happened next.

  She saw the man standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was bleeding from several wounds and held a shotgun in his hand. Solomon and Justin were on the opposite side of the basement area, the huge generator and drums of gasoline between them.

  The basement doors were open wide and she noted gunshot holes in the metal surface.

  The man had forced his way in! Why here?

  Encompassing the stairs leading down into the sub-floor was a mass of undead flesh. She placed her hand on the handle and twisted.

  It was locked!

  “Fuck!” she screamed, fishing for her keys and trying in vain to find the correct one. As she looked up again, the man was right in front of the door.

  “Help me!” he yelled at her, his blue eyes were wide with terror and bloodshot. Then the horde overran him and yanked him away from the door, piling on him and tearing flesh from his bones.

  She stared helplessly at Solomon, who mercilessly beat down zombies, and she saw that Justin had his gun out, and was firing rounds, trying to help. Zombies fell left and right under their defense.

  She looked down and tried another key

  It fit!

  She tried to turn the handle but it would not budge.

  Wrong key!

  Then a more anxious voice cried out in her head.

  Shoot it open!

  As she took a step back to do just that, her heart sank again.

  Suddenly, Solomon was overwhelmed by the undead, no longer able to keep them at bay. Justin must have been out of ammunitions as he threw the gun at the closest zombie.

  Solomon turned his back on the zombie crowd and grabbed the boy, holding him tightly against his chest and backing up against a desk, placing the boy on top of it.

  Solomon put himself between the zombies and the boy!

  And then all she could see was a horde of undead flesh swarming over the powerful and brave silverback’s massive back, blood and gore flying free as the sun shone through the window above them in that very instant, blinding Gaia from what happened next.

  “No!” she screamed as she fired a bullet into the steel door. As she did, another two zombies raced toward the sound, slamming against it and clawing at the door to get to her.

  She fired again and another hole in the metal appeared. But the door opened inward and now there were five or more of them leaning against it. Even if she got it open, it’s be impossible to force them back.

  “No!” she screamed again.

  She looked through the pane of glass set upon the door again and saw that the zombies had overrun the silverback. They were completely swarming him, tearing pieces of fur and flesh free from his body. She also saw remnants of Justin’s tee shirt and she turned away, unable to face the horrors of what just happened and unwilling to accept them. She fell against the door, sliding to her rear end with her back against the door for a long few moments.

  “They have to die,” she whispered. “They all have to fucking die.”

  She stood back up and shot a slug into the windowpane, and then another as the glass cracked and fell away under the impact. Lifeless hands reached for her and she shot the first one. As it fell to the floor, it gave Gaia the instant and line of sight that she needed.

  She fired her next round, both accurately and with great satisfaction, into the generator.

  Sparks flew from the device and she knew what would happen next, as she turned and ran back up the steps with purpose.

  As she made it to the top level, she ran toward the exit and dove as a massive explosion ensued, shaking the ground beneath her.

  “Fuck you and die,” she whispered from the ground, her face lying in the dirt. She lay there in despair for a very long time.

  She’d lost them both

  ***

  Gaia got to her knees as she heard something in the distance. Hope was renewed, as she believed against all reason and logic, that when she looked up, she’d see Solomon or Justin standing before her. As she looked up at the source of those noises, it was instead, another of the undead, charred and burnt, and lumbering slowly toward her with one arm missing.

  She mercilessly shot it in the head.

  Gaia could not believe what had happened. She slowly walked around to the back of the building and saw two more zombies remaining from the blast, huddled around the basement doors. They, too, had limbs missing.

  This time, she used the machete to vent her frustration, chopping them to pieces until she could no longer swing the blade. She sat in a pile of gore when she was done.

  She fell backward and wept, crying and cursing against the truth of what had become her world—a cruel and merciless domain in which everyone and everything she cared for was torn from her.

  She had no idea how long she lay there in the grass, but she was brought back to reality by the familiar sounds of chattering.

  “Maye! You are alive!” she cried thankfully, grabbing the monkey and hugging her. After hugg
ing the monkey for as long as Maye would allow, Gaia’s head dropped. “At least I have you.”

  “You have me, too,” called a familiar high-pitched voice from behind her. Gaia wasn’t sure if her mind was playing tricks on her or not.

  She slowly spun around to see the shirtless and haggard image of the young boy she had come to know and love these past few weeks.

  “Justin!” she said, forcing herself to stand. Gaia threw her arms around him and the two hugged in silence for a moment.

  “How?!”

  “Solomon protected me,” he began, weeping under the loss of what was probably his best friend. “He protected me long enough so that I could break the window and I climbed out. He pushed me through.”

  Gaia looked him over and noted that he was bleeding from several fresh cuts.

  “C’mon. We need to get you cleaned up,” she said, escorting him back into the lab. Half of the building was blown up, but more than a few rooms were still intact. She found antibiotics and bandages and tended his wounds as the boy cried openly, repeating Solomon’s name.

  It broke Gaia’s heart.

  When she finished, it struck her that they could no longer stay here. They had to leave the zoo. It was no longer safe. More zombies would be coming.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “You too, Maye. We are leaving.”

  They made their way back to the house, gathered essentials and placed them in bags, then brought them outside.

  “I need to set the animals free,” Gaia said. “You stay here and wait for me.” Justin nodded ever so slightly.

  Gaia went around and opened the otter and hippo pens. She then ran back to the meat freezers, grabbed as much food as she could gather into two buckets, and ran back to the wolf and hyena dens. She tossed the food over, knowing it would draw them to it.

  As they ate, she went around the backsides, and opened the groundside exits, leaving the doors open for them to leave of their own volition.

  She raced back to the house, gathered the boy and the capuchin, placing Maye on her shoulder, and the three of them ran toward the exit.