by phuc
The view from the back seat behind the wire-mesh that separated him and Officer Clapton provided a good view of what was happening. Tim took it all in, feeling better about the situation, but still worried about Chelsea and his parents. He was also worried about George, Al, and their families. “Have you heard anything about George Ulrich and Al Romero?” Tim asked.
“I haven’t,” Officer Clapton said. “But if it’ll help put your mind at ease, most people in Spring Valley are fine. The only areas that suffered serious infection were the neighboring communities that bordered Zuck’s Woods. I think your friends live far enough outside that area.”
Tim nodded. True enough. Still…
Officer Clapton made a right turn down his street. The last police vehicle they’d passed was at the entrance of their development. Almost home.
As they drew up to the house, they passed a car that had been parked on the wrong side of the street, but Tim didn’t think anything of it. The people that lived across the street had friends that sometimes pulled into their side of the street the wrong way. He was surprised he didn’t see more haphazardly parked vehicles this morning. At least his folks were still home.
As they pulled up behind his parent’s vehicles, Officer Clapton’s cell phone rang.
Officer Clapton stopped the car and reached for his phone. “Go on up, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Okay,” Tim said. He stepped out of the car and took a step toward the front door.
From behind him, Officer Clapton: “Mr. Sawyer! Good to talk to you!” Pause.
“Well, things seem to be getting—“
Tim tuned Officer Clapton out as he drew closer to the front door, which was wide open.
Something was wrong.
It was an instinctual feeling, the way you know a trip to the dentist to have a wisdom tooth pulled is going to be painful even though you’ve never had one done before. It was just a given. Tim felt something bad had happened and that something even worse was lying in wait for him beyond the front door to his home.
The smart thing to do would be to call out to Officer Clapton.
Tim rushed to the front porch, opened the screen door and burst through the entrance. As he did, the front door banged back and closed shut on its backward momentum. His mom’s voice came through, her voice clear, concise, and commanding.
“Lock the door, Timmy, don’t let them in!”
Tim reached behind him and automatically locked the front door. He was deathly afraid now.
He smelled blood.
Sweat.
Death.
Tim took a step into the darkened living room and almost tripped over the prone figure that lay before him. He prodded it with the toe of his sneaker. At first Tim didn’t think it could be a body. The way it was positioned, lying headfirst against the wall…it seemed out of joint. It was moving, that much was evident by the way whoever it was kept trying to raise itself up, but it wasn’t until Tim got a closer look that he realized two things. One, the person lying before him was headless, and two, it was Scott Bradfield.
“Oh shit,” Tim moaned. He took a step into the kitchen…
…into a charnel house.
The first thing he noticed was the chainsaw. It’s stark contrast against the rest of the kitchen leaped out at him, prominent in painting an accurate picture of what had occurred here. The chainsaw’s still blade was deep red. Great splashes of blood stained the walls, the cabinets, the refrigerator and stove, the floor, even the ceiling.
Sitting in the center of the kitchen was Scott Bradfield’s head. It was lying perfectly positioned on its neck stump, facing the living room. His eyes were open. They rolled up, zeroed in on Tim and his face turned into a grimace of hate. Scott opened his mouth and if Tim were in his right mind he would think Scott was trying to communicate with him.
But Tim Gaines wasn’t in his right mind.
His parents were lying on the floor near Scott’s head. His father leaning against the stove, his breath coming in rasping gasps, his mother on her back, legs splayed up against the dishwasher. Dad still clutched the large butcher knife he’d used to decapitate Scott. His chest and face bore large wounds that wept copious amounts of blood.
His mother looked at him, her eyes showing a faraway type of look. Her left arm was severed at the elbow. Her face was white. “Lock the door, Timmy. They’re on the loose. They’re on the loose and your father…your father…”
“Shhh, it’s okay, Mom,” Tim knelt down beside his mother. He felt the first biting sting of tears spring to his eyes.
A large chunk of flesh had been torn out of Mom’s throat. She was lying in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. It was a wonder she wasn’t dead already. She fixed Tim with her gaze. Tim could tell she was fighting a losing battle at staying conscious. “Tim, I feel…I feel…”
“I’m gonna get help, Mom.” Tim forced himself to his feet.
“Tim, he’s here…he’s right over there and your father…your father…he saved me…he…he was so brave, Timmy, he—”
“I know Mom, I know.” Tim kissed his mother’s forehead. He didn’t even want to think about how the battle with Scott had gone down, didn’t even want to know what it had taken to fight him off the way they obviously had. Tim forced himself to walk away from his mother. He headed to the front door, intending to open it up and call to Officer Clapton. He had to get help and he had to do it fast before—
There was a rap on the back door.
Tim stopped, turned around. Standing on the back deck, almost splayed against the sliding glass door, was Chelsea. She was looking in the house, her expression stoned, vacant. She raised her right hand and brought it against the glass door again, making a slipping, sliding sound…
…streaking the glass with brownish-red blood.
“Oh my God, Chelsea,” Tim whispered.
The front of her white T-shirt was stained a dark maroon. Tim could clearly see the massive wound on the side of her neck, as well as the teeth on the left side of her face from the flesh that had been stripped away from her cheek.
For a minute Tim was transported back to the night he’d fallen in love with Chelsea on their first date a week ago. The scent of the sweet summer night, the soft brush of her lips against his, the warmth of her body as they held each other in the front seat of her car.
The way she’d snuck back to his house that night, after his parents had gone to bed, and he was sitting up in the living room with the laptop and she’d tapped on the sliding glass door to get his attention.
Much like she was doing now.
Tim stood rooted to the spot. He was confused. He had to help his parents, had to help Chelsea, had to—
It was too late.
And as soon as he realized that simple fact, he accepted it. He couldn’t change it.
Couldn’t make things better by summoning Officer Clapton. What could he do? Give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? Stem the bleeding? They’d already pretty much bled out. They were dying, would be dead in minutes—
There was only one thing he could do.
Tim went to the living room and threw the deadbolt closed on the front door.
Then he stepped back into the kitchen to open the sliding glass door and let Chelsea in.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tim Gaines had lost all sense of time since barricading himself inside the house.
It seemed like only yesterday when Officer Clapton had driven him home from Brendan Hall.
From outside, an amplified voice: “Tim? Tim, it’s Officer Clapton. If you can hear me, please pick up the phone when it rings. I’m calling right now.”
A moment later the phone rang. Tim let it ring. What was the point in talking to Clapton now?
He didn’t have to hear what was going on outside to know there was a shitload of police vehicles in front of the house. Likewise, there were a lot of officers in position in the back of the house too, most of them far enough away that they wouldn’t pose a t
hreat.
When they’d tried to storm the house yesterday by trying to break in through the back door, Tim had held them back by placing a knife to his throat and drawing enough blood that they’d backed off—he’d seen a reenactment of similar scene where a suicidal person had done the same thing and it kept the police away, for awhile at least. It worked for him, too. As a result, he’d had to spend most of his time in the kitchen, near the sliding glass door, so they’d have a good view of him and know he still meant business.
The phone stopped ringing. A moment later Officer Clapton’s amplified voice came back on. “Tim? I know you’re in there and that you can hear me. Please…let’s talk again. We can take care of this.”
The problem was, they couldn’t. Nobody could take care of it. Not the police, not the city officials, who were still scrambling at damage control over the clusterfuck they’d helped breed at the Bradfield estate. CNN had been very receptive to Tim’s phone call last night when he told them everything, including the events that had led up to the crimes perpetrated by Scott Bradfield and his friends. In the hours that had passed, they were reporting on three different segments of the story; the zombie epidemic, which was finished now except for one final location (his house); Scott Bradfield and Gordon Smith’s involvement with black magic, which had caused the rising of the dead; and the wilding sprees that had precipitated the whole mess. The fourth thing they were now reporting, thanks to Tim’s phone call, was Spring Valley’s indifference to Tim’s plight in the years leading up to all this, and their continued protection of Scott and his friends.
That was causing a shit-storm now. And it was about time.
Tim sighed. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be around for the aftermath of whatever repercussions resulted from the general ineptitude of the Spring Valley school officials who continually turned a blind eye away from the harassment Tim endured throughout his academic career. That was too bad. At least shit was happening now. No doubt people would be fired for what happened. Lawsuits would be filed. People would go to jail. If anything good came of it, Tim hoped that lessons were learned so that nothing like this ever happened again to another kid.
Tim thought about George Ulrich and Al Romero. He missed them. It hurt to think he’d never experience their friendship in the years to come due to this unfortunate set of circumstances. With the exception of his parents and Chelsea, his friendship with George and Al had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. They would no doubt suffer emotionally in the months and years to follow, but Tim was certain they would benefit in the legal aftermath. Doug Fenner would help them reap huge financial benefits through his legal representation.
Tim looked out the back door. The officers were still maintaining vigilance, waiting for further orders, or for Tim to finally break down and come outside peacefully.
No way was that happening.
CNN had been providing background noise throughout the day, feeding Tim with vital information on the latest statistics. One hundred and twenty-eight people in Spring Valley were confirmed dead. Over four hundred corpses had picked themselves up from various churchyards and cemeteries and lurched forth on a mission from whatever it was Gordon had conjured up. Several hundred people had been hospitalized for related injuries; car accidents caused by distracted motorists who’d never seen a zombie before; shock-induced strokes or heart attacks; various injuries caused from fleeing the walking dead. A handful of hospitalizations resulted from the brief spate of lawlessness that sprang up in Lancaster’s inner city, mostly from the youth.
Among the vital stats Tim Gaines learned was that Gordon Smith had been killed by a single shot to the chest by Chelsea’s father. He was later put out of his final misery by the forty-seventh battalion out of Fort Detrick when he was found walking down Main Street. It was only within the past few hours that Tim learned that Chelsea’s father had been killed, presumably by Gordon, and been put down a second time by military officials. Chelsea was listed as missing.
Tim glanced at Chelsea. It had taken all of the tie-downs they had in the family camping equipment to secure Chelsea to the living room table, which was constructed of solid oak and weighed a ton. He’d used the coil of rope that was in the camping kit to truss his parents up. They were now tied together, connected by their backs, facing apart from each other. The few times they’d tried to get up, they’d fallen on Mom’s left side.
With Mom’s left arm now gone, they couldn’t get up. The best they’d been able to do was maneuver themselves into a position that put his dad face-down on the kitchen floor. If Dad had been alive, he would have suffocated.
But they weren’t alive. And neither was Chelsea, for that matter.
And none of that mattered.
Tim stood in front of Chelsea. She looked up at him. Despite her present condition something still lived within her, something that was not entirely evil or corrupt.
He was convinced of it. She did not strain at her bonds in an attempt to break free and attack him. While his parents strained and pulled at their bonds, he believed they weren’t trying to attack him, either. The few times he’d stood in the kitchen and watched them, Mom had made noises that suggested she was crying. Dad, too, bore an expression of agony, like he was aware that he was caught in some kind of limbo between the living and dead, like he realized his body was dead but couldn’t quite understand why he wasn’t in total control of his faculties.
Did this mean their spirits, the part that made them so unique as human beings, had not entirely died?
Tim had knelt down by his parents and Chelsea a few times, always standing a safe five feet or so away in case they truly were dangerous. Neither of them made any attempt at aggression. Indeed, their expressions were more of longing, of love.
An outsider would no doubt look at this scene and immediately conclude that they weren’t dead at all. Just severely injured and emotionally traumatized.
The only thing that blew that theory out of the water was their smell.
Tim had been barricaded in the house with them for a day now. He’d made no attempt at turning on the air conditioning. Outside, it was a sweltering ninety-five degrees. With all the windows in the house closed, and the doors shut and the drapes pulled back to allow him to see outside, the conditions inside the house resembled a boxcar left out in the sun. Late last night they’d been stiff, had moved with great difficulty, but starting this morning they’d been more normal in their movements. Rigor mortis was probably over now. What followed rigor mortis was the next step: decomposition.
From outside, Officer Clapton’s amplified voice cut through the din. “Tim! It’s Officer Clapton again. Tim…please…come out. Let us handle your parents. Please…for your sake…for theirs…”
The problem was, he couldn’t let them handle his parents. He had to do it. But he couldn’t.
And he couldn’t let them touch Chelsea.
Tim stood over Chelsea, her image shimmering in his blurred vision brought on by tears. She looked up at him, and now there was something in her demeanor that was different. He sighed, wiped the tears from his eyes. He didn’t think she’d possessed the dead blank look of the other zombies; even his parents seemed to have an awareness about them. He’d tried telling himself that it was simple wish-fullfillment on his part. But it wasn’t. Scott Bradfield, who he studied at length from across the room and was still animated, possessed the look of the other zombies. Dead stare, vacant gaze, a simple-minded purpose. But his parents and Chelsea? While that dead stare and simple-minded purpose were there, Tim detected a bit of what made them human beneath the surface. It was this spirit that seemed to be at constant war inside them while their shell, their bodies, went through the process of decay.
“Tim, please, if you’re listening I’m going to make one more call to you. Please answer it.”
Tim knelt down closer to Chelsea as the phone began to ring.
Chelsea looked at him and Tim read the look in her eyes clearly now. Despite the dead
stare something else swam to the surface.
Tim reached for her, his own eyes swimming with tears now. He couldn’t leave her. Not like this.
The phone continued to ring.
Behind him, his mother’s tortured voice rose in a heart-wrenching whine of loss.
“I can’t leave you,” he said to Chelsea, his voice choked up as he sobbed. “I can’t leave you here, I can’t let them—“
I can’t let them take you away from me.
Tim reached out, his hands drifting past and around Chelsea to the hooks that secured the tie-downs in place to keep her immobile. He was within hugging distance of her now, her stench enveloping him. The phone brayed endlessly as he worked at unfastening the tie-downs that held Chelsea to the dining room table.
As her bonds fell away Tim felt the dam break. The ringing phone wasn’t even registering now, nor was the police presence outside. Chelsea’s eyes remained on his as something like love passed through her features.
Her hand touched his arm, her fingers rubbing his skin. Tim reached out to her, his heart filling with such an intense love for her that he let a sob break loose. Nothing could keep them apart.
“Honey,” Chelsea croaked through dead lips.
And when he went into her embrace finally, all other sensations were eclipsed by the simple fact of enfolding himself completely with the woman he loved, even as the police finally stormed up the back deck and began the process of shattering the glass door to gain entry.
About The Author
J. F. Gonzalez is the author of fifteen previous novels of terror and dark suspense including Primitive, Bully, The Beloved, Survivor, and is co-author of the cult-classic Clickers, and the sequels Clickers II: The Next Wave and Clickers III: Dagon Rising (with Mark Williams and Brian Keene respectively). His short fiction is collected in four volumes, of which the latest, The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales, is available now from Darkside Digital as an exclusive electronic title. Not content to rest on his laurels, he also works in other media including film, the technology sector, and other areas of publishing. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania and is currently working on his next novel.
