by Alex Apostol
“Go back!” Liam yelled as he turned to run.
The fence gave way to the cold, muddy ground.
Liam pumped his arms as the rain beat against his face. He didn’t look back, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to know how close the hoard of dead was to him or how many there were. “Christine!” He shouted.
She stepped out into the rain with the axe in her hands.
Liam was only halfway back to the building. “Go back! Go!”
It was hard to hear what he said, but when another white flash of light burst through the sky she saw the mass of bodies streaming in through the fallen part of the fence. The dead expanded outward like a growing pool of blood once inside. The first ones through spotted Liam and Jerry immediately and hounded after them, while others wandered around the grounds, some behind the buildings, hidden away.
“Jerry, come on!” Christine yelled as she jumped up and down to wave him in.
Jerry ran as fast as his legs could carry him. His back sent a sharp, fiery pain down the lower half of his body with every step he took. He looked over his shoulder to see three zombies about ten feet behind him.
His heart beat rapidly in his chest. He swore it was beating against his ribcage. He couldn’t swallow. His throat felt constricted as the cold air and rain rushed down it. He pushed himself to run faster than he thought possible, but his back couldn’t handle it. With an excruciatingly tight pinch, his left leg stiffened and he fell hard to the muddy ground.
“No!” Christine yelled as she rushed out with the axe.
Liam caught Christine around the waist before she could make it to where Jerry laid writhing in pain.
“What are you doing? We have to help him!” she cried out as she tried to push her fiancé off with her elbows.
The dead fell over Jerry as he rolled over onto his back. His screams echoed through the grounds as hands dug into his abdomen to rip out his innards. Red mouths ate away at him with fervor. Blood and carnage dripped from their chins.
Christine crumpled as her tears mixed with the rain on her face. Liam still had her around the waist and held her up from the ground as she sobbed and screamed.
Jerry, still alive, yelled out as rows of teeth sank into his neck and shoulder, ripping away the flesh to expose the tender muscle underneath. As another set tore at his throat, his screaming turned to blood-filled gurgles and then he was silent.
Several bodies made their way slowly to where Liam and Christine stood, bypassing the crowded mass devouring the lifeless body on the ground.
“Go!” Liam yelled as he shoved Christine ahead of him.
XVI.
Christine Moore ran up the stairs of building six with the axe swinging at her side. She heard an agonizing scream from behind her and almost fell. She turned with both hands clutched on the railings.
Liam held on as he was pulled back by ragged hands that gripped at his ankle. One of the mangled dead was on the ground beneath the stairs, blood dripping from its teeth as it snapped at the air. If he let go of the railing, the rotting corpse would drag him down and devour him. If he didn’t do something soon, the rest would come to finish him off.
Christine raced back down the steps to him. With her axe raised high above her head, she took a breath and swung it down to sever the hands from their arms. The thing that was had once been a woman didn’t recoil or writhe from the pain. It didn’t bleed out or even give up. It snapped its jaws and tried to pull itself forward on its two bleeding stumps.
Christine grabbed Liam’s arm and pulled him forward and up the stairs. Once inside their apartment, she slammed the door and locked every single lock while Liam let himself fall onto the couch.
When Christine was done with the door she turned to him. “Are you OK? Are you hurt? Did it bite you? Are you bleeding?” She asked question after question as she touched his head, arms, and torso, working her way down. When she got to his lower legs he stopped her and placed his hand over hers.
Tears filled her large eyes.
XVII.
The muscles in Christine’s face pulled downward as she closed her eyes and lowered her head. Her shoulders shook as she cried hunched over at Liam’s feet. She threw herself onto his knees and buried her face in her arms.
Liam reached a hand out to her shoulder and pushed her back away from him. The hopeless look in her swimming eyes made his throat tighten as he tried to keep himself together. “You shouldn’t get too close.”
“Liam,” she breathed out.
She reached for him again, but he leaned further back into the couch. It was like a knife to the heart.
“I should go. It’s not safe for you. You shouldn’t be near me,” he said as he tried to stand up. When he put weight on his right leg it buckled and he fell back again with a groan.
“You can’t go,” Christine sobbed. “You can’t leave me now.”
He leaned forward and lifted her head up so she would look at him. “You could die if I stay here with you.”
She took a few ragged breaths and her bottom lip sucked in. She tried to stable herself before she spun out of control. How could this have happened? Why hadn’t they reinforced the fence long ago before those things multiplied so tremendously? A shiver ran down her back as her cold, drenched clothes clung to her thin frame.
They’d been living in a false sense of security. She looked around at their apartment, a dim glow from the two logs in the fireplace was the only light source they had. Other than the lack of electricity, everything looked completely normal. It was untouched by the outside world. She’d even gotten the blood stains out of the carpet. Their supplies had dwindled to the bare minimum, so boxes no longer stacked against the wall, but were broken down and placed out of sight in the walk in closet in the bedroom. Anyone who walked in would have thought it was a safe place, that they were back in the normal world. But it wasn’t safe and there was nothing normal about it.
She turned to Liam again and forced herself to take deep breaths as she closed her eyes. It worked. Her heart rate slowed a bit and her hands steadied as best they could. She wiped at her wet face as she sniffed. “I don’t…” she sniffed again. “I can’t live without you, Liam. I can’t.”
“You have to,” Liam said urgently. “You have to survive this and you have to stop me from coming back.”
She shook her head as the tears reemerged. Her blonde ponytail whipped at her back.
“You have to do it, Christine. Right in the head. I don’t want this to turn out like it did for Sally. You have to stop me before I come back as one of those things.” He reached out a hand to her. It was as cold as ice.
“I can’t do it,” Christine said. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“You don’t have a choice! Please. Promise me you’ll do it.”
She looked into his frantic eyes as they stared back at hers, begging for her to say she would end his life.
He was already going to die. She knew it and he knew it. They didn’t have much longer together. Maybe a day, maybe a few hours, maybe less. Neither had any idea how long it took for the bite to infect a person and kill them off. They’d never seen it happen.
Christine thought about Jerry and wondered if he’d gotten back up, if he walked around looking for them so he could devour their flesh and brains. Liam’s eyes urged her again and she gave in. She didn’t want to spend their last moment arguing.
“OK,” she said as more tears fell down her cheek. “I’ll do it.”
XVIII.
Christine helped Liam to the bed and lifted his leg. She was careful not to touch where it’d been bitten. “I should take a look,” she said as her fingers neared the hem of his jeans. It was hard to see what was what through all the blood soaked material.
Liam breathed heavily as he leaned back on his elbows with his leg outstretched. He gave the slightest nod and squeezed his eyes shut. Off came his black sock slowly. It was saturated in blood.
Christine stopped herself from crying, but her heart con
tinued to beat rapidly against her chest. Her thin fingers worked the pant leg carefully upward. Liam’s light leg hairs were matted and tangled.
He sucked in a sharp breath of air and gave a small groan as she raised the jeans over the tender wound. Christine winced when she saw his pained face. “Sorry,” she said with a matching grimace. Once his wound was exposed, she sat back and stared, trying to conceal the horror she felt.
Liam’s eyes were averted to the ceiling as his breathing deepened even more. He couldn’t bring himself to see how bad it was. It didn’t matter. He would die either way.
The flesh had been torn away completely, leaving a hole with ripped strands of muscle hanging out. The brightest blood Christine had ever seen flowed out and onto the white sheets. “Oh, God,” she breathed as she got up and ran to the bathroom. She searched the cabinets in a blind panic.
When she came back seconds later she had one of their first aid kits clenched in her hands. Her fingertips were white from the pressure of her hold.
“There’s no point in wasting anything on it,” Liam said, still looking at the ceiling. “Just wrap it up and leave it.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and unrolled the gauze.
Liam yelled out when it touched the shred of flesh and gaping hole in his leg. With every wrap he lifted himself from the bed and winced. The pain was worse than anything he could have ever imagined. When she was done, Christine climbed onto the bed to lay next to him. He leaned his head back onto the pillow and turned his head to face her. Sweat ran down into his eyes.
“You’re so strong, love.” His voice was soft and strained.
Christine let out a throaty laugh as more tears fell to soak the pillow. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are and you’re going to survive this. I know you are.” Her head turned down and her eyes shut tight. “Hey,” he said sharply. She looked up at him again though her long lashes. “You’re going to make it.”
She nodded her head and let her eyes close again as she tried to sniff back the tears. “If I do, then I’ll be just like one of them…” Her eyes flickered over the black windowpane. “Dead inside.”
Liam coughed into his hands. It racked his entire body and rattled in his chest. Christine reached a hand out to his forehead.
“You’re warm,” she said, sitting upright.
“Really? I feel so bloody cold.”
She hopped off the bed and stood next to him. They worked together to get him under the thick, gray blanket, which he pulled up to his chin and clutched in his hands. Christine wondered which would take him first, the infection or the loss of blood. She looked down at him and brushed the hair from his eyes. Something was missing.
“Where’s your glasses?” she asked.
“They fell off when I bent down to set the beam on the ground,” he said with a huffy laugh. “Probably why I didn’t see that one crawling by the stairs. Blind as a bat, you know.”
Something so simple, so small, something they never even considered as lifesaving lay somewhere in the mud, trampled on by the relentless shuffling of the dead.
XIX.
As the sun slowly rose over the horizon, it lit up the apartment grounds. The bloodied dead and carnage that strewn the mud and grass basked in the warm orange glow. A robin chirped in the tree right outside the bedroom window. Christine looked over as Liam, who groaned on the bed. He’d tossed and turned all night, sweating under the covers as his fever rose. He constantly shook with chills.
Christine hadn’t left his side for a minute, worried that if she did he would slip away and died alone. She didn’t want to let that happen. She needed him to know she was with him to the very end, just as they’d promised when she said yes in the university library, when he got down on one knee and handed her a small diamond ring. They were as good as married in her mind and she wouldn’t abandon her husband.
As he tried to sleep throughout the night she drifted in and out of consciousness, distracted by thoughts about what to do when Liam was gone. It seemed almost heartless to think about herself while he lie there helpless, but she couldn’t stop. No matter what she tried to focus her mind on to fall asleep, it always wandered back to how she would end his suffering. It was rapidly approaching and she had to be ready for it.
Though she’d told Liam she would stop him before he turned, she was tempted to let it happen. If he became one of them and bit her, then she would be one of them too. They would both be dead and unaware of everything, but they’d be together again. The thought enticed her as she sat in the darkness on the edge of the bed.
By the time he woke up, she’d made her decision. She was going to do it. All she had to do was ease him into death and let him take her with him. She wasn’t fit to survive without him. There was no point in trying. She didn’t want to spend her last days in lonely misery without the man she loved.
“Christine,” he called out for her in a coarse, weak voice.
“I’m here.” She scooted closer to him and took his sweaty, cold hand in hers.
He coughed and rolled over to his side so his mouth was covered by the pillow. His chest wheezed and rattled. When he was done he faced upright again. The wheezing continued. All the color had drained from his face. He could barely open his heavy-lidded eyes as they watered continually. His lips were white and cracked. Christine looked over and saw droplets of blood splattered on the pillowcase.
“I want you…to tie me…to the bed,” he said.
She looked at him with her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips pursed.
“Just in case…anything…goes…wrong…when you…”
Sticking to her promise not to argue with him as he wasted away in front of her, she forced a thin smile and nodded her head. Her blue eyes softened as they looked into his, which were no longer the brilliant, lively green and brown she’d looked into lovingly over the last few years. They’d turned a light, grayish color as they started to glaze over white.
She went to the closet and dug out several fashionable scarves in various colors and patterns. Once she’d sat him up, she tied a scarf around each of his wrists and then tied the other end to one of the bars on the wrought iron headboard. He tugged weakly at them to make sure they’d hold. His chin fell to his chest as he took labored breaths from the exertion.
“It’ll have…to do.” When he coughed again blood splattered onto Christine’s jeans and tan long-sleeved shirt.
It caught her off guard and she flinched. She looked down at herself and took a steadying breath. When she looked back at him, she smiled softly.
His eyes were wide in horror. “I’m sorry…I didn’t…oh, God. I’m sorry—”
“It’s OK,” she said and grabbed one of his tied up hands in both of hers.
He leaned all the way back and looked up as he tried to breathe normally. Each intake felt like knives in his lungs. Blood started to fill them slowly. He gasped for air like a fish out of water, unable to take enough in. His eyelids drooped as his head started to spin. It couldn’t be the end already. There was so much left he wanted to do, so much he wanted to say to Christine.
She started to cry as she squeezed his hand tighter in hers. “You can’t die, Liam,” she said softly. “You were going to save everyone.” She eyed the old journal on his nightstand.
As he coughed, she heard wet gurgles bubble up in his throat. His body made small, jerking movements as he choked on the blood. She stood up and covered her mouth with her hands. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her muffled cries pierced the air as she watched him suffer violently on the bed. She ran back over to him and squeezed his hand in hers again as she knelt down beside the bed.
“I love you,” she cried over and over again.
The gurgling became less frequent and his movements slowed until they stopped all together. Blood dripped from the side of his mouth as it hung open. His white, hazy eyes still bulged from his head. All of his limbs were spread out to lay awkwardly, tangled in the sheets.
<
br /> Christine lowered her head to his chest and gave in to the rush of sadness. Her body ached with grief and exhaustion. They’d promised themselves to each other forever. The fact that he was gone stabbed at her and ripped her heart open. Why did he have to get bitten? It should have been her. She buried her head into his sweater. She was weak. Liam was stronger than her, smarter than her. He could have stopped it if he’d lived.
The covers on the bed shook as Liam’s foot moved again. Christine opened her eyes and raised her head slowly. She wiped the tears from her cheek.
His white eyes were wide open. Large red vessels ran through them. He opened and closed his mouth, like an infant taking its first breath. Blood covered his lips and chin. He growled when his eyes settled on her and snapped his teeth. She sat upright on her knees and stared at the monster in front of her. It was now or never, she thought. She moved her arm closer as the click of his teeth filled her ears.
XX.
Zack and the group that followed him had finally made their way to the Dune Ridge apartment complex. They walked stealthily through the grounds once they climbed over the front gate.
“It’s all the way in the back,” he whispered. “Watch it!”
Two of the dead slowly sauntered out from one of the open hallways. They goes guttural moans and redirected themselves to the fresh meat standing ten yards away.
“Oo, can I?” Olivia asked as she smacked her bat against her hand. There was a faded signature scrawled across the middle portion.
“We both will,” Zack said.
She was just a child. He couldn’t let her do it alone. If Dan had volunteered, then maybe he would have let him and even given him a good push toward the putrid flesh bags. But it wouldn’t be right with a young girl, like Olivia.
They charged the two rotting male corpses together. With one swing of the bat, the larger of the two was down on the ground. The side of its head was caved in and leaked brain matter and blood onto the slush-covered pavement.
