“Will you be okay by yourself?” Sam asked.
“I’ll be fine. Besides, I think we’ve pretty much established that we’re not any safer in groups.”
He nodded. “Just be careful, okay?” He kissed her forehead. “And please hurry. I don’t know how much longer the zombies will be...well, distracted.”
Sam and Talia headed to the garage and Dallas to the bedrooms. There were four of them, including the master bedroom they had already been in. The next one she found appeared to be a little girl’s room, complete with pink flowered wallpaper and a perfectly made four poster bed. She rooted through the closet and found a purple blanket she and Talia could easily share.
She headed to the bedroom at the end of the hall to find a better blanket for Sam. This room was covered in Metallica posters and the wallpaper was army green. Perfect.
The room turned a corner to the right, where a bed and nightstand stood. There was a sliding closet door on the opposite side of the room. She rooted through the nightstand first, looking for flashlights or phone chargers. The drawer wouldn’t open at first due to a mass of glossy magazine papers. She pulled the magazine out; it was folded over to an image of a nude woman, her blonde hair spread over a maroon pillow and her lips pouted. Dallas snickered and tossed the magazine onto the bed.
As she rooted through the drawer, finding a phone charger and pulling it out, there was a crash from downstairs. She slowly stepped back toward the bedroom door. The hordes moaned, Sam yelled, and shots were fired. There was another, higher pitched shriek.
“Tally?” Dallas muttered. She heard moans from behind her, turned around, and screamed.
The zombie had been a man, maybe in his early forties. He wore khakis, scuffed up loafers, and a gray button up shirt. He lumbered toward her, literally foaming at the mouth.
Dallas slammed and locked the bedroom door. The zombie reached for her shoulders and she kicked it away. She hadn’t thought to bring up her pizza cutter, or any other weapon.
The zombie reached for her again, and she pushed it to the bed. She darted back to the closet and grabbed a coat hanger, tossing aside the t-shirt it held. She didn’t have time to unwind it before the zombie reached her again. Quickly, she pulled the top part of the hanger up and lunged at the zombie. She missed, and it lunged for her this time and grabbed her arm. She kicked and shoved, making sure to keep its mouth and fingers away from her. At last, she got a good grip on the coat hanger and stabbed it into the zombie’s eye. It made a noise that sounded like someone releasing all the helium from a hot air balloon. Black pus seeped from the wound. The zombie still struggled, and she pulled out the coat hanger, now stained with the black goo and making a squeaking sound as she pulled, and messily slit the zombie’s throat. More blackened blood came spilling out. The zombie gagged, then was still.
Dallas shoved the body aside. Fortunately, Sam hadn’t bothered to board the upstairs windows, so she ran to the nearest one and tugged at it. Locked. She desperately fiddled with the switches until it popped open.
The hordes were getting closer. She kicked at the screen, but it was held in place even tighter than the window. She could hear the zombies in the hallway. With one final, desperate push, she kicked in the screen and it slid down the roof. She didn’t hear it fall to the ground.
The hordes were pounding on the bedroom door. A piece of wood in the middle cracked, creating an opening. Dallas could see the zombies on the other side, poking their rotting faces through the boards. It reminded her of the infamous scene in The Shining, another movie she had secretly watched as a child.
She climbed out the window and shut it behind her. Much easier the second time. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and slid down the roof. She reached the edge and let herself fall. Her heart felt like it dropped before the rest of her body. She forced herself not to scream as she landed.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying a few feet away from the holly bushes that surrounded the front porch. She was on her stomach, and nothing hurt too bad — at least not bad enough for her to suspect anything was broken. She groaned and propped herself up on her elbow.
The street lights were still on and it was pitch black. It had to be well past midnight. Talia stood on the front porch, and as Dallas pulled herself up, her sister ran toward her. Talia grabbed her and hugged her tight. Dallas could barely breathe, but didn’t try to stop her.
“Are you okay?” Talia said, pulling away.
Dallas nodded. “What about you guys? Where are the hordes?”
“We took them out. Finally got to use that bow again.”
“Where’s Sam?”
“In the garage. He’s going to start the car and bring it around.” Sure enough, a moment later the garage door groaned. As it opened, Dallas heard noises behind them. She and Talia gasped simultaneously as another horde made its way up from the backyard.
“What the hell?” Talia muttered. “Where did they come from?”
“Did you kill all the zombies in that other horde?”
“I thought we did, but…”
Dallas bit her nails as the hordes moved across the yard and closer to them. When they were just a few feet away, the garage door opened enough for Sam to back the SUV out. He motioned to them to get in. Talia headed for the front passenger door and Dallas scrambled into the back.
As soon as the doors were shut, Sam sped out of the driveway. The hordes dashed after them and a few grabbed the front bumper, but he kept driving and they fell off. Dallas couldn’t hear them making any noise as they fell, but she heard the crunch of their bones as they hit the pavement below and Sam sped over them.
Dallas felt something underneath her feet and reached down to pick up a hand gun. Sam and Talia must have found it while searching the house. Or maybe the car’s owners had (carelessly) left it there.
Sam was almost to the road and a few zombies were still pounding on the dashboard when Dallas shouted, “Stop the car!”
“What?” Sam shouted.
“Don’t drive any further!”
“Why the hell not? We have to get out of here!”
Dallas only responded by standing to open the sun roof, the gun in her free hand. “Dallas, what are you doing?” Sam said. “We can get away — we don’t need to shoot them!”
“The less zombies, the better,” she reminded him. The sun roof opened and she stood up.
The hordes looked up overhead as she emerged. She thought back to the first gas station, when those zombies had literally knocked each other over to get to her and Sam. At the time, she felt scared and cornered. Now, looking out at this new horde, she felt like a rock star.
She started with the ones that clung to the front bumper. As soon as they were down, she went for the cluster by the garage door. Her aim was rusty, but a single head shot still sent most of them to the ground. Shrieks and the cracking of skulls filled the night air.
Once her supply of bullets was depleted, she reached around in the back and found several more cases easily. She had reloaded and was preparing for round two when she saw it.
Another zombie made its way up from the front, but it wasn’t walking like the rest. Its legs were missing, and what was left of its torso and arms was badly eaten away. It left a trail of blood behind it as it crawled around the corner of the house. But Dallas only had to look at the corpse’s remaining blond locks to recognize him.
It was Pierce.
Dallas stopped breathing. She watched as Pierce — or what was left of him — made his way across the pavement, leaving a trail of blood and organs behind. She lowered herself back into the car. “Drive,” she said.
“But Dallas —”
“Just drive!”
Sam grimaced and muttered something about ‘damn women always changing their minds’, but drove on. He made several sharp turns through the neighborhood and had to go slow, probably to avoid the ditches.
The remaining zombies ran after them.
They were faster than ever. Dallas was trying not to look back when she heard a ring. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Talia responded.
“Is that your ringtone?”
“No, Dallas, I don’t know!”
“It’s not mine, and I know it’s not Sam’s.” She reached over Talia, ignoring her protests. In the pocket behind the driver’s seat, she found Pierce’s ringing cell phone.
She looked down at the display, which read ‘dad.’ She remembered back to their conversation in the kitchen, when Pierce told her about contacting him. He must have known that would be their last conversation.
“Dallas, let me see,” Talia said.
The sunroof was still open, and Dallas heard the zombies catching up to them. Barely thinking, she reached up and hurled the phone over her head, through the sunroof and into the road. The stragglers immediately turned, some of them stumbling on the way, and headed for the phone.
They sped through the neighborhood and back onto the highway. Sam made a few sharp turns, but they were soon cruising down the road at fifty-five miles per hour. The hordes were gone, and Dallas hoped they stayed away.
Chapter Thirteen
The previous owner of their new car had graciously filled up the gas tank before disappearing, so Sam drove for several hours. Around four in the morning, he insisted that they pull over.
“I’ve barely slept in two days,” he said, “And I know you guys haven’t gotten much rest either. Let’s just sleep for awhile. If we encounter...well, if we get into any trouble, we have plenty of gas to drive away.”
So they stopped, but Dallas didn’t relax much. She fell asleep quickly, but her dreams were filled with Pierce’s decaying face and ringing cell phone, still beckoning to him even after his death. After two hours of dubious rest, she finally woke up and laid in the dark for several minutes.
She eventually sat up and saw Talia out of the corner of her eye. She was wrapped in a blanket with her head against the head rest, but her body was tilted and she gazed out the window at the mountains in the distance.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Dallas said.
Talia nodded. “Gives me chills.”
“It’s nice to see something so beautiful after all this.” Dallas pulled out her phone, which was on its last bit of battery juice. “Wow, it’s Tuesday. The eleventh. I didn’t even realize that.”
“If we were still at home,” Talia said, “We’d be getting ready for school. I was supposed to have detention today.”
“How did you get detention?”
“Talking to Pierce during algebra.” She turned away from the window. “What about you?”
“Tally, I don’t get detention. I’m a good girl.”
Talia snickered. “I mean, what would you be doing right now? Getting ready for school? Or sleeping in?”
“Yeah, probably getting ready.”
“What class do you have on Wednesday mornings?”
“Physics.”
“Ew.” Talia giggled. Dallas reached up and smacked her playfully on the arm.
“I had physics with Ashleigh and Sam,” she continued. “We’d probably be making plans to hang out after school…” A knot formed in the pit of her stomach, and they were both silent for awhile.
Dallas sighed deeply, closed her eyes and opened them. “Damn, you know what? We wouldn’t be doing any of that stuff right now. We’d be on fall break.”
Talia blinked. “Really? I forgot about that. All the days seem to run together now.” She was quiet for another minute, then continued.
“It’s funny. This time last week I’d have done anything to get out of school and homework. Now I’d give anything to have it back. Especially if it meant having Pierce back.” She paused and bit her lip. “Hey Dal, do you think things will ever be normal again? You know, no zombies or at least not enough to be a huge threat? Back to school and work?”
“You mean like the way it was a week ago? No, I really don’t think so.”
“Well, what’s going to happen? Is this...I mean, are we all...”
“Is this the end? No, Tally, I don’t think so. Things will just be...different.”
“So, we’ll always have to look out for zombies? How do you know they won’t just kill us all eventually?”
“These zombies...well, they’re really just predatory animals who happen to feed on us. As long as there are zombies, there have to be humans. Just like as long as there are lions there have to be hippos or whatever it is they eat.”
“So we’re just around as food for them? That’s a lot better.”
Dallas sighed. “Come on Tally, we’ll be okay. We’ve made it this far, haven’t we?”
“We have. Most people haven’t. Two of our friends haven’t. Look Dal, I know you feel like you have to protect me just like Sam feels like he has to protect you. But I’m not stupid. I know this isn’t good. Yeah, we might survive, and we might not even get killed by zombies at all. But I don’t want to just survive. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about when a zombie might attack me or you or Sam or even mom and dad when they catch up with us. If they catch up with us. I know it sounds sort of naïve, but I can’t even think about living the rest of my life like this, and I don’t think I should have to.”
“We’re not, Tally. That’s why we’re going to Uncle Jack’s. So we can have a chance at a good life.”
“But what if that’s not the answer? What if Uncle Jack is just as unprepared as everyone else?”
“I really don’t think he will be. When have you ever known Uncle Jack to be unprepared? But Tally, even if he is, we have to try. You can’t live until you survive, and you can’t survive if you don’t try.”
Five minutes later, it started to rain. It was a light drizzle, and lasted for just a few minutes, but gray clouds continued to cover the sky. Sam woke up just as the rain ended and plugged Uncle Jack’s address into the GPS. He was careful to choose a route avoiding the interstate, and they crossed the Tennessee border late that morning via the highway.
“So do you guys think Chattanooga will be affected?” Sam asked. “I don’t know if anyone up here drinks unfiltered tap water.”
Talia shook her head and said nothing. “I don’t know either,” Dallas replied. “But let’s just be cautious, okay?”
They drove into downtown Chattanooga a few minutes later. They still had three quarters of a tank of gas, but Dallas wanted to stop anyway, and see what was going on. There were plenty of cars on the road, and the gas station parking lot they pulled into was almost full.
They were greeted upon entrance by a clerk in his mid thirties. Several customers perused the drink coolers and candy aisles. Sam gestured to the chips on the aisle a few feet away. “Come on, guys. Let’s just get what we need and get going.”
Dallas headed for the restrooms. When she emerged, Sam and Talia were at the register with several bags of candy and chips.
“Are you guys from around here?” the clerk asked as he rung them up.
They all shook their heads. “We’re visiting my uncle,” Dallas said.
“Ah, so you’ve been here before. Ever been to Ruby Falls? It’s just fifteen minutes down the road. And why not check out Rock City too? Lookout Mountain is gorgeous.”
“I don’t think so.”
The clerk nodded. “Seen it all before?”
Dallas didn’t respond, and focused her attention on a magazine rack. Various blonde models glossed the covers, all wearing skimpy outfits and staring back at Dallas with pouty lips. There was a tabloid magazine shoved in the far corner with a picture of a zombie on the front. The headline read ‘Is the zombie apocalypse upon us?’ It was right next to a photo of an elderly woman; the caption under her read ’99 Year Old Woman Gives Birth to Alien Baby!’
“So I guess the virus hasn’t reached Tennessee yet?” Sam said as they made their way out of the parking lot. “Doesn’t seem like much has chang
ed.”
“They see it as a joke,” Talia said. “I bet most people here don’t take it seriously at all.”
“Maybe we’ll be safe here,” Dallas said. “For awhile, anyway. I wonder how long it’ll take for the hordes to catch up?”
A woman screamed. She stood frozen in her spot as several onlookers rushed around the corner. A second later, a man shouted, “She bit me, the stupid bitch!”
Dallas inhaled sharply and they rushed for the car. “Should I go straight for the farm?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And step on it. We don’t have much time.”
He hit the pedal as soon as Dallas and Talia closed their doors. Traffic was heavy as they headed down the highway, and only thinned out slightly as they made their way across town. Within ten minutes, they were caught in yet another traffic jam. Dallas bounced up and down in her seat.
“Are you okay?” Talia said.
“No, I’m perfectly fine with the fact that there are zombies a few minutes away,” she said. “Maybe closer.”
Talia tapped her fingers on her knee. “I spy, with my little eye...”
“Tally, what are you doing?”
“Remember this game? Mom and dad used to play it with us on road trips. Come on, I spy with my little eye...something green.”
“That sign for Ruby Falls?”
“Yes! Okay, it’s your turn.”
Dallas grunted. “I spy, with my little eye...oh shit.” Through the trees, she spotted several zombies making their way toward the road. They stopped by an SUV a few yards away and banged on the windows. The passengers inside, several of them children, screamed and grabbed each other.
State of Emergency Page 13
