The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel

by William Todd Rose

  I kept these thoughts to myself though. Jason had hardly said a word since I first found him in the church and I reckon he was probably still grieving for his mother. Which was understandable. Last thing he needed was for some old fart to lay some heavy shit on him. So I just let him be and kept right on reading until I physically couldn't talk any more.

  And the hours just kept dragging on. Day turned to night and then to day again. And it didn't take long before I had this panicked thought whispering in the back of my mind: you're both going to starve to death. You're never getting out of this here church....

  I tried to tell myself not to listen to that voice, that I would think of something. But it’s hard to lie to yourself when your stomach feels like a shriveled walnut and your piss is as dark as wine from dehydration. It's hard to have a positive mental attitude when all you can think about is how good some fried green tomatoes or a nice oven baked chicken would taste. Or when you actually start wondering how to go about filtering your own urine so your tongue doesn't feel all scratchy and swollen.

  Of course, it probably didn't help matters any that I wasn't sleeping worth a damn either. I'd lay there in the darkness, watching the boy sleep and think about how badly I'd fucked everything up. His mother was dead, we were slowly wasting away to nothing, and there was a crowd of rotters hammering away at the door. Rotters who were bound to find a way in if given enough time. And to make matters worse, I suspected that the child was beginning to crack under the strain.

  Most of the day he'd sit there in his Power Rangers t-shirt, just glaring at me with eyes that almost seemed to burn with hatred. At first I thought that maybe I was just seeing that because it was how I actually felt about myself. What Doc would later tell me was called projection. But when he started getting really weird on me, I started wondering if there was more to it than that. If the boy had simply snapped.

  See, he'd gotten to the point that whenever I'd ask him a question he wouldn't answer with words. No, he'd sit there with that cold, even stare of his and wait for a few seconds to pass, forcing me to ask the question again. And then, as naturally as if he were saying hello, he'd caw like a raven in this voice that seemed too thick and raspy for such a tiny throat.

  The first time he did it, I thought maybe he was playing some kind of a game that I didn't understand. So I asked him again if he needed me to loosen the leg brace I'd made him for a bit. And the boy cawed again. Louder this time with his eyes and nostrils flaring as the sound crossed his lips. It was downright creepy and caused the little hairs on my arms to bristle just like they do right before a lightning storm.

  The kid must of cawed at me for two, three days. Hard to say really, cause time had a way of getting fuzzy in that church. After about half a day of it, it'd spooked me so bad that I just stopped talking to the boy. But he kept right on doing it, anytime I would walk by or look in his direction.

  It finally got so bad that he was making that crow-sound every few minutes and I felt my muscles kind of tense. I wanted to storm over to where he was sitting and give him the backside of my hand across the face, to shake him until his teeth rattled, to do anything to get him to stop making that god awful noise.

  Caw. Caw. Caw.

  I clenched my teeth together so tightly I could taste blood oozing from around my gums, balled my hands into fists over and over again, and paced around the church like a man on death row waiting on the Governor's call.

  Caw. Caw. Caw.

  His voice caused my eardrums to feel like they were lined with broken glass and his eyes followed me no matter where I went.

  Caw.

  I couldn't take it anymore. If he kept it up I was gonna start hitting him and once I started I didn't think I'd be able to stop again. I just wanted him to shut the hell up, to use his damn words for Christ's sake, to be a normal little boy and not some fucking basket case that I'd created through my own failures.

  Caw. Caw.

  I ran over to the little ladder that led up into the bell tower and started climbing my way up the rungs. I was so damn weak from hunger and exhaustion that it felt like I had a fifty pound weight attached to either ankle, but I had to get away, to just steal a few minutes of peace and fucking quiet.

  When I made it to the top, he finally stopped and all I could hear was the wind rustling through the trees and the pounding of the rotters below. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on my face, smelled the scent of pine from the forest mingling with the stench of decaying flesh; if not for the stabbing pains of hunger shooting through my gut, I could have almost imagined I was back home, sitting on my porch with a cold beer at my feet and a fridge full of food.

  And then I started to cry. It was like there had been something bottled up so tightly inside me that it finally came spewing out. I cried for the little girl in the forest who'd somehow wandered away from the interstate and was lost and scared and needing an adult so badly. I cried for Monica, for the way she'd kept reminding her son that she loved him when she knew the end was near. Even for little Jason, driven to the brink of insanity all because one man was frigging cocky enough to think he could ride in and save the day.

  I don't know how long I sat there with my knees pulled up to my chest, but eventually the tears kinda dried up and I was left feeling as hollow inside as those chocolate bunnies I used to give my niece for Easter. I opened my eyes and watched the tree branches sway in the wind. And I began to think.

  Those branches kind of hung over the far side of the church roof. True, the angle of the roof was something fierce and looked like it would be easy as hell to just slide right off if you weren't careful. But I could take the rope off the bell maybe. Lay myself flat and kinda shimmy over to the trees. Then if I could tie one end of the rope to a branch and one end to that there bell tower.... If I could do that, then maybe Jason could hang onto my back like a baby chimp. The rope would make sure we didn't fall. And once we'd made it to the trees we could just go from branch to branch until we were a good piece into the forest.

  Yeah, I thought it just might work. After all, the zombies were all clustered around the front door. As long as the boy didn't start that crow shit, they'd never know we were even up there. They'd still be hammering away at the door and never even realize we were eating berries and roots and drinking cool water from a mountain stream.

  For the first time in days I felt excited and hopeful. It was crazy, but it really could work. And even if we did slide off that roof and fell to our deaths, at least it would be quick. Not like the slow torture we'd been suffering through since the tuna ran out.

  I felt like dancing or jumping up and down, clapping my hands and giggling like a damn idiot. In fact, it took about every ounce of willpower I had to keep from doing so. After all, with his bum leg the boy would pretty much be dead weight. I had to save my strength. Maybe catch a few hours of shut eye and then we could make our big escape under cover of darkness.

  I shimmied down the ladder much more easily than I had scaled it and when I got to the bottom, I saw that Jason had drug himself over to the body of the freshy I'd shot on that first day. I shoulda gotten rid of it, but to be quite honest I didn't really want to touch the damn thing. And whatever brings those fuckers back to life seems to slow the decaying process a little, so it had really started smelling too bad yet.

  “Hey buddy,” I called out, “we're getting out of here. I've got a plan and by this time tomorrow our bellies are going to be full and we won't ever have to set foot in a church again.”

  If he heard me, he didn't give any indication. Not even so much as glancing back over his shoulder at me. What the hell was he doing anyway?

  I'd crossed about half the distance and thought maybe he hadn't heard me.

  “Jason, you hear? We're getting out of here and . . .”

  This time the boy did turn around and there was something clenched between his teeth. Something that looked like a pink piece of rubber. Only it had these dark streaks on it that looked like they'd be
en flung there with a paintbrush.

  He pulled with one hand and tore a long strand away and then slowly began to chew. I noticed the dark streaks were on his lips and chin, that his hand was covered in this goo and that it looked as if something had ripped the corpse's lips away all the way down to its chin.

  The boy swallowed and looked at me with those dark eyes of his. Licking his lips, he made a single sound:

  Caw.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: JOSIE

  The air within the barn was like cold hands against my thighs and I felt revulsion twist my guts into a concrete pretzel. This couldn't be happening: we had simply wanted a place to come in out of the cold, a shelter where we could be warm, where we could rest.... we had fought out way through hordes of rotting flesh, had buried one of our own in an unmarked snow bank outside some bullshit little town, had lost everything we had ever loved or cared about. Everything except each other. And now these two greasy assholes were just going to waltz right in and steal everything away from us? These two low-life degenerate sons of bitches with their stupid fucking leers?

  My jeans were around my knees now and Jerry had bent my legs as he pulled so savagely that the burn of friction cut through the blurry haze that had become my world. For a moment the barn was thrown into sharp focus: the sunlight filtering through the gaps in the walls, the little pieces of hay and dust that drifted through the shafts of light, the smell of old manure, the floor cold and gritty against my bare legs. I saw the redhead lifting Carl's head by the hair, saw the knife and that obnoxious grin on his twisted, evil face.

  Anger exploded within me with more force than Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. It felt as if every muscle in my body had simultaneously released all the frustration, all the wrath and bitterness that had been stored within its cells since this whole fucked up apocalypse had begun. How dare they try to steal the only person I fucking gave a damn about when everything else in my sorry excuse for an existence had been ripped away from my clutches and trampled in the dirt! How fucking dare they!

  I yelled or screamed or growled or something. I can't even say if there were even any words. All I knew was that my vocal chords felt raw and torn as this primeval sound erupted from my lungs and my legs had begun kicking with more force than I'd ever guessed I had.

  My foot slammed into Jerry's nose and I could feel as well as hear the sharp snap as blood began to gush from his nostrils. But still I kept kicking, inching my way toward him with my feet flailing in the air, connecting again and again with the soft flesh of his face. More blood from a lip split open like an overripe tomato, but still kicking, still yelling, still unleashing the full force of my rage. I wanted to stomp him into a bloody pulp, to see his brains squish through crushed eye sockets, to hear him cry and scream for mercy, to feel his skull crush beneath the fury of my feet.

  At the same time, I was keenly aware of everything. I knew that Roscoe was frozen, the knife mere inches from Carl's throat as he stared at the scene playing out before him. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe he didn't expect a mere piece of pussy to so completely eradicate his friend's features. I don't know.

  At some point I had stood and stepped out of my jeans and was now kicking Jerry in the head with the tip of my boots again and again. Blood splattered up and dotted my panties and thighs and I became aware of someone yelling at the top of their lungs. The voice sounded like a demon unleashed from the gates of Hell, gravelly and overflowing with contempt and hatred.

  “You like that, you cock sucker? Huh, you like that? What's a matter baby, can't you take it? Come on, bitch, take. Take it mother fucker! Take it!”

  I saw bits of shattered teeth slide down Jerry's chin in a foamy soup of spit and blood. His eyes were swollen slits encased in puffy dark bruises and his nose was mangled to the point that it would have looked entirely flat if it hadn't been for the shards of bone jutting through the broken skin.

  He was trying to say something as he crawled backwards and his words sounded as if he were speaking through a mouthful of mush. But, quite frankly, nothing he could have ever said would have made one damn bit of difference.

  “Yeah, you fucking cum rag, we're gonna have us a hot time tonight!”

  I kicked him in the face again and noticed that his friend had let go out Carl's head and was standing now, apparently free from whatever paralysis had gripped him. His face was warped with anger and he held the knife in front of him in a stance that somehow reminded me of a fencing match.

  “You stupid cunt. You're gonna pay for this shit.”

  He ran toward me with a yell and I found myself doing the same, despite the fact that I was armed only with the ferocity of a woman scorned. Mere feet from each other he lunged forward with the hand holding the knife. At the same time, I spun around as if I were on a dance floor, moving entirely on pure instinct. The blade passed within inches of by body but by then I was directly beside him and my foot shot out, entangling itself within his stride. For a second his arms pin wheeled and then he was falling and, as he thudded to the floor, I heard a slight squish. Blood oozed from beneath his shoulders and the tip of his knife had rammed clear through his throat. It's gore streaked tip sliced through the flesh on the back of his neck and he twitched a few times as the last of his life gurgled out of the wound and across the dirty floor.

  “Mprumph fuffin fiff!”

  That had been Jerry's feeble attempt to form words again through the shattered remains of his face. He was half laying, half sitting against a hay bale and his fingers played over the pulp of his features like a blind man trying to get a feel for someone's looks. His entire head was black and blue and swollen and bloody, like an infectious zit on the verge of popping.

  I walked back to the large stump that the weapons were laying on and picked up Carl's pistol.

  I felt calm.

  I felt totally in control.

  I felt justified.

  I squatted in front out Jerry, just out of reach enough that his grasping hands couldn't find me, and spat in the remains of his face.

  “You're not gonna like this, buddy.” I whispered to him. “At least not as much as me.”

  I leveled the gun so that the little nub at the end of the barrel was perfectly aligned with the center of his forehead.

  “Fuffin fiff!”

  Without another thought, I pulled the trigger and watched as blood and brain spattered the bale of hay behind him.

  “Who’s the fuffin fiff now, cock sucker?”

  It took nearly half an hour for Carl to come to. I put my jeans back on and had cradled his head in my lap, stroking his hair and being careful not to touch the softball sized lump that had formed on his forehead. During the time he was out, I sung every song I could think of to him: Bridge Over Troubled Water, Walk on The Wildside, hell even Party in The USA despite the fact that I had almost always turned the radio to a different channel when it came on. Back when there was still such a thing as radio, that is.

  Eventually, Carl's eyes fluttered open and he smiled weakly when he saw me looking down at him.

  “Hey there, beautiful.”

  He tried to sit up and winced in pain as his hand went instinctively to the bump on his head.

  “Son of a bitch. Feel like I've been run down by a tractor.”

  “Shh, it's okay baby. Everything's okay now.”

  I saw his eyes scan the barn, watched as even more color drained from an already pale face as he saw the blood and bodies. Looking up at me, he wetted the tips of his fingers with his tongue and rubbed away what I assumed to be flecks of dried blood from my cheek.

  “What the hell happened in here, sweetie?” he croaked.

  “Well,” I answered slowly, “I think it’s pretty safe to say I'm no longer a pacifist.”

  He glanced at Jerry's battered remains, tilting his head slightly as if trying to figure out exactly which part of the face was which.

  “Yeah.” he said softly. “I reckon not.”

  As Carl regained his strength, I tol
d him about everything that had happened. At several points my voice cracked and I felt tears well up behind my eyes; but he would squeeze my hand and, after taking a deep breath, I would go on. When it had all be told, we sat in silence for a moment and listened to the wind as it whistled through the gaps in the walls.

  “Shit,” he finally said, “remind me never to piss you off, darlin'.”

  I laughed and kissed his cheek lightly, enjoying the scratch of his beard against my face. I had come so close to losing this man that everything about him suddenly seemed fresh and new again, as if I were seeing him for the first time.

  “Come on, let's get outta here. My head hurts like the dickens, but I reckon I can manage.”

  I put my arm around him and helped him get to his feet. He was still a bit unsteady so I pulled him closer, allowing him to use my body as a crutch as we shuffled across the barn and toward the door.

  “You're one helluva woman, you know that? I reckon there's not another . . .”

  My ankle felt as if it had snagged on something and I tried to kick free but then pain flared through the bottom of calf like I'd never known. I screamed as agony ripped through every nerve in my leg and tried to yank free again. But the white hot pain only intensified as I fell to the floor.

  The thing that had been Roscoe had its hands wrapped firmly around my ankle and its teeth bit into the soft flesh between the hem of my jeans and the top of my sock. It gnawed and chewed and ripped as blood spewed from the wound and I tried kicking it away but it's hands were like vices as it buried its face again and again into my skin.