Loose Ends: A Zombie Novel

by Jay Wilburn

  They rose up like giant crosses used to punish monstrous criminals that had multiple tentacles to nail in place. They were empty, silent, and powerless. The monsters and criminals had won; civilization had lost.

  We continued under the monster crosses as the woods opened up on one side. There were rows of sagging houses for chickens. The doors hung open to the empty spaces. Bats crawled out on the grills of the vent fans. They flew out in the daylight with diseased, white noses. I thought about the zombies coming out eating the dying birds through their feathers back at the Complex farms when we left.

  One day those houses will probably look deflated and wet like these, I thought.

  Shaw stopped and turned to look. He was ignoring the massive, metal crosses over his head, but he was captivated by bats in a chicken house.

  There was a silo in the distance. There was a faded cross with a crown of thorns tossed over the top drawn on the silo. Jesus Saves was written over it. This farm hadn’t converted to the mysterious faith of Shy yet.

  There were several small sheds still partially standing around the property. The fields were lush with thorns and tree-sized privet bushes. My skin itched under partially healed stings from the last bushes I plunged through running for my life.

  At a greater distance was a broad oak with exposed roots. A family plot of low tombstones gathered around the base of the tree in its deep shade. The old graves appeared undisturbed and blessedly unexcavated from the inside out like some newer gravesites were.

  Shaw walked up to the black wire between the furrow of the power line easement and the abandoned property. He leaned over and held on to the sharp wire cutting through the brittle plastic covering.

  “What do you see, Short?” Chef asked.

  Shaw didn’t say anything.

  Doc asked, “Trouble? Company?”

  Shaw finally answered, “I know where we are.”

  There was another long pause as we all stood around. One of the bats lost its grip on the slippery grating of the chicken house fan. It fell to its back in the thorns and stayed there.

  Chef asked, “Is that good or bad?”

  “I don’t know,” Shaw answered. “There is a farmhouse around these fields. It’s secluded. I don’t know what’s happened with it since I left it.”

  “Do you want to go?” Doc asked.

  Shaw didn’t answer yes or no. He did grab a post and climbed over the fence. We mistook that for a “yes” and followed him.

  ***

  As we walked down the hill toward the clusters of thorns, I checked to be sure my sleeves were all the way down. My shirt was still ripped at the seams of both shoulders were the raiders had pulled them open looking for something that wasn’t there.

  We rounded the edge of the property. After a few feet, the stiff roof of a smokehouse came into view and then the bowing roof of a farm house. We came out on a square of land with tall grass and a few oak trees that still grew large and full as they were ignoring the apocalypse around them.

  Doc said, “Not to press, Short, but what are we up against here? Are there relatives still walking in the cellar or bones we need to bury?”

  Shaw said, “Nothing like that.”

  We came around the smokehouse into view of the back of the home. A rat peeked out of a gap in the boards of the smoker to see what our business was. The windows of the main house were dark and boarded. There were boards still clinging across the back door. The screen between the boards and the peeling wood of the door was hanging loose draping across the boards. I recognized this as well. Somebody was trying to keep something out or keep something inside. Boards over the second floor windows were either a waste of time or there was something inside that the former owners didn’t want coming out.

  I looked back at the rat. I didn’t know what our business was here.

  We followed Shaw around the side. The siding had collapse under the plywood between floors. Large holes opened into the living space. There was a wood-burning stove and piles of broken furniture. One chair leaned against the wall inside. The upholstery was ripped away and most of the stuffing was pulled out by something that seemed to need a large nest. There were uneven stairs that led up from the back of the front doorway. The boards there were broken inward from the outside and the door was leaning against the wall on the floor with the hinges and parts of the wall still attached. Something terrible wanted in or a massive creature clawed its way outside. I didn’t like either prospect.

  We went through the front over the creaking porch instead of the wide open side. There was something moving in the crawlspace underneath us. It was scurrying as dust and bits of wood flaked off under our weight. It could have been something slithering after the things that scurry. I hoped it was rats and snakes.

  Shaw went in and stood at the stairs that seemed loose and unprepared for anyone to walk them.

  Chef asked, “Do you want us to wait outside?”

  Shaw said, “No, we might as well plan to stay here unless there is some reason to be outside again.”

  I could think of several. Chef and Doc exchanged looks and then walked in after Shaw. I was exhausted from not getting sleep in the open dark, but I followed them inside without confidence or pleasure.

  We stood on the uneven, weathered boards in the exposed foyer. The yellow, striped wall-paper was peeling off every wall in crisp shreds. There was either a massive ant hill or a termite column that was projected up and out of an opening in the floor near the corner of the living room by the opening in the wall. Like everything else in the house, it was hard, abandoned, and dead.

  Chef asked, “What’s the story here, Shaw?”

  Shaw took a deep breath and looked down at the foot of the stairs. Doc cleared his throat, but Short Order began talking. He knelt down and put his hand on the bottom step as he spoke.

  He said, “I’m not sure how long after everything started, but I ended up here moving west to get away from the towns. It was a month maybe. Everything started at different times in different places. I can’t remember when it went from watching it on T.V. to running from it in the streets.”

  Part of the termite mound crumbled away. I looked over, but nothing was there. The dust floated up in the air from the missing side of the house. I watched as Shaw continued to talk. Nothing came out of the mound or the hole in the floor.

  He said, “Carrie was here alone and had lost her family. She was afraid to go out to the storehouses for more food. She was more than half crazy. I was desperate for a place to hide and I played up on how much she needed me when I brought food a few hundred feet from a couple of the sheds. We used a rope ladder out one of the front, top floor windows. I buried the bodies of her family members. She … well, I took advantage, I guess, but who says ‘no’ to the lady of the house when she offers?”

  “I never did,” Doc said, “but I usually ended up in trouble because of it.”

  The ceiling creaked. The noise traveled slowly across the boards above our head. We hadn’t searched the house. I watched the top of the stairs and ceiling as the noise wandered through the upstairs rooms.

  Shaw continued, “One night after an argument over nothing, she got hold of my gun and I woke up with it in my mouth. She was screaming at me to leave and that I never loved her. We ended up struggling over it and I hurt her. I hit her. She went away crying. I hid the gun, but she found it again.”

  Something creaked and scraped upstairs. It could have been a wall or a rat. I thought it was a doorframe. I watched the stairs.

  He said, “She held it to her own head. I almost let her do it, but ended up taking it away again. That night while she was sleeping, I held it to her head right on top of the bruise I left on her face. I thought it might be easier for both of us, if I just finished it in her sleep. I didn’t. The next day a military convoy came through and busted us out.”

  “I don’t think you have anything to be sorry about here,” Doc said. “She was alive because of you even if things got heated or
rough under the pressure of … you know, everything.”

  “I don’t think he’s finished,” Chef said.

  Short Order rapped his knuckle against the bottom step. He didn’t say anything for a moment. A shadow drifted across the stairs through light coming from windows and openings in the ceiling and roof. It could have been a cloud.

  I still watched.

  Shaw said, “She was standing right her on the step as I broke out the front window through the boards. She begged me to let them go by. She said they were trouble and we should just hide. I yelled out and they busted through the door and took us to one of their transports.”

  Another shadow passed by going the other direction from the first. I didn’t think clouds did that.

  Shaw said, “Things were very good at first. Everyone worked at the Green Zone to keep up security and life. Major Mathew Hadley was the commanding officer and he was in contact with the North American Theater Command. He ran an efficient operation. As time went on, things got more desperate. The military personnel had to employ civilians in helping gather supplies outside the Zone while they ran security for the missions. I helped with that. Eventually, NAT-Com went dark and Hadley had us start going after other survivors’ supplies instead of rescuing them. He started using us to raid other military green zones at night and not everyone was coming back. He started hanging people who refused orders. He didn’t want to waste the bullets.”

  I heard something in the grass outside. I looked through the window, but saw nothing. The wind was blowing. It rocked against the sides of the house. It cut over the boards in the open side of the living room and rustled our clothes. More of the termite mound crumbled away and peppered across the floor.

  The top step popped and I whirled around to look. Nothing was there. Doc saw my motion and sniffed at me. He patted my shoulder. I didn’t feel comforted. Short drummed his fingers on the bottom step as he kept talking.

  He said, “Hadley pulled a few civilians up into military status to replace soldiers he had lost or had executed. The rest of us were declared workers. He went off the deep end. He started having his initials carved into the bodies of zombies and humans we killed outside the Zone as a warning to raiders and scavengers that were picking up in the area. He set up traps drawing groups in for us to ambush and take their supplies, weapons, and fuel.”

  A piece of shingle fell through a hole in the ceiling above the stairs. It bounced down a couple steps. Doc glanced up and saw it, but then looked down at Shaw’s back again. More dust sprinkled down from the roof around the floors above our heads. Shaw tapped the bottom stair some more with one fingertip.

  Shaw said, “Then he started branding us like cattle to mark us as his property.”

  “Branding?” Chef asked.

  Shaw rubbed his right shoulder through his shirt sleeve. He scratched at the bottom stair with one nail from the other hand. It made my teeth hurt.

  Shaw said, “With a hot iron like with cows … Everyone worked day and night. I started cooking and worked my way up from the troops to Hadley himself. He killed workers for minor mistakes. I had to be perfect every meal or I was cooking for the last time.”

  Chef and Doc looked at each other and then looked away suddenly.

  Shaw said, “I watched him do terrible things to people. Sometimes it was payback for some slight, sometimes it was for information, and sometimes he was just bored. Women were … taken advantage of … He brought Carrie in a few times. Sometimes he got bored.”

  Shaw hit the step twice with the heel of his hand. He started crying. Most of the drops missed the steps and mixed with the loose dust blowing around our feet from the termite mound.

  He said, “I just cooked for him. I watched and did nothing. One night Carrie was crying … from what he was doing to her. She kept yelling at me across the room where Hadley had me preparing his dinner. I just kept cooking and ignored her. She was screaming at me about why I hadn’t let her kill herself. Hadley thought she was talking to him. He stopped and laughed at her. He hit her … just like I had.”

  Shaw punched the step again. He breathed in and out one uneven time.

  He continued. “He pulled his own knife and handed it to her. He pulled his gun and backed up pointing it at her. He told her to do it, if she was serious. She sliced her own throat deeper than I thought was possible. Hadley stood over her holding his gun and laughing. He said he didn’t think she would do it. Then, she sliced him across the back of his ankles. He screamed and shot at her in the floor, but he was falling and missed. She grabbed him and sawed the knife back and forth across his neck. I don’t know how she was still moving. The guards came in and shot her. They grabbed me and hauled me out. One of the guards yelled out that Major Hadley was dead … that he nearly got his head chopped off by that damned slave. He was calling for help, but the other workers heard it and all hell broke loose.”

  Shaw rubbed his eyes. He rapped his knuckles on the step again. I looked up at the top of the stairs we hadn’t searched.

  He said, “They started attacking the soldiers and guards. People were getting shot. In the confusion, I ran and-”

  The board over the top of the bottom step burst up from under Shaw’s knuckles. The grey arm lashed out slicing itself across the exposed nails and latched on to Shaw’s forearm. He screamed as the creature pulled him toward the gory nails. Shaw grabbed his own hand and pulled back from his knees, but the creature held on and kept pulling.

  ***

  Doc and Chef came forward as the boards under us in the foyer were pushed up from below in the crawl space. We all stumbled backward. I turned and tried to jump on the porch. Four more hands reached from under the porch to the steps. Two zombies pulled themselves out and up the steps toward us.

  The second one locked eyes with me. He hooted, hissed, and then clicked in the back of his throat as they advanced on us. I had never heard one make a noise exactly like that before then.

  The boards under us were separating. I fell to the side into the living room. Doc swung his aluminum bar down on the step. He connected with the exposed elbow breaking it off from the arm. Shaw was flung backward with the severed arm still holding him. He fell to his back and collapsed through the foyer floor out of sight.

  The two from the porch came through the front door and grabbed at Doc.

  The termite mound fell over and exploded on the floor. A dusty corpse squeezed up through the gap in the floor and crawled across the living room.

  Doc swung the bar into the side of the first zombie’s head through the door. Its skull crumpled and it fell through the gap in the foyer. Shaw screamed again under the floor. The second one through was the hooter and he grabbed the bar on Doc’s back swing. Doc pushed back against it and pinned it to the floor.

  Chef pulled the banister loose from the rails and the wall. He ran forward and swung as the dusty body was standing up in the living room. The banister shattered over the side of its head splitting the skin. It stood up. Chef swung again. The banister broke the zombie’s arm, but splintered in Chef’s hand. He backed up as the dusty monster charged.

  Doc pressed his bar into the zombie’s neck on the floor. Its larynx crunched and its tongue came out with an airy hoot, hiss, and click as it inhaled in its broken throat. It kept snapping up at Doc.

  I pulled my hunting knife and crawled toward Doc. A grey skull crashed up through the boards in front of me up to its shoulders. I fell back dropping the knife. It squirmed to get its arms up out of the floor. One arm popped out and reached for me while the other was a stump at the elbow waving in the air.

  Chef kicked his zombie back with a puff of termite soil from its ragged clothes. He pulled out a rail support rod from the staircase and jammed it into the zombie’s eye. The zombie twisted its head and snapped it off in Chef’s hand. It grabbed Chef and pushed him into the wall causing him to drop the broken rod. As it leaned forward to bite, Chef jammed his forearm up into its throat stopping it before it stabbed him with the shar
p piece of wood projecting from its eye socket.

  Doc lifted his bar up, turned it around, and jammed the end through the hooting and hissing zombie’s forehead. The bar punched through the floor underneath and the zombie exhaled slowly with one last click. Doc pushed himself up to his feet and ripped the shaft back up out of the floor and shook the dry skull off of it.

  I kicked the arm away that was reaching for me. I reached careful for the knife so I got the handle and not the blade. The creature had my ankle and pulled me forward across the floor. I leaned up as he leaned down. I punched the blade into its head. As the creature fell back into the hole I pulled the knife back out of its brain. Its face smacked the floor on the way back down leaving its nose and a couple teeth on the edge as it disappeared.

  That’s for my mother … and sister, ankle grabber, I thought.

  I exhaled slowly looking at my ankle that the zombie had been holding. It didn’t feel like nearly enough.

  Another hand reached out and grabbed the floor. The body pulled up slowly. I raised the knife above my head in both hands. Shaw looked up at me from the hole in the floor and held out both hands when he saw me. I dropped the knife and helped him climb out of the crawlspace. I pictured dozens of them chewing off his legs below the floor. He seemed less concerned as he climbed out slowly.

  Chef was behind his zombie slamming it into the wall over and over. The head kept smashing through the plaster in clouds of dust and coming back out with plenty of scratches, but none deep enough to destroy the brain. Both eyes were leaking dark jelly down the zombie’s cheeks as it clawed and snapped back at Chef.

  “A little help,” Chef yelled.

  Doc walked toward him with the shaft over his shoulder. Through the boards in the broken, front window, I saw one walking up the front steps. Another one followed behind it and then two more.

  “There are no more down there,” Shaw said as he climbed out of the floor.