by Brown, TW
A ragged looking woman with a huge flap of her scalp hanging down on one side limped towards him. Its hands clutched at empty air as Kevin ignored it and darted past. By the time it had turned, its prey had rounded a corner and vanished from sight. It made its way slowly in the new direction it had turned, already forgetting why.
Kevin heard occasional shuffling from various directions but continued to jog. He stayed in the middle of the road whenever it was possible. By now he guessed that he had to go about fifteen more blocks down and three or four over.
He remained alert and did his best to be cautious, but he couldn’t control his pace which kept getting faster. His mind was racing even more out of control.
How could this be? He had seen the bite with his own eyes. Hell, it haunted his dreams along with a hundred other nightmares that had put down roots. Only, this one was the worst because it had been his fault. All his fault.
A gaunt man with crazy brown hair that looked to have been styled with a combination of an egg-beater and electric shock lurched from behind a minivan. Its hands caught Kevin by his right elbow. Barely breaking stride, Kevin shoved the point of the cornstalk knife up under its chin, through the roof of its mouth, and into the brainpan. With a graceful spin away from the falling corpse, he continued on, once more gaining speed.
He rounded the corner. There, idling in front of Heath Salvage was a police cruiser. A man was ducking through a hole in the corrugated metal fence.
“Cary?”
The man’s head jerked up…along with a big shotgun.
***
Mike shouldered his shotgun and checked the pouch on his belt—ten shells—then tugged on his gloves. Kevin had run out like fool. He might be packing plenty of weaponry, but he hadn’t put on his leather jacket or mesh-lined gloves.
Hurrying down the stairs, he almost took off out the front door. Damn, he thought. He hurried back to the kitchen where he could hear Heather humming. He didn’t recognize the song.
“Back in a few minutes,” Mike called, making the girl jump.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Heather spun quickly, closing the door to the woodstove. A wave of sweetness and cinnamon rolled over Mike causing him to salivate.
“After Kevin,” Mike answered.
“Where did Kevin go?”
“After that squad car.”
“Is it the bad guys?” Heather’s voice instantly shifted to a frightened, subdued tone.
“No.” Mike held up his hands in his best attempt at a placating gesture. “Actually, if we’re right about what we saw, this could be—”
Mike stopped. What? A miracle? Hope? An impossibility?
“Could be what?” Heather asked for what was obviously not the first time.
“This could be indescribably amazing,” Mike said. With that cryptic reply, he turned and ran for the door. “Stay alert! We’ll hurry back!” he called over his shoulder.
“You better,” Heather grumbled. She’d worked so hard on this meal. More important, tonight was the night. The night she would let Kevin know how she felt about him. Tonight she was going to give herself to somebody because she really, really wanted to.
Heather was in love.
***
“Cary!” Kevin glanced at the shotgun. The muzzle looked bigger when you were staring into one.
“Kev?” Cary rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand as he lowered the shotgun. His expression shifted suddenly and he re-gripped the shotgun and slowly raised it. He didn’t bring it to the shoulder, but at this range there was little chance he’d miss if he simply pulled the trigger.
“Whoa!” Kevin raised his hands. “I didn’t…I wasn’t…” He had no idea what to say. If Cary was still holding a grudge about what happened, he was well within his rights. Kevin would not draw his Colt. Realizing he still held an eighteen-inch blade in his hand, he dropped it and raised both hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Cary looked confused. “Did you help do this?” He gestured to all of the destruction readily apparent just about any place you looked.
“Huh?” Now it was Kevin’s turn to look confused. “You mean the attack on the survivors here in Heath? Hell no!”
“So you just happen to be running around the streets of town, no sign of Mike or Darrin, and very little in the way of weapons or protection?” Cary’s face went cold and blank. “Where are Mike and Darrin?”
“Mike’s close by and fine,” Kevin answered. “But Darrin’s dead. The same people who did this killed him. They also kidnapped a mother and her three daughters. We’re gonna get them back.”
“Ummm…” Cary lowered the shotgun. “Okay, you can tell me in a minute, we got company coming.”
A pack of zombies came around the corner a block away. They’d been following Kevin. Deciding it would be okay, Kevin picked up the cornstalk knife.
“Hop in!” Cary said and nodded to the cruiser. “We’ll lose these fucks and then you can fill me in.”
“Fill you in?” Kevin raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Oh,” Cary laughed, “you’re wondering what the hell I’m doing with a pulse.”
“Something like that.”
“I guess we both gots some ‘splainin’ to do,” Cary did his atrocious Ricky Ricardo impersonation.
The two climbed in the front of the Ohio State Patrol car. Cary took off in a squeal of tires. The vehicle fishtailed a bit, easily leaving the zombies in their dust.
***
Mike rounded the corner. He’d just pulled his hand-axe from the crown of one fairly “new” zombie. Most likely one of the survivors that Shaw and his men had hit yesterday. About fifteen feet away, the trailing end of a pack of several zombies were lurching and stumbling—fortunately away from him. Unfortunately, the police cruiser was tearing away from him as well, sliding around a corner and vanishing from sight.
“Damn!” Mike hissed before he could stop himself.
At first it was just one. A guy, no older than himself really, who’d had several small bites taken out of him. Yuck, Mike shuddered, children. All the man had on were a pair of stiff, stained boxer-briefs. His body was covered with at least a couple dozen bites that had to have come from children. That must’ve been doubly horrifying.
Then, a small woman stepped from behind the first one. At no taller than three feet—and Mike felt he was being generous—was a little woman. Not the little woman, but an honest-to-goodness Little Woman. As he backpedaled, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. She’d been Asian, and was still wearing the tattered remains of a set of vinyl thigh-high boots. They’d probably had spiked heels, but those were long gone.
“What fresh hell did you two come from?” Mike no longer cared if they heard him since more than half turned his way and were coming. He’d have to lead this group on a wild goose chase. Better to get them all at once.
“C’mon you pus-filled sons-of-bitches,” Mike taunted.
Looking around, he saw a few more of the things emerging from the shadows. Some crept or pulled themselves from under cars, trucks, or piles of garbage and debris. Most of those were even worse off than the horde coming his way now, having abandoned their pursuit of the fleeing car for the more readily available meat standing in the middle of the street. The latest arrivals were missing one leg, two, or the lower half of the torso. But come they did, some mewling, some moaning and hissing, and others…
A chorus of baby cries rose on the late afternoon breeze.
Considering his options, Mike drew a pair of steel-tipped, pommel-handled stakes he’d fashioned the first day they’d arrived at the farmhouse. He’d wanted a less precarious situation in which to put these things through a test…like on three or four. Oh well, he thought, beggars can’t be choosers. Looking for his best route, Mike drove a stake into the face of the nearest threat, a little surprised at how well the weapon actually worked.
Twisting, ducking, and dodging, Mike moved quickly, selectively attacking and clearing a path. He actually
began to laugh as he took down one hungry corpse after another. Nobody was barking orders, or nagging that he wasn’t “doing it right.” He was exhilarated by the sudden sense of freedom.
A teenaged boy-zombie stumbled into Mike’s path, arms outstretched, mouth open wide displaying dark rotting teeth and a black, swollen tongue. “Eat this!” he yelled as he drove one of his stakes into that open maw. Another, missing the left leg to mid-thigh where a jagged piece of bone jutted from the meaty stump, wrapped its gnarled hand around one of Mike’s ankles, Mike plunged the other stake into the top of its head. Withdrawing both, he slipped free from the last fringes of the growing crowd and ran.
Throwing his head back in a long laugh that echoed through the empty streets, Mike howled.
***
Heather pulled the bubbling cauldron out from the woodstove and set it on a rack she’d scrubbed and set on the counter. Next, she checked the large casserole dish. She wished she had some meat. She knew guys well enough to know that, for the most part, guys liked to sink their teeth into—
“Blech!” Heather shivered at the thought. Suddenly, the idea of not having meat didn’t seem so terrible.
Looking under the lid, she admired her work. It was ready. All she needed now were two hungry men to help her eat. She placed the big dish on a pad in the center of the table and took off the apron.
She hurried up the stairs. Hopefully she could get an idea where they were, or if they would be walking through the door soon. Also, she could better see if anything unpleasant was approaching. She was proud of herself in that department. She didn’t shriek or cower when she saw those hideous things anymore. Nope. Now she put a bullet in their head, or, if they were being careful not to draw attention, brought one of the big blades or pointy sticks into play.
There! She heard the low growl of a car engine. She searched frantically. She wasn’t too worried about a couple of zombies showing up at the moment while she was alone. No. She was far more afraid of the living. It hadn’t been a zombie that kept her tied up in the basement of her high school. It wasn’t a zombie that had done those terrible things to her. Or worse, made her watch as he did it to others. Others he had intentionally let get bitten.
Heather physically shook her head to clear her mind of the images threatening to intrude. Today was a day to put all that in a strong box and lock it away. This was the day that she would give herself rather than be taken.
She scanned the edge of the town below; the remains of Heath. Just as dead as most—if not all—of its inhabitants. Anything coming from there would have to cross a lot of open ground if they were headed for this house. And they’d have to come uphill. They would have to cross a two-lane road. So even if they crawled through the grass, brush, and overgrown weeds, they would not be able to hide when they crossed that road.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. Something was lurking in the shadows of one of the buildings. It had been Packy’s Feed and Seed before things went bad. Packy had been short for Packard, the family who’d owned that store since her grandma had been a little girl, and probably even before that.
There, something moved again. She checked the safety on the .30-06 that Kevin had showed her how to operate. She hadn’t actually fired it yet, but she knew how. He’d explained how it would kick. He’d also said, “Use it only if you are in worse-than-normal danger,” whatever that meant. It had a nice scope on it and had belonged to the people who lived in this house.
Bringing the rifle to her shoulder, Heather slowly scanned the area she thought she’d seen movement. What she saw brought her heart to her throat.
“No,” she managed a strangled cry.
***
“Just coast into that open lot.” Kevin pointed. “See that house up on the ridge over there?”
Cary scanned, “That two-story one that looks like the modern update to the place from Night of the Living Dead?”
“Exactly,” Kevin agreed.
Cary wrenched hard on the steering wheel. That was the big drawback to power-steering. Shut off the car and you needed to be Hercules. The only sound was the crunch of tires on gravel as they came to a gliding halt in the open lot Kevin had pointed out.
“We can always run back to this place and get the car if we need to,” Kevin said.
“I still don’t think I’ve got my head wrapped around Darrin,” Cary said as he put the car in park and looked over.
“Me either,” Kevin nodded solemnly, “but I’m not gonna let those assholes get away with it. Wait till you see what I’ve put together.”
“Actually, I’m a little more excited to see the look on Mike’s face.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said slowly, “about that…”
“You worried how he’ll react?”
“I told them that I put you down. Ended your suffering mercifully.”
“Not for nothin’, but I’m kinda glad you didn’t.” Cary managed a smile.
“But what about the fact that I just left you like that?”
“Alone? With a busted car? With a gun and one bullet?” Cary opened the door, grabbed his bag, and climbed out.
“Something like that.” Kevin followed, closing the passenger door, and looking across the roof at his longtime friend.
“You afraid he’ll be pissed at how you left me?” Cary asked. “Or, are you worried that the reputation you’ve tried so long to cultivate with us all these years of what a bad-ass you are will be ruined?”
“Cary—”
“Kevin,” Cary interrupted, “stop worrying. This isn’t the old world anymore. And it ain’t the movies either. Maybe there aren’t any heroes.”
“It’s not about being a fucking hero!” Kevin snapped. “It’s about the fact that I left you for dead. I left you to suffer. I left you with a choice: open the door and be torn apart, or eat a bullet!”
“And considering the situation and circumstances,” Cary drew a pair of three-foot shorts words, “I’d say you did the right thing.”
“I could’ve—”
“What?” Cary’s voice was sharp. “Waited for me to suffer, sicken, and turn. That wouldn’t have done anybody good, and every single one of us agreed that we didn’t want to turn if we were ever bitten.”
“You didn’t.”
“And there was no way you could know.”
They began walking. They had a half-dozen blocks to zig-zag through in order to reach the edge of town. Buildings now blocked all but the very top of the roof of the house that Kevin, Mike and Heather were using as a hideout. Both men took turns walking backwards, keeping eyes peeled for any signs that one of the undead might be following.
A large wooden building was their final obstacle. It occupied most of a square block between the building itself and the parking lot. Kevin’s eyes swept it. None of the windows remained intact. Large jagged holes seemed to glare out at them. It was shut, but showed signs of having been attacked with axes.
Picking up the pace to a jog, they reached the building and crept alongside it. “This is where it gets hairy,” Kevin whispered. “We get around this and it is open ground, a two-lane road, and a moderately steep hill up to the house.”
Cary nodded. They peeked around the corner, Kevin’s head just above Cary’s. Cary stepped out moving fast. All it would take is for one of those things to see them, follow, and lead every zombie in the area up to that house. There was a wooden ramp that led up to the front entrance of what he could now see was a feed store. The curb was only a few yards away and the open street loomed.
“Fuck!” Kevin yelped. The sound of a body hitting the ground, followed by a loud, sudden exhale followed.
Cary spun, instinctively ready to ward off an attack. Kevin was sprawled on the ground, his long-bladed knife a couple of feet from his outstretched hands. On his back crouched the twisted remains of a middle-aged woman. Her once blonde hair was black in patches from dried blood. Her fingers, the ones that remained, were full of handfuls of Kevin’s shirt. Her mouth was open wide and loo
ked cavernous with the loss of the entire lower lip and right cheek. One leg was bent at an unnatural ninety-degree angle just above where the knee might be. A few pieces of glass jutted from the top of its head.
Kevin was making no sound now. Cary could see his face, distorted in fear and pain, eyes bulging, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. The creature raised its head slightly then plunged down; it reminded Cary of a snake striking its victim. Kevin only grunted in response, but his eyes widened even more if that were possible. The zombies head jiggled slightly, then rose, a huge chunk of flannel shirt in its teeth.
Cary lunged, driving one of his blades, tip-first, through the thing’s left eye. Lifting and pushing simultaneously, he flipped the now deactivated body off his friend’s back. Kneeling, he rolled Kevin onto his back, away from the thing beside him.
“Dammit,” Cary hissed. “Where the fuck did that thing come from?”
One shaky arm pointed skyward.
***
Mike rounded the corner. He knew he’d heard the engine of that cruiser somewhere in this direction. It was sorta in a diagonal, away from the house, which made sense if they were trying to ensure not leading any of those things back to their little sanctuary.
He’d lost most of the things on his trail when he circled to the backside of the football field belonging to the high school. He’d scaled an eight-foot fence, making as much racket as possible. Then he ran across the field and veered back once he rounded the stadium bleachers. Finding a narrow turnstile, he climbed over and doubled back using back yards and closely spaced buildings to shield himself from view as much as possible.
There were still a couple lone roamers that he had to dispatch. He was really pleased thus far with the effectiveness of his steel-tipped spikes. The most recent victim lay just a little ways behind him in the rear of the tiny market he was sneaking along at the moment. Risking a look out into the main street leaving town, he was thrilled to see the highway patrol cruiser across the way in an open lot. Empty.
