by Brown, TW
Cans! He hurried inside. Looking back, he saw the children staring back. They were hesitant and scared. That was when he smelled it.
At almost the same moment, a strange howl came from somewhere behind one of the closed doors down the dark hallway that led off from the main entrance. Everybody already had weapons in hand, but a few of the kids were backing away.
“It’s okay,” Kevin whispered. “There are probably only one or two. I will go down and deal with them. You guys get this stuff outside and start loading it into the trailers. Don’t worry about what goes where for now…we will sort everything out once we get back to the rally point.”
“Don’t go in there,” one of the kids pleaded.
“It’s no big deal,” Kevin said dismissively. “You guys act like you have never seen a zombie before.”
He could not believe that these same kids who had been ready to turn him into a human pin cushion were suddenly so scared.
“That doesn’t sound like a zombie,” one of the kids whispered.
The sound came again. It sounded like a mix of a howl and a wet sort of growling. He cocked his head and listened carefully. The sounds came once more, and this time there was obviously more than one of whatever the hell was making that noise.
“You guys just get the food. I’ll go check it out.” Kevin headed down the hallway, not bothering to see if his group did as they were told.
The noise continued, but when he stepped on a loose floorboard and a high squeak pierced the air, it stopped instantly. A second later there was a terrible crash from behind the second door on the left.
As he moved down the hallway, he could smell something foul, like rot and ammonia swirled together. It was bad enough that it made him gag and his eyes started to water. He pulled his shirt up over his nose, but it did little to block the pungent stench from invading his olfactory sense.
He reached the door and listened. He thought he heard a scuttling sound, but his own heart was suddenly beating louder than any ambient noise…or at least that is how it seemed. He looked back up the hallway. The children were clustered close; none of them had yet started to pack out the boxes of supplies that the residence’s former owners had so generously left for them.
Taking one more deep breath and bringing his machete up and ready to swing, Kevin threw the door open and jumped back. More than a dozen feral cats bolted from the room, bringing with them a stink so thick that it caused his eyes to physically burn. As one, the children all shrieked and bolted for the front door.
Kevin looked in the room and discovered that it had basically become a nest. Animal carcasses were strewn about, along with…Kevin felt his gorge rise. The room was littered with random body parts. A hand here, a foot there…and was that an entire head stripped almost clean down to the skull?
Kevin staggered back down the hall. He made it three steps when a yowl and hiss caused him to jump back. One of the cats was apparently not afraid of this sudden intrusion and was prepared to do battle. The feline crouched low and sprung, its claws seeking purchase in the protective welder’s leathers that he wore over his jeans. On reflex, Kevin went to bat the animal away and it latched onto his gloves. The mesh inside was effective at repelling human teeth, but did little to stop the needle-like fangs of the angry cat.
Kevin yelped in pain and slung his arm, slamming the cat attached to his fingers hard against the wall. This did little more than cause the creature to bite down harder. Kevin slammed it again and fumbled for one of the knives at his belt.
Seeming to be able to sense the coming attack, the cat let go and darted away. The shouts of surprise from the children let him know it had exited the house. Seconds later, several of the children shrieked again. Kevin rounded the corner and stared out the front door. Just in the narrow field of vision that he had of the outside, at least a dozen walkers were in view as well as creepers that were emerging from under some of the defunct vehicles that littered the street.
“Don’t wait for them to get up on us!” Kevin barked. “Take them down…closest first and work your way out.”
As Kevin stepped outside, he quickly discovered that the problem was not too serious. At most, forty undead were converging on them. He had a private interior chuckle at that thought before planting his machete in the crown of the closest zombie.
He was scanning the undead as they were killed, searching for any signs that they may either be relatively fresh or having a recent meal…or whatever it was when zombies ate people. These were all old and ragged. Many had missing digits, multiple signs of having been shot, stabbed, or hacked at, and their clothing was almost non-existent.
“There’s something old George missed,” Kevin sighed as he plunged his knife into the temple of a nude woman that had probably been in her twenties, but now looked well over fifty the way her skin was all sagging and loose, thinking back to what now felt like a ridiculous obsession with all things zombie related.
It only took a few minutes and all the zombies had been put down. Kevin noticed with just a bit of unease that cats peered at them from all around. Some perched on cars, others under shrubs, and the more brazen, right out in the middle of the street. They showed no fear, just apparent annoyance at having been disturbed.
By the time they had the supplies loaded up, several of the cats were lurking about the downed corpses. Wiping the sweat from his face, Kevin looked to the sky and scowled. It was cloudy, and he had not remembered it being so hot. He shook it off as his body’s response to the cats and then the quick battle with the undead. While they were just not as frightening as they had been early on, he couldn’t deny that it did not get his heart racing just a bit when he had to deal with them.
They continued their trek up the street, stopping at each house. From what he was seeing, he figured that the first houses had probably been looted. However, nobody had wanted to venture much further into a neighborhood area in those first months. House after house now yielded random but plentiful bounties. Of course they were picking through the items that the former residents had left behind when they evacuated. Still, they were finding a hefty amount of non-perishables, as well as cleaning supplies, medicines like aspirin and AB ointments with plenty of soaps, shampoos, and dental products for added measure.
Having been reduced to simply scrubbing at his mouth with a finger and then rinsing his mouth with whatever poor substitute they were using for coffee when they even had the luxury of a substitute, Kevin was most excited about toothpaste. He’d even found a few toothbrushes still in their packages!
By the time they turned and began the journey back up the street, he was beginning to feel a bit queasy. He kept feeling hot flashes ripple through him, and he was sweating profusely.
A thought hit him like a punch in the gut. His eyes drifted up the street. He could make out the occasional tail of a cat swishing amidst the freshly killed zombies that littered the street where they’d done battle. An image flickered in his brain of what he’d seen in that room.
He knew that dogs turned…but it seemed that cats were not affected. Yet, there were plenty of cases where a species might not actually show signs of a disease…but they could carry it.
The reality of it caused Kevin to stagger. His legs betrayed him and he lost control of his bicycle. With a crash, he careened off of a car and ended up sprawled on the road. Rolling over onto his back, Kevin looked skyward. It was an unremarkable day. There were a few clouds scudding across a pale blue sky.
It’s not fair, Kevin thought. After everything he’d been through…to go out like this. It just seemed so wrong.
“A cat…a fucking cat,” Kevin muttered.
A shadow drifted across his face. He looked up to see a circle of children staring down at him. Their expressions were a mixture and varied from concern to amusement. A couple of the boys were actually chuckling.
“Need help, old man?” one of the boys said with a smirk. “That bike kick your ass?”
“Stay back,” Kevin man
aged as he slowly sat up and looked around. He felt a spot on his head that really hurt and came away with a hand slicked with blood.
“Holy crap!” the smirking boy exclaimed, jumping back with all signs of hilarity wiped away.
Kevin closed his eyes. He didn’t want the children any more frightened than they already were, and judging by the gasps from the group as well as the one young man’s reaction, his eyes had obviously already made the change and were probably shot with the black tracers that mark infection.
“We need to get you to the rally point,” one of the children suggested.
“I don’t want the others to see me like this,” Kevin said. For some reason, he was embarrassed about turning.
At last, he was seeing the truth of his words. If this had been a movie, he had to at least be a semi-heroic figure. And here he was, about to die and become a freaking zombie because of a stupid cat. He’d always hated cats. They never came to you unless they wanted something…sort of like the pretty girls in school. He was invisible until they started failing classes; then, all of a sudden, he was their friend. At least with a dog you felt like it mattered if you came home or not at the end of the day.
His mind drifted back to the days when he would come home from school and that family lab, Bailey, would be waiting on the porch. It was like she knew what time it was and knew that her pet human needed to see that doggy smile and wagging tail after a rough day of being hit with spit balls and digging out the daily wedgie.
“But you’re bleeding,” a girl’s voice cut through his pleasant memory. “You said that we should get any open wounds cleaned up right away so we don’t get infected.”
“Not much point in cleaning me up now, is there?” Kevin snapped a little harsher than he intended.
“Why not…didn’t you say that an infection could kill us these days?” the girl pressed.
“Yes, but if I am already going to die—” Kevin began, but the children all started to talk at once, cutting him off with a variety of exclamations and questions about why he was dying.
He opened his eyes and looked around at the children gathered close. A few were on their knees right in front of him, including a little girl with skin the color of caramel and eyes that were a dazzling green. Her hair was “corn row” braided, she had a stud in her left nostril, and a poorly done tattoo on her neck; “13” was etched in thick, dark script.
“Why would you die? You just fell and bumped your head. Head wounds always bleed the worst. They look bad, but usually they ain’t nothing but a scratch…prob’ly don’t even need stitches or nothing.” This was the same girl that had been talking to him when his eyes were closed.
Kevin gave her a glare, but she just stared back at him with almost no expression. He pointed to his eyes, widening them for effect.
“You get something in your eye?” she asked.
“Can’t you see?” Kevin asked, not bothering to hide the exasperation. How would these children survive if they didn’t even know the giveaway signs of a person about to turn?
The girl glanced over her shoulder at the other children gathered around. She must have made some sort of face that was obviously supposed to be read as a question. The others looked over her and at Kevin, then back to her, shrugging their shoulders.
“You gonna have to tell us, ‘cause we don’t see nothing.” The girl mimicked the shrugs the others had already given as their answer.
“You don’t see the dark tracers in my eyes?”
All of the kids scrambled back and away; all except for the girl who continued to kneel in front of Kevin, peering at him with what now looked like concern. Only, it did not look like the sort of concern that you would show a person who was about to die and become a zombie; this was the sort of concern when you thought somebody might have hit their head a little too hard.
“Nuh-uh, no tracers. You have pretty eyes, though. They look friendly. Maybe that is why we didn’t kill you back at the graveyard.”
Kevin scowled. Perhaps he’d been wrong. But then why did he feel so sick? Unless…could he possibly be immune? Or maybe the cats can’t actually spread the virus. These were questions that he had no answers to, and considering that there would not be any labs running tests any more, he would never know. The only way to be sure if he was immune would be to suffer a bite from an actual zombie. He was not too keen on that idea. The other way to test his theory would be to have somebody bitten by one of those nasty felines. He didn’t think there would be a long line of volunteers for that assignment either.
As he staggered to his feet, doing his best not to swoon, Kevin saw a truck up on a nearby curb and made his way to it. He yanked the side mirror around and wiped at the grimy surface until he could see his reflection.
“See? No squiggles,” the girl said from right beside him. He hadn’t recalled her following him.
“What’s your name? I don’t think I was ever told.” Kevin turned and leaned against the truck, sliding down to his butt and sitting on the road with his legs splayed out in front of him.
“That’s ‘cause you never asked,” the girl said with a shrug. “It’s Rose.”
“Nice to meet you, Rose.”
Kevin closed his eyes again. If he left them open, he would be sick. It was as if he could feel the Earth’s rotation. Everything was spinning and he was starting to get the chills, but considering how bad he was sweating, he figured that he must have a hell of a fever.
“Your face is turning bright red,” Rose said with as much casualness in her voice as if she were telling him it was Thursday.
“I don’t feel so good.”
Kevin felt something twist in his gut. It felt as if there might be something alive inside him and that it was trying to rip its way out. He bit back the pain as long as he could. Eventually it became too much.
Kevin screamed, long and loud. Then…he collapsed.
***
Aleah was standing at the intersection of ‘S Avenue B’ and ‘E 111th St’ when she heard the scream. They had already heard one bit of commotion from the direction of Kevin’s group. She had hurried outside and hoped to hear any indication that things were either fine, or required her and her group to rush over and offer help.
When several minutes went by and not another peep was heard, she had gone back to work. Her group had almost filled every single trailer cart. It had been an amazing haul so far. Even better, there had been very little in the way of zombies. In two of the houses, they’d actually spotted zombies in the windows and simply skipped over them. No sense in taking an unnecessary risk, she had reasoned.
When they reached the intersection and were set to turn around, she had actually made visual contact with Heather who was a block over, and given an enthusiastic wave. They had managed to grab so much stuff that she was almost hesitant to go inside any of the houses on the opposite side of the street.
She had just made up her mind that they would take a pass and just get to the rally point when she heard Kevin scream.
She knew instantly that it was him. Turning to the kids, she told them to head to the rally point and stay there until the others arrived. She did not wait for a reply and sprinted over to the next block.
When she rounded the corner, she had one of those moments like in a nightmare or a horror movie. Her vision seemed to zoom in up the street. She could see Kevin perfectly, and then, it snapped back and she felt like she was a million miles away. Taking off at a dead run, she was almost to him when she could see his face was bright red as if he were terribly sunburnt.
What’s with all the cats? she wondered as she skidded to a halt and dropped down beside him next to a young, golden brown-skinned girl who was holding his head in her lap.
“Did he get bit?” Aleah asked the girl.
“By a cat,” Rose said, nodding to where several of the animals sat in a large semi-circle around them, staring and swishing their tails.
She checked Kevin’s pulse. It was still there, but seemed to be
racing like that of a hummingbird. Looking around, she saw one of the bicycle trailers that might suit her needs. She went to it and emptied the contents onto the street. With the help of a few of the kids, they got Kevin loaded up and headed back to the rally point.
There was a partially collapsed building set way back in the park. They followed ‘S Avenue B’ which, according to the map Kevin had marked up when dividing the neighborhood for scavenging, ran in almost a horseshoe shape around the open field of this now heavily overgrown park.
They reached the building, and Aleah sent a few of the kids back to the rally point to inform the others where to meet. With the girl’s help—she had given her name as Rose—Aleah got Kevin bundled in some of the blankets to hopefully ease his shivering. She continued to attend to Kevin as everybody returned. She did not know how everybody else did on their search for supplies, but she was cognizant enough to know that nobody had been lost…so far.
For three days, they stayed while Kevin drifted in and out of semi-consciousness. Aleah had not left his side, constantly peeling back his eyelids to look for the telltale tracers. Twice, she’d had a scare when it seemed like he stopped breathing. Each time, she felt her hand tighten on the hilt of the blade she wore on her left hip.
At last, his fever broke.
Two days later, he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“I hate cats,” was all Kevin said, and then, drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
Darkness Before Dawn
(Book 8 of the DEAD series)
TW Brown
Portland, Oregon, USA
A word about reviews, zombie children, and cliffhangers…
Let’s not mince words or waste any time. If you have been with this series from book one, then you are probably familiar with the format. Much like Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, the middle book of every three-book arc is riddled with cliffhangers. That is just the way things work out in the DEAD series. So, yes, be prepared to still be on the edge of your seat when you reach the final page in every storyline in this book.
