Akhira took up the rear, his wide-set, narrow eyes on high alert. I hadn’t really taken much time to get to know him—a language barrier could do that—but I felt like I should. He seemed…wise somehow. Otherworldly. Of course, that could be because he didn’t really speak English and he was from another country.
Jamie and Alexa were in front of him. Alexa hadn’t fought any of us about leaving. Maybe being in the monitor room was a reminder of Trent and she wanted to be as far away from him as possible. It made me wonder what the others had done to him. Was he dead? Did they kill him? Part of me hoped they had, but the other part of me hoped they hadn’t, because we should have been looking out for one another, preserving our humanity. And once the first human blood was spilled, surely we would never be the same again.
Yet I knew, if I were honest with myself, that the hope that Trent was dead outweighed the hope that he wasn’t. Because there was nothing in him that was humane or decent.
Leon walked next to Rose, though I sensed the camaraderie between them had cooled for some reason. I didn’t know why. Barrett was off to the side of our huddled string, one hand on the strap of his backpack, the other casually half-stuffed into his pocket. I wanted to be him in that moment, totally at ease with the prospect that the world had ended, and we were all going to die some brutal, horrible death—chewed on, marrow suckled, brains gnawed at like undercooked meatloaf.
My stomach rumbled in response.
I pressed my hand to my stomach, urging the meager contents within to chill out and not find their way back up my throat. Though if I were being honest with myself, it wasn’t sickness that made me clutch at my stomach like I was carrying an unborn child, but hunger. I must have looked sickly though, because Barrett moved toward me, becoming part of the group and my own walking buddy.
“You look sicker than my Aunt Mac riding a filly. She never could tame a beast.” He went to take the backpack off his shoulder. “Got something that might help.”
“I don’t want your drugs,” I stammered out, fighting the wave of nausea and hunger that came over me. I wasn’t going to throw up. No way. Not in front of him while we tried to stealthily escape the terminal that was going to be our tomb if we weren’t cautious.
“It’s Dramamine.” Barrett shook a little bottle in front of my face.
“Oh…” I trailed off, reaching up and grasping the amber vial between two fingers. “Thanks.”
“You all got trust issues, you know that? Guy offers you anti-nausea medicine and you act like he’s giving you cyanide.” Barrett kept his satchel off, waiting for the return of the pills.
“I generally don’t trust people I meet in a jail cell who smuggle drugs and treat everything like it’s a game.” I said the words as my heart pitter-pattered in my chest. I knew it was racing because of the situation we were in and not because I was talking to Barrett or that I was pretty sure I had a zombie virus racing through my veins. Keeping telling yourself that, my psyche mocked. “I don’t get you,” I said.
“Oh, my story’s just like everyone else’s: bad childhood, wrong kind of friends, love of money.” He said it with such reckless abandon that I knew he was lying.
“So I can add liar to the list of reasons why I should dislike you?” I quipped, trying to walk faster than him and leave him behind. He, of course, kept up like it was nothing. It shouldn’t have sent a thrill through me—to have his large, sun-browned body keeping stride—but it did. I wanted to see what his large body looked like without the clothes. I wanted to wrap his braid around my hand and pull on it as he… His voice interrupted my thoughts, though it didn’t stop the heat creeping up my cheeks.
“Oh, I’ll be a liar for you in time. I’ll lie in bed with you, lie to your folks about us, and I’ll lie when you choose white for your wedding day.” His words snaked into me, almost like a physical caress.
“You…just…” I stammered, and his self-satisfied grin made me even more a bumbling idiot.
Then his hand was shooting across my body, making me stop in my tracks. He’d seen something I hadn’t. Something no one else had seen either.
Chapter seven.
Rose
“Abunai,” Akhira whispered from behind.
I turned, catching his troubled gaze in mine as our group came to a stop while we ducked into a narrow passageway. At the end was a staff entrance, and Karla tried her pass on the lock but nothing happened.
“What is it, Akhira?”
“Abunai,” he whispered again, giving a firm nod of his head. “Ki o tsukete!”
“It’s not working!” Karla’s frantic words interrupted Akhira as she tried the lock again and again, only to be met with silence.
“It’s all right, buddy. We’re all scared,” Leon replied in his own hushed voice as he tapped Akhira on the shoulder.
I looked over at Leon in surprise. “What did he say?”
He shrugged. “No idea. Come on.” He turned and almost walked right into the back of Barrett and Sam.
Barrett was a big guy, his huge body practically filling the narrow passageway so that no one could see past him. It didn’t matter though—the smell of decomposing bodies and the sickly stench of blood was enough to let us know that we’d just arrived at hell’s gates.
Nolan looked back, his gaze sweeping over us as he lifted a finger to his lips. He took a step backwards and we all followed suit, ducking back as silently as possible into the shadows of the passageway at the sound of the undead army so close.
Decomposing bodies, once human and now forever changed into flesh-hungry monsters with holes through their skulls, lay at our feet, their silent gazes staring into the abyss.
Nolan reached down and pulled the knife from his waistband before slamming it into the stomach of one of the bodies—an older man with tufts of graying hair who’d probably been on his way to his grandchildren at one time. Nolan reached in and grabbed a handful of the vile guts and blood and began to smear it over his cheeks and arms. “Don’t get it in your mouth and eyes,” he whispered, almost so low I couldn’t hear him.
I silently retched as Nolan turned from man to monster before my eyes.
What the bloody hell was he doing?
Leon knelt down and did the same thing to another body, and from the other end of our sorry line, the sound of flesh tearing open and guts slopping out could be heard as we all transformed into the thing we feared the most.
Leon nudged my arm and I shook my head at him, glaring out my disgust at this plan. Leon rolled his eyes and leaned in really close to my ear.
“I’m guessing he’s done this before, so come on,” he whispered.
I gagged as I rubbed the gore over myself, the smell worse than anything I had ever smelt before, the feel of death clinging to every pore and burying itself into every crevice. I smeared it around my eyes and forehead, around my mouth, taking extra care not to let any get past my lips, and then, with trembling legs, I stood back up. Dripping in nightmares and gore.
I looked across at everyone, at the people I had started to get to know the past few days but now barely recognized. Each one of us looked panicked and horror-filled, our eyes wide and made to look even wider against the red of death streaked across our skin. We looked like a perverse, demonic version of the band KISS. Only no one had painted a bloody star around their eye.
The smell was intense and horrifying. I thought maybe I’d get used to it, but there was no way, no way in hell, I’d get used to that smell. My mouth filled with water, the urge to purge my stomach’s contents strong.
The first set of feet began to pass by us and we each took a further step away, pressing our backs against the wall behind us. There had been a store just before this, and I wanted to kick myself for not hiding in there. But it was too late.
My heart raced as the undead army marched past us, oblivious to their next meal being less than twenty feet away from them. A couple of them looked our way as they stumbled past one another, their shoulders bumping against
each other as they pressed forwards, but none of them seemed to take much notice of us.
None of us moved, our terrified gazes frozen on the abominations that rumbled past us in their slow yet steady assault. Alexa had her face buried in her father’s chest, her shoulders shaking, and Sam was tucked into Barrett’s side like he was her own personal bodyguard. I looked back at Nolan, seeing him staring at me, his dark brown eyes pulling me in and calming me as I struggled to catch my breath.
He nodded imperceptibly and I nodded back.
Leon’s fingers fumbled for mine, holding my hand tightly in his grip as he sucked in a sharp breath. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to calm himself or me, but it wasn’t working. I wanted to shake him off and run away from that place, from that never-ending nightmare. But I was frozen, trapped in Nolan’s gaze, letting his warm eyes keep me from completely freaking out. His strength was calming, exuding a promise to me that he would keep us all alive. It made hand-holding with Leon feel forced and unnatural. And I had to admit to myself that maybe Nolan, with all his chauvinism and stubbornness, was growing on me. I always did have a thing for arseholes.
The bodies passing by were never-ending, a nonstop train of the dead shambling past our location. And my heart raced, my knees almost buckling under the thought that any minute now they would smell us. They would see us. And god, we would all become one of them.
If it were possible, Nolan’s intense gaze grew deeper, his nostrils flaring as if he could sense my panic building and building and knew that at any moment I was going to overflow.
Leon’s grip tightened on my hand, but I barely felt it.
The only thing I felt at that moment was Nolan and his calming presence.
He nodded at me again, slowly and with the self-assurance of an arrogant man, yet a man that I believed would keep me safe. I nodded back and gritted my teeth as my trembling threaded its way through my body until my knees were practically knocking together.
The sound of slow footsteps began to dissipate until it finally disappeared.
“That was close,” Leon mumbled.
I finally tore my gaze from Nolan’s and glanced towards the entrance to the passageway. The dead continued to walk past, but the crowd thinned more and more, their shambling onslaught moving further into the terminal and away from the doorway we needed to go through.
We waited for several more minutes until only the stragglers remained, and then Nolan started forwards, his bloodied knife raised as he led the group. Barrett followed behind, with Sam directly behind him. Then Jamie pulled Alexa’s face from his chest and tugged on her hand, and I was next, my feet practically glued to the floor and my knees locked in place. I pulled my hand free of Leon’s and tightened my grip on my knife. It gave me the strength to move my body. Karla and Akhira were last.
Nolan stopped at the corner and looked out for a quick second before glancing back in at us. He had the good sense to hold up four fingers and nod at Barrett, who finally looked like he was taking the threat seriously and had a deep scowl etched on his hard face. He moved away from Sam, and I could tell she panicked as the distance grew. After a split second she also started moving, following her newfound protector.
Nolan led the group out of the passageway first, his knife slamming into the first zombie’s forehead at such a rapid speed I barely registered what had happened. He lowered its body to the ground as another lunged at him, and he staggered as its weight hit him, sending him off balance. He wrestled with it as its bloodied jaws snapped at his face.
“Go,” he grunted out.
Barrett wasted no time as he took the lead instead, shifting the group forwards quickly. He took out another two zombies as he went. There was a practiced edge to his attacks that spoke of a history of violence. I found that both reassuring and frightening. Sam, Jamie, and Alexa followed immediately down the path Barrett was clearing. Karla was sidestepping the bodies on the ground, her face horrified. Leon tried to pull me with him but I shrugged out of his grip, giving him a glare of anger until his own gaze turned cold and he followed Barrett, leaving me behind.
“I said go,” Nolan snapped as he tried to hold off the zombie.
I ignored his misplaced anger and moved to him quickly. I shifted to stand behind the zombie, my arms shaking and my breathing coming hard and fast as I raised my knife, and without a second thought I slammed it through the back of its head with so much force that the blade punched though the other side and the tip almost pierced Nolan’s cheek.
He gasped as the zombie let out a deathly exhale in his face and I dragged my blade back out, the serrated edges of it grabbing at bits of bone and skull and forcing me to tug it free with both hands.
Nolan let the body fall to the ground and then he looked me over once. “Thanks.”
He grabbed my hand and together we ran towards the rest of our group. They’d gone on, leaving a bloody trail of bodies in their wake, and it was easy enough to catch up to them now that no zombies were in our way. Sam was turned, staring at me with huge eyes, as if she hadn’t realized I’d stayed behind to help Nolan. She looked paler—paler than ever with the blood across her skin—and I hoped it was only for fear of my safety that had her appearing so ghostly. I nodded at her to tell her I was okay…even though that was a huge fucking lie. I’d never be okay again.
We were all moving now. Stragglers were trailing after us, their throaty growls echoing through the terminal as we all ran towards the car rental place. Karla directed us left, past some forgotten baggage claim booths and past a bloody mess of bodies on the ground, their stomachs now empty cavities as if rats had gnawed away at their insides.
I gagged and looked away, focusing on the feel of Nolan’s rough hand in mine and the sound of my breath coming sharp and fast out of my lungs.
“This way,” Karla panted as she pushed on a set of double doors helpfully labeled “Exit.”
The Los Angeles air hit me, a mixture of heat and decay washing my features dry and making me sweat more as we exited into an underground garage. Karla pointed to the car rental booth in the distance and we started to flat-out run towards it, our footsteps now loud out in the open.
Zombies passed between the parked vehicles, and they slowly started to make their way over to us as we dodged and ducked to get to the rental booth as quickly as possible.
Up ahead we could see the booth, so close now we could almost touch it. And I wanted to cheer and cry at the same time until a rotten face moved to the window and the zombie trapped inside saw us and started to growl in hungry insistence.
“Daddy,” Alexa sobbed as more zombies caught on to us, our sweat washing away the sickly scent of death that we had rubbed all over ourselves for camouflage. Her wide eyes looked around us, bugging out as a gruesome-looking zombie with only half a face shambled between the cars towards her—arms outreached, bony jaws snapping as it let out an inhuman noise that chilled me to my core.
Jamie pushed his daughter behind him in one swift movement. He raised his gun and fired at the zombie as Nolan yelled out not to. But it was too late. The shot fired out and the sound reverberated around the parking lot. And then every zombie in there turned and started to stagger towards us.
“Fuck, man,” Leon called out, dragging a hand through his now sweat-sodden hair. “Fuck!”
We’d come to a standstill.
Zombies were surrounding us, getting ever closer. My heart raged in my chest, a sickly feeling growing as my heavy muscles shook. We dodged around a car as two zombies got closer, pushing Alexa and Jamie out from our circle to hide around the back of a different car. More were coming closer with every passing second. Alexa sobbed openly, her tears beckoning the zombies towards them.
A call into the wild that dinner was served.
A chorus of groans and growls broke out as they shambled forwards and Akhira broke free from our group to start hacking and slicing away at the ones that were getting too close.
“We have to move,” I gasped out. “We have
to keep moving, go!”
I hardly recognized my own voice.
“We can’t leave them,” Sam cried out to me, her stare horror-filled. “We have to stay together!”
“Go, we’ll catch up,” Jamie yelled back, firing his gun again and taking out another zombie that got too close to him and Alexa. “Just go, all of you!”
He turned and grabbed Alexa’s hand and started to drag her in another direction, their way to us now blocked by too many zombies to count. The decision was made, and our group started forwards again, taking out zombies that got too close.
“No, we have to stay together,” I heard Sam whimper behind me, though she was moving as fast as the rest of us away from danger, and away from the father and daughter who were now on their own.
Our new, smaller group reached the door of the rental booth and Barrett tried the handle, finding it locked. It seemed almost like a comedy sketch as he wrenched on the handle twice and tore the door open, pulling it from its hinges.
The zombie inside immediately dove out and Barrett slammed the door—which was still in his grip—into it, knocking it to the ground. It reached up, trying to clumsily get back to its feet as Barrett drove his knife through its skull, finally putting it out of its eternal misery. I couldn’t imagine its fate had we not come along—rotting forever in a metal-and-glass box. I shuddered.
“Keys, now!” he barked at Karla.
“Yes, sir,” she replied without hesitation, and pushed her way to the front before going inside the small booth.
“What now?” Leon asked as Akhira moved farther away from our group, taking out zombie after zombie. I wish I knew what he’d said back in the terminal. I wish I knew so many damn things.
Red Eye | Season 1 | Episode 3 Page 7
