I stay in front of the window for what seems like hours. The creature is now ambling around the patio, although I know he’s just waiting for me to come back out. When I look at the creature now, I can’t help but think of vampires or zombies or those fake monsters you’ll see at the costume stores with the cheap masks and unsightly fake teeth. Monsters you’re supposed to be afraid of when you’re small and laugh at when you’re grown up. Funny how things are scarier when they’re right in front of you.
I can still smell the plastic smoke from the fire in the not-so-far-off distance, but the dark fumes have cleared some, and I’m almost positive now it’s the dorms that are burning. And still no sign of a firetruck, or a police car for that matter.
As I look back down at the concrete patio, a cottontail scampers out from the grassy area where the creature had been lying down and then pauses to sniff around, and for a moment the creature takes no notice. Then, as the rabbit begins to saunter east of the building, the creature throws its head to the side and utters a gurgled, choking sound, and launches itself in the direction of the rabbit. Before the cottontail can reach the cover of an overstuffed trash can, the creature has it in its jaws. As I watch in horror, I can see through the gaping holes in the creature’s cheeks the rabbit get torn apart, crushed, and swallowed. I shudder and turn away, remembering how close the creature came to catching me.
When I summon up enough courage to look back again at the creature, I hear more echoed chokes and gurgles, and see that two more of them—also wearing tattered clothes—are stumbling down the hill to the south side of the building. When they reach the creature at the bottom, they begin to shuffle around, their heads rolling back like their eyes.
They must be able to see, I say to myself, but what about hearing? Did the other two hear the rabbit get caught and eaten? I cock my head to the side and purse my lips together. I can’t stay here. And I might die if I leave. I decide to move to a window on the opposite side of the second floor, one with a view of Las Lomas Road, a street that cuts across the northwestern part of campus.
The street has several cars parked alongside it, and I see no movement—at least, not yet, and I can’t quite see Buena Vista Drive from here.
My Papá showed me a while back how to hotwire a car. He had never stolen one in his life, but he grew up with plenty of people who had. I’d asked him jokingly if he was trying to nudge me on a certain career path, and after he’d laughed, he quickly became serious, and then with that Chicano accent told me that if I found myself in trouble one day, it might save my life. I doubted it. Fuck, I thought he might’ve been crazy.
“Might come in handy for the apocalypse, right, Papá?” I mutter to myself. Then, in the butchered voice of my Papá, I come back with “Sí mijo, and you wi’ remember me when it happens.”
I was beginning to doubt I would hear from them again, my family. I felt as though I should’ve been more upset. You’re never really sad, though, unless you witness pain in some way yourself. Maybe you see it, or somebody you trust tells you, but unless you’ve seen it first hand, the heart will always cling on to hope, even if the brain doesn’t.
There’s a gray Subaru parked in the parking lot of Sigma Chi—one of those school fraternities, and in my opinion the place you go to sell your health for “friends”—and although I’m not certain of the year, I figure it’s my best bet. Trouble is getting there without causing too much attention.
With my things, I hurry down the stairs to the exit on the north side of Dane Smith. I know that once it’s been shut behind me, I’ll be locked out of the building—and that I’ll be no different from the cottontail.
My right arm quivers as I inch the door open, and I’m ready to close it at a moment’s notice. The horrid gurgling noises never come, though, and instead I hear the gentle coo of a white-wing dove come from an aspen only a few feet away.
When I was growing up, we had an enormous tree in the front yard, a mulberry, and the doves—mourning doves usually—would use it to build nests and raise their young. The doves might’ve been good parents, but they were lousy builders; their fragile and crudely constructed nests meant that their offspring would often fall to the ground before they could fly. Papá and Mamá would let me hold the birds, and then Papá would lift me up and let me place them back safely on one of the low branches of the tree. No, they wouldn’t be back in the nest, but maybe that was better. The parents would still feed them, and even on a lower branch, they were usually safe from the neighborhood cats.
I step through the door and guide it as it closes, careful to make little noise. The street is still empty, and the brutal rays of the afternoon sun beat down on the pavement. My stomach growls and scratches against my insides, and I feel that each hollow roar might bring the creatures to the street, and this time maybe a horde of them. That couldn’t be impossible, could it? If that’s what has happened to everyone. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe something like that.
As I’m edging my way to the Subaru, I’m hoping that it might be unlocked, or that one of the windows might be rolled down enough for me to fit my hand through and unlock it. In the Sigma Chi lot I don’t see any other old cars, and to start the engine on those, I’d have to do a whole lot more than strike a couple of wires together. With all the additional security in place—most of which is digital—I doubt most car thieves even know how to hotwire anymore anyway.
I test the doors—locked, all of them, and the windows are rolled up. I crouch alongside the car and glance around, assessing my options. I could break into it, which would make a lot of noise, or I could go look for another one—along the side streets near Central or University, or maybe somewhere else around campus. I could also try and get into another building, but who knows what might be lurking inside, and Dane Smith is probably the best option in the immediate area anyway, considering the lookout points on the second and third floors.
The Sigma Chi lot is unpaved, full of ordinary rocks about the size of my palms. I pick up the nearest rock and weigh it in my hand, sizing it up, and then look inside the car underneath the steering wheel. I know I can get this one started in maybe ninety seconds, a minute if I’m lucky. Smashing the car window, though? That would wake up the whole fucking neighborhood.
I don’t have much of a choice. And once I’m in the front seat with the door closed they can’t get me—at least, that’s what I’m hoping.
I stretch my arm back, ready to slam the rock into the window, and just as I’m about to throw my arm forward, I hear the grinding lurch of tires against the pavement. A black truck nearly flips over as it swings onto Las Lomas, and it’s speeding in my direction, picking up as much momentum as it can.
And following the truck, only a few yards behind, is a flurry of limbs flailing around, propelling a mob of people. But those aren’t people. I recognize the way they are moving, and then in my mind, I see the face of the diseased man, the creature, our noses a few inches apart and separated by the thick glass of the doors.
My arm comes crashing down onto the window, and the thump of the impact is followed by hundreds of shrill, delicate clinks of glass hitting the sandy concrete. The glass has only cut me slightly in a few places on my right arm, but I ignore the bright red lines and immediately search for the lock on the door. When I find it and slide the locking bolt up, I jump back, and my entire body coils and constricts. The car alarm has gone off.
And in the seconds that follow, the neighborhood comes alive.
Amid the deafening, honking of the alarm, I hear the wails and uncouth moans of the creatures, and there are many of them, coming from all directions. I look back at the pickup that’s barreling my way. It’s only a few seconds from me now, but I still can’t see the driver through the tinted windows. As the truck is about to pass me, it screeches to a halt, and with the side window already rolled down, the man in the front seat gestures frantically for me to get in. I glance behind the truck and see that the creatures are close behind, but from the c
orners of Dane Smith, I see more coming, some crawling, other leaping and wobbling in our direction. I sprint to the truck, and before I reach it, the driver shoves the door open.
“Now!” he yells, glancing back through the rear windshield.
I land on my knees in the front seat, and as I’m attempting to slam the car door shut, a sinewy, blistered hand wedges itself between the car and the door. The force of the door nearly takes the hand off, but the driver hardly waits for that to happen before flooring the gas pedal. He takes one look at the hand and yells at me.
“Fucking close it!”
I open the door again, and as I do, I trace the maimed hand to a long, female creature. Her head is strained backward, and a nasal, sibilant scream echoes from her bright red throat, and she’s desperately hanging onto the side of the truck. I see other creatures wriggling alongside her, ignoring her cries of agony and instead focusing on finding a way to us.
Avoiding the savage and desperate glare of the female creature, I slam the door again, this time taking her hand clean off. The blood sprays onto my arm, and I see her body, along with her severed hand, fall back into the flurry of arms and legs, tripping a few of the creatures as it flies behind the truck. Panting, I turn around and look through the rear windshield. Some of the creatures have managed to pile onto the bed of the truck, and with their long, ingrown fingernails are now scraping at the rear windshield, knocking each other off the truck as they struggle to find a way inside.
At the end of Las Lomas, we take a sharp turn onto University Boulevard, throwing most of the creatures still on the truck onto the curb. The driver allows a brief look in his rearview mirror and curses under his breath, but he is calm, as if this weren’t the first time something like this has happened. The street is mostly empty, with only the occasional car parked alongside the curb. I see a Nissan Ultima lodged a few feet off the ground into a stucco wall that separates two home properties adjacent to the street, and then I look into the distance, searching for signs of normalcy. Has the whole city been affected by this?
“There are only a couple of them behind us now.”
“What?” I answer. The sound of the man’s voice slaps me in the face as if I hadn’t heard a human voice in some time.
“The zombies,” he says. “Only a few of those fuckers on our trail now. More will come after us as we get to I-40, but more of ’em will also fall behind.”
“I-40?” I ask.
“Getting out of the city,” he says. “Going west.”
I want to ask him what’s going on, but I don’t. I’ve never been in shock before, and maybe I’m not right now, but it doesn’t matter. I feel frozen all over, overwhelmed. I fold my arms across my lap and take deep breaths, swaying back and forth, and I feel lightheaded—as if I were tight-roping across the edge of consciousness.
***
“Mijo, what did he do to you?” Papá says with both of his hands on my shoulders. He’s squatting so that he’s eye level with me, and with his gentle, calloused thumbs is wiping away the tears from my cheeks.
“He kicked me,” I say. “Hard.”
“Mamá is already on the phone with the school,” he says. “But I ha’ no heard the story.”
“I told you, he kicked me!” I cry, a fresh set of sobs echoing across the small kitchen.
“I’m sorry, mijo,” he says as he draws me into his arms. “Do you know why he kicked you? The boy. Why would he do that?”
I snivel. “He calls me know-it-all. And says that no one likes me.”
“In school, when you’re youn’, you’re with all kinds of kids. As you ge’ older, the bullies start to go away. They don’ make it. You wi’ meet people you like, people like you, and you wi’ be successful. Mijo, the popular bullies who are liked when you’re youn’ age are no’ liked when they’re grown up.”
“But I can’t wait that long!” I cry.
“We will look to see if we can fin’ you another class,” he says.
I nod and try my best to smile.
“Papá?” I ask.
“Yes, mijo.”
“Were you bullied?”
My papá gets up and sighs, smiling down at me.
“I was. And look now. America and two sons. I am thankful to those kids for telling me who I wasn’t.”
***
“You’re fine,” the driver says to me, pulling me back to reality. “There’s some water on the back seat if you’re thirsty.”
I expect more from him, a reaction similar to mine maybe. But he seems more impatient and angry than shocked, as if this were just an inconvenience.
I look at him, forgetting to blink. I don’t really register what he says, but my body does, and I feel myself turn to the back seat. There, I see boxes of water bottles and food—mostly granola bars and trail mix—and sprawled across the back is a large black bag. As I reach for one of the water bottles in the plastic casing, the bag moves.
I jump back in my seat and withdraw my right arm like I just touched boiling water. From the bag comes a soft groan, and the movement of the bag sends some of the food tumbling onto the floor.
“Hold the wheel for a sec,” the man says, looking over at me. I stare back dumbly, then place both hands across the top of the steering wheel. My arms are shaking, and I grit my teeth together as I try to follow the road. I can’t see what the man is doing, but at the sound of another groan—this time one of pain—my grip loosens, and I look back at the man—and my eyes widen when I see the empty syringe and the long needle extending down from it. The car nearly veers onto the curb before the man catches the wheel and pulls us back onto the road.
“You have to calm the fuck down, okay?” he snaps.
“I’m sorry,” I say, turning away. After a few seconds of silence, I turn back to the man.
“What is it for, the needle?” I say.
“Sedative,” he says.
“She’s a woman, isn’t she?” I ask him.
“Yeah, picked her up like you,” he says. “She wasn’t crazed like the others.”
“Then why did she need the sedative?” I ask.
“She handed me a couple,” the man shrugs. “Said she needed them for shock or something like that. Said she would die otherwise.”
I nod and face the road again. I’m not sure whether to believe the man. Or even trust him. But my thoughts continue to return to the creatures, their squalid, foul faces etched in my mind. I shudder convulsively in my seat, trying to think of something else.
We go another mile or so before turning onto the freeway. Again, few cars and none of them are moving. I see the occasional creature sprint after us, but the truck is too fast.
As we merge onto the freeway, I speak again.
“You called them zombies earlier,” I say.
The man continues to stare forward. The polarized glasses hide his eyes and his red beard makes him look older than he probably is. Mid-twenties, I’d guess. Maybe he’s also at UNM.
“What do they look like to you?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Guess that’d be one way to call them. Makes it seem unreal, though, don’t you think?”
The man shrugs and adjusts the mirror a little. I notice for the first time that he has a Glock pistol holstered along his waist.
“The creatures, they’re humans, right?” I ask. “I mean, they were and then … I didn’t see it happen, whatever it was.”
“Good,” he says.
“Did you?” I ask.
“Look I’m not … ” He pauses for a moment and then bites his lip.
“What’s your name?” he asks. For a moment I want to ask him to answer my question first, but I know he must not want to talk about it. I know that feeling. Better than most.
“Lorenzo,” I say.
“Rolling your r’s I see,” he chuckles. “Speak Spanish?”
“I understand it,” I say. I knew a little, but not all that much. My parents didn’t speak it with me when I was small—only here and
there—although they would to each other. They figured it would make me like them, foreign. Some immigrant parents are like that.
“I see. Got a last name, Lorenzo?” He rolls the “r” in my name the best he can, but it comes out sounding more like a squashed W.
I chuckle. “Medina. You?”
“You can just call me Jay. Started telling people to call me that a while back.”
I nod and look back out the window. A few minutes later we drive over the Rio Grande River, passing onto the West Side. Looking down at the city from the “Foothills” or even farther up the Sandia Mountains, it isn’t hard to spot where the river meanders through the city. The green belt of cottonwoods cuts through like a throbbing vein, and in the distance, you can see the exhausted corpses of the Three Sisters—a group of ancient, dormant volcanos out past Volcano Vista High School. The city is the strangest combination of poverty and southwestern beauty, and I can never decide whether I like it or hate it.
My eyes eventually tire from staring out the window, and after an hour or so, a sudden jolt wakes me up.
“We hit one this time, take a look,” Jay says, pointing at the windshield.
I rub my eyes. The windshield wipers are on, and on them are bits of torn flesh mixed with rotten tissue and pus. The dark blood covers the windshield like a film, and through the lens, the desert appears a crimson red. My head starts to spin again, and the muscles in my body constrict and twist like a gnarled, ingrown tree. I faint in my seat, and the darkness takes me again.
***
“You finish your plate, mijo,” Papá says from the wooden chair next to me. “There would be days before I was born, that tío Ernesto would no’ even ge’ the chance to eat. You are lucky. People would see him and call him “el niño esqueleto.” Do you wan’ to have a name like that?
“Esqueleto, what does that mean?” I ask.
“I wi’ tell you after you are finished.”
I take a few more uncomfortable bites and then point at my empty plate.
Silence of the Apoc_Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse Page 7
