All Together Now: A Zombie Story

by Robert Kent

Levi jerked his leg back and kicked her hard enough to shatter her front teeth.

  The girl made no noise, just reached toward Levi with her pale dead hand.

  "Why ain't she moaning?"

  I shook my head.

  "Never seen one didn't make noise," Levi said.

  The girl was dressed in a ripped T-shirt with a bear on it. The left side beneath her missing arm was caked in dried blood.

  Her pants had slid off as she slithered because her thighs ended in stumps. The jagged end of a broken femur poked from the skin of her right thigh and her left leg had been bitten off below the buttock.

  Levi stepped back.

  Using her one arm, she dragged herself toward him, making no noise other than the sliding of decayed meat across cement.

  I knew what had happened. I'd seen it before.

  This little girl got herself surrounded by a pack, probably after they'd eaten whatever adult was looking out for her. They'd been feeding on her when something distracted them.

  They'd left her to crawl the earth mostly eaten.

  Levi called her a bunch of foul names. I'd tell you what he said, but I've decided not to swear in this journal.

  In real life, there's been a lot of swearing. Of course there has. It's the apocalypse. Everyone's been swearing, including me a few times.

  But my Grandma Lacey always told me swear-words are the first choice of the weak writer and the intellectually slow. I've read enough graffiti on gas station toilets to know she was probably right.

  When Levi ran out of names to call the dead girl, he stomped her head.

  His aim was off. Instead of crushing her skull, he broke her jaw.

  Her lips slid crooked. Still she made no noise, and when she flopped over I saw why: her throat had been torn out and probably her voice box as well.

  Levi raised his leg and her one hand seized his ankle.

  Her fingers stayed clasped as Levi stomped her twice more, but released on the third stomp when her face caved in like a rotten jack-o'-lantern.

  Her arm dropped and lay still.

  Levi spat on her and put his cigarette out in the mashed all-white goo of her eye socket.

  When his eyes met mine, he looked embarrassed as though I'd caught him behind the counter with a dirty magazine. "I hate those things."

  I nodded. "I'm going to get my backpack."

  Levi lit a fresh cigarette.

  I went back into Ernie's and found Michelle was already awake and eating an apple.

  "Pack some of those for the road," I said. "The coast is clear and we're leaving."

  Michelle's backpack was already full, but mine wasn't. I stuffed cans of tuna into it and bottled water and sticks of jerky and plastic bags of crackers that I took out of their boxes.

  That was a trick Michelle showed me. Boxes take up a lot of room—you can fit more crackers if you trash them.

  I'd just put the backpack's straps on my shoulders when Levi started screaming.

  11

  THE COAST IS CLEAR WAS the thought that went through my head over and over again.

  Even as my eyes took in the smeared red handprint across the glass of the front doors, my mind insisted the coast is clear.

  I was just outside talking to Levi and the coast is clear.

  That handprint doesn't exist; it cannot be there because the coast is clear.

  Beyond the glass doors of Ernie's, beyond the handprint, Levi was screaming.

  The front of his royal purple shirt was dripping maroon. I didn't see how there could still be enough life in him to scream and struggle.

  There were three of them:

  One gnawed Levi's right arm, loose white flesh spreading out on either side of his mouth like the skin of fried chicken.

  One clawed at Levi's stomach, her greedy hands ripping everything inside him out and sampling it.

  The last one stood behind him, biting into his collar-bone and causing blood to stream down Levi's chest.

  Levi's eyes were wide, conscious, bulging.

  I read once that a person being stabbed doesn't feel anything after the first or second thrust when shock takes over, but the way Levi stared through the glass into my eyes, I know he felt everything.

  And then he wasn't staring at me.

  He spoke a single word: "Please."

  The skin of Levi's throat caved in, forming a black hole that spurted blood, and his head snapped backward. His body went limp, but the zombies feeding on him paid no attention.

  I didn't hear the gunshot until I'd seen the round bullet hole in the glass door just above Levi's handprint.

  My brain couldn't process the sound until I turned and saw Michelle. Tears pooled on her cheeks, but her eyes were focused on the sight of the gun aimed straight ahead.

  Then I couldn't stop hearing the gunshot.

  I didn't know how quiet the world had gotten until that one shot rang out and out and out and every creeping, moaning thing in Harrington heard it.

  12

  MICHELE FIRED AGAIN. THE DEAD woman in the yellow dress pulling out Levi's intestines fell over.

  The other two went on feeding.

  "Stop," I said.

  Another gunshot.

  The zombie gnawing Levi's collarbone dropped him and fell back.

  The zombie munching Levi's arm tightened its grip, but went on eating.

  "Stop!"

  Michelle didn't look at me.

  "STOP!"

  A spray of blood erupted behind the head of the last zombie. He toppled.

  The gunshot sounded like a cannon.

  "Are you crazy!?!"

  Michelle lowered the gun and slapped a hand to her mouth to quiet a sob. "They were—"

  Sob.

  "They were—"

  "He was dead!"

  "They were eating—"

  "He was dead! They hadn't seen us!"

  Michelle's eyes widened and I knew she understood.

  I stepped toward the glass. Two of the zombies lay still on either side of Levi's body. The third, a woman in a yellow dress, a yellow church dress, lay twitching at his feet.

  Levi's eyes opened, all white.

  His head turned toward me and his lips grinned.

  I saw them first in my peripheral vision:

  At least 20 zombies were stumbling up the street toward Ernie's and more were pouring out the open doors of the brick church.

  They came slowly, each shuffling step heavy, their feet dragging. Many of them were in suits and nice dresses and they moaned in unison, a hymn of the dead.

  "Oh no."

  Levi's body sat up, causing more guts to spill from his torn stomach. He moaned and there was nothing of Levi in that sound.

  I turned to Michelle.

  "Back door," I said, and got moving.

  I pressed the rear exit's metal push bar.

  Nothing happened.

  I tried again, and still the door wouldn't open.

  I pounded against the frame.

  "You have to unlock it," Michelle said.

  She was right. A red label above the push bar warned an alarm would sound, but the only noise the door made as I shoved it open was a metal creak.

  The first thing I saw was the sun, high, bright and blinding. The second thing was the dark outline of a zombie I didn't realize was Chuck until he lurched toward me, dragging the handle of the catchpole fastened around his neck behind him.

  Keep him safe, Ricky.

  I was glad he'd followed us, and if it had just been him, Michelle and I would've made a run for it. But eight more zombies came shuffling behind him.

  They snarled at the sight of us. Their steps quickened.

  These zombies weren't members of the church. Three of them had green uniform shirts with a gold patch stitched on the shoulder that told me they came from the jail. The other five looked like they'd escaped the cells.

  I said some words I'm not writing and slammed the door closed.

  I shut my eyes and pressed my head agai
nst the door. I had to think, had to figure a way out.

  Behind me, I heard the WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! sound of zombie fists we'd been living with on and off all night, though it was louder and more motivated now that they could see us.

  And then a new sound: shattering glass.

  13

  THE GLASS ON THE FRONT of Ernie's is strong. It might not hold up to bullets like the glass around the counters in Indianapolis gas stations, but you have to hit it really hard and you're more likely to break your hand before you break the glass.

  But if you're dead and don't care about your hand and have six dead friends to help, you can get it smashed in about nine fist pounds.

  Levi was the first to get his hand through the glass and inside the store. By that time his fingers were raw nubs and the falling glass took chunks of his forearm with it. If it bothered him, it didn't show.

  His milky white eyes were locked on Michelle.

  Zombies from the church crowded behind Levi. The entire front lot of Ernie's was covered in walking corpses, their moaning so loud it was as though it was coming from speakers at the front of a rock show.

  The stench of their unwashed, festering flesh poured through the broken windows.

  I held my breath to keep from being sick and raised my bat.

  Michelle aimed the gun—no point worrying about gunshots attracting zombies now.

  The first shot blew a hole through the chest of an overweight dead man in a short-sleeve shirt and tie. He stumbled back a step, paused as though puzzled, then came toward the window, the incident forgotten.

  Her second shot struck the head of a dead woman in a blue dress. She fell over and didn't rise again.

  Then Michelle was out of bullets.

  She pulled her pack off her shoulders to get more.

  A fat woman in a white dress and high heels was scrambling through the broken window, shredding her gut on the glass and knocking over bottles of oil and antifreeze.

  I brought my bat down and missed her head.

  I struck her meaty shoulder making a thwack sound. That arm went limp, so she shifted her weight to the other arm and kept coming.

  I swung from the side like I was knocking it into the stands and hit her directly in the temple.

  Her skull gave with a dry crack.

  Blood and brain splashed my chin and neck.

  The fat woman did a face-plant on the floor and stayed still, but by that time two dead men were crawling through the windows to my left.

  I chanced a look back and saw Michelle on her knees, groping for bullets she'd dropped.

  It took three swings to bring the first dead man down, but by then I was warmed up and I brought the second down with only two.

  Not that it made much difference.

  The front doors of Ernie's burst open and the horde poured in.

  14

  I KEPT SWINGING AS I retreated backward. There were too many to strike down even if I had a bat in each hand and they came at me one at a time.

  Five zombies were trying to come through Ernie's front door at once and they blocked each other like too much meat clogging a grinder.

  But there were three already inside and four more climbing through the broken windows.

  I swung at the closest, smacking his head so hard his beard snapped past his shoulder. The dead man collapsed.

  There was no room for us to escape the front of Ernie's. Zombies blocked every exit.

  And there was no getting out the back door. We needed—

  "Ernie's office!" I shouted as I swung the bat into the face of a dead teenage girl. I struck her in the forehead hard enough to knock her back, but not hard enough to break her skull.

  I turned to Michelle, who was putting the last of the dropped bullets into the revolver. She snapped the cylinder shut and aimed.

  "There's a ladder in Ernie's office! It leads to the roof."

  Michelle nodded and fired. The face of the dead woman nearest us exploded.

  The mess of zombies at the front door untangled and they came in two at a time.

  I swung into the temple of one last zombie before I ran to the office.

  Michelle fired the gun, which was followed by the soft thud of a body, barely perceptible beneath the snarling.

  I went around Mrs. Ernie, one of the only dead people in the store actually behaving like a dead person, to the ladder rungs attached to the wall.

  As I climbed toward the open hatch in the ceiling, two more gunshots sounded.

  "Michelle! Come on!"

  I lowered myself a rung so I could see what was going on in the shop. Another gunshot sounded, then Michelle came running into the office.

  The corpses came in just behind her.

  "Climb!" I yelled. "Climb!!!"

  I waited until Michelle had her hands on a rung, then I scrambled the rest of the way up and crawled onto the roof.

  At first, I saw only direct sunlight, blinding in its brightness. When I looked left, I saw the face of a corpse and raised my bat. I lowered it when I realized this corpse was actually dead.

  It was Ernie. I could tell that much from what was left of his face and his uniform shirt which had a stitched nametag.

  A revolver lay less than a foot from his hand.

  I understood what had happened: Ernie had taken care of Mrs. Ernie downstairs, then come up here and taken care of himself.

  Michelle screamed.

  I turned back. Both her hands were clutched on the top rung of the ladder so tightly her knuckles were white.

  But her feet swung free, kicking into the faces and hands of the dead clutching her ankles, trying to pull her down.

  15

  I PRIED MICHELLE'S LEFT HAND from the top rung and clasped it with both mine.

  I kept my legs in a wide stance, my feet planted on either side of the hatch, my arms between them so I could lean back and pull.

  And I did. With all my strength.

  But there were now three zombies latched onto her ankles.

  Michelle looked up into my face. All her hopes were on me.

  I pulled harder.

  The snarling below increased with exertion.

  More zombies came into the office, their hands stretched toward Michelle's wriggling lower half.

  Michelle's hand was slipping through my grasp.

  I squeezed tighter...

  ...until I was holding only fingers...

  ...then I lost my grip.

  Michelle slapped her free hand to the top rung of the ladder and I fell backward.

  She screamed.

  I rolled over on my side and scooped Ernie's revolver off the roof. I didn't know if it had bullets left or not.

  One way to find out.

  I leapt to the hatch and aimed.

  Michelle had wrapped her arm through the top ladder rung and was holding on. For now.

  I traced the arms of the dead hands clutching her ankle and lower calf to a zombie in an Indianapolis Colts cap. I lined the revolver up on the center of the horseshoe above the bill and fired.

  His hands loosened and he collapsed.

  I shot the dead woman to Michelle's left.

  Michelle swung her legs back onto the ladder and climbed.

  I dropped the revolver and helped her up.

  She sprawled onto the roof and came face to face with Ernie.

  "He's dead," I said before she could scream.

  From her expression, I saw I had to clarify: "He's not moving."

  Michelle nodded. "Thanks."

  "Sure."

  She turned to the hatch. "We should close that."

  "Wait," I said as she was reaching for it. "I want to see what they do."

  I leaned over the opening and was greeted by a chorus of snarls. There were eight zombies crowded in the office, all of them reaching up toward me.

  I waited to see if any of them would try to climb the ladder, but none did. A few slapped at the rungs, but that was all. It was as though they'd forgotten what ladders wer
e for.

  I've seen zombies have trouble with stairs, and I've never seen one climb anything.

  Three days ago I saw a living couple on top of an RV surrounded by the dead. Some tried to crawl up the trunk and windshield, but none of them had the coordination to do it.

  Still, there was no sense in me standing where they could see me, giving them motivation to try to climb the ladder. I pried one of Ernie's loafers off his stiff foot.

  "What are you doing?"

  By way of answering her, I lowered the lid of the hatch and slid the loafer between it and the roof so it couldn't close all the way and possibly lock.

  "We might need to get back inside," I said. "They can't stay down there forever, right?"

  Michelle didn't say anything.

  We both knew they could.

  16

  "OH GOD," MICHELLE SAID. SHE was standing just behind the red 'E' in the dark neon letters that spell "ERNIE'S" from the roof.

  The dead on the ground could see her, I knew, because their moaning switched to the snarling they use to signal others they've found prey and a feeding frenzy is about to ensue.

  I didn't want to see, but I had to look. I walked across the roof until I was standing just behind the 'I.'

  The awning extended out directly below the "ERNIE'S" letters, so I couldn't see the pumps or the zombies crowded in at the front entrance. But I could hear them.

  "Oh God," I said.

  There were more dead still coming out the entrance to the church and I understood what had happened. In cities, people went to shelters and civic centers when things started to get bad. In small Indiana towns like Harrington, people went to churches.

  I could see it in my mind:

  An entire congregation, plus folks who didn't have a regular church, all gathered in the sanctuary praying for God to please make the dead stay dead.

  Some of the flock would've been injured, maybe bitten, and when they turned, a smorgasbord of Christians awaited.

  Or maybe the congregation held a special service like Levi's parents and the other good folks of New Life Christian Church.

  Either way, God watched all of it from His heaven and did nothing.