All Together Now: A Zombie Story

by Robert Kent

  I stood up straight and willed the weight in my head to center. I took a deep breath and strapped it on.

  "I got this," I said.

  Dad nodded and opened the rear door. "Let's go," he called in. "We're on foot from here."

  Michelle got out saying, "Can we go back to Daddy now?"

  A man screamed behind us and we all turned. He was standing by the next car over, fighting with a corpse that was tearing the flesh from his arm. Inside the car, a woman and a little girl watched in horror.

  "Come on, Chuck!" Dad yelled.

  What happened next was not my little brother's fault and I will never think otherwise.

  50

  I WAS NINE THE YEAR Chuck was born, and at first my parents wouldn't let me hold him.

  When Grandma Lacey took me to the hospital, Dad was waiting for me and he gave me a present, even though it wasn't my birthday.

  I unwrapped the package hoping for a toy, but found instead a shirt with the words "Big Brother" printed across its front.

  Grandma Lacey squealed and made me change shirts right there in the hospital waiting room in front of everyone.

  Then Dad took us back to see my mother.

  The first thing I saw upon entering the room was a basket of food around which had been tied three blue balloons reading: "Congratulations! It's a boy!"

  The card in the basket was signed Gerald Kirkman.

  My mother was sitting up in her hospital bed, holding what I thought was a bundle of blankets. Dad took me over to her.

  "Richard Allen Genero," he said, "meet Charles Walter Genero."

  I wasn't impressed.

  Chuck looked more like a blob of uncooked dough than a baby. His skin sagged like an old man's.

  The way his pale eyes flicked up at me and then away, I was pretty sure he wasn't impressed either.

  I reached out my hands to hold him. My mother twisted and moved the baby out of my reach.

  "Honey, it's okay," Dad said.

  My mother shook her head.

  I didn't want to start my parents fighting the way they did at home, so I didn't try to hold him again. Instead, I leaned over and planted a kiss on Chuck's soft forehead.

  My mother's breath hitched and then she and Grandma Lacey were both crying. When I looked up at Dad, he turned his head and wiped his eye.

  My mother and Chuck came home the next day.

  Mostly, Chuck slept and cried. My mother wouldn't let me into the nursery when she went to feed him.

  When I did go in, Chuck was always asleep. He still looked like a lump of bread barely browned in the oven. And most of the time he smelled like poop and sour milk.

  Late one night, Chuck was screaming his head off. Babies don't care about anyone's sleep but their own.

  I wrapped my pillow around my ears and waited for my mother to go in and shut him up. But when the door to my parents' bedroom opened, it wasn't my mother who came out, but Dad.

  I tried to go back to sleep and couldn't. I had to pee.

  When I came out of the bathroom, the lights in the nursery were on.

  I wandered in and found Dad sitting in the rocking chair beside Chuck's crib, Chuck in one hand and a bottle in the other.

  "Good morning, son," Dad said and then to the baby, "Look who it is. It's your big brother, Ricky. Yes, it is. Yes, it is."

  "Thanks for waking me up, baby," I said.

  "Oh, he doesn't know any better," Dad said, and then to the baby, "Do you? No, you don't know any better, do you?"

  I turned to go back to bed.

  "Come here, son," Dad said and by the absence of baby talk I knew he meant me.

  I went over to Dad and he moved Chuck to his side. "Sit in my lap."

  I did. Dad put Chuck in my hands and put his arms under mine. "Take the bottle," he said.

  I shoved the bottle at Chuck's face and he cried.

  Dad put his hand on mine and guided the bottle to Chuck, who sucked it contentedly.

  "You're somebody's big brother, now," Dad said. "It's a big job. You have to look out for your little brother and help him grow to be as big and as smart as you. Will you do that?"

  "Yes," I said, and looking down at my baby brother, my father's arms around me, I knew that I would.

  Chuck laid his tiny head against my chest. It was warm.

  I laid my head back against Dad's chest. It was warm.

  We sat there, the three of us, until I fell asleep. Then Dad put Chuck in his crib and carried me back to bed.

  51

  ONE YEAR AGO, THE DAY after my mother left, I went into the room that used to be the nursery and found Chuck crying. The crib and the rocking chair were long since gone.

  Chuck has this thing for turtles and there were turtle pictures on every wall, some drawn by him. On his bed was a giant stuffed turtle, resting atop Kirkman's brand sheets (of course).

  Chuck was sitting on the floor, two Transformers discarded at his side. He was sobbing so hard I could see his shoulder blades shaking and heaving through his shirt.

  I didn't ask what was wrong. I sat beside him and wrapped my arms around him. Chuck buried his face in my chest until my shirt was wet from his tears, and still he cried.

  And I cried.

  I didn't hear Dad come in and didn't know he was there until his arms were wrapped around Chuck and me, pulling us to him.

  "We'll be all right," he said. "You'll see. In the end, we'll be okay."

  52

  "COME ON, CHUCK!" DAD YELLED. On either side of I-65, people were running.

  The dead lurched after them.

  A woman in glasses sprinted between stalled cars, looking over her shoulder at the corpses chasing her so that she didn't see the high hanging side mirror of a motor home until she smacked her head into it hard enough to knock her down, her glasses skittering across the highway.

  The dead fell on her.

  "Chuck, now!" Dad called. "Get out now!"

  I turned back to the cruiser. Chuck was sitting in the back seat shaking his head, his eyes wide.

  Dad reached in through the open door to pull him out. Chuck scurried to the edge of the seat, out of his reach.

  There were two zombies on the other side of a car separating them from us. Five more were approaching the front of the cruiser.

  I raised my bat, which threw me off balance. If I'd swung it, I would've fallen over.

  Dad put a knee onto the back seat and reached in for Chuck.

  I stumbled my way to the opposite side and opened the back door just as the first of the five zombies shambled past the cruiser's front bumper.

  Dad locked his eyes with mine.

  "Keep him safe, Ricky."

  He shoved Chuck toward me and I pulled him out of the car, nearly falling over with the added weight.

  Zombies reached for Dad's ankles through the open cruiser door.

  Three zombies cornered Chuck and me. One snapped its jaws at Chuck's fingers.

  I yanked Chuck's hand back just before he lost a digit.

  Dad crawled across the back bench and exploded out of the car, punching the zombie closest to us in the throat.

  "Run!" he screamed, planting a hand on the shoulder of a corpse to keep it at bay.

  I backed away until I was standing behind the cruiser with Michelle.

  The zombie whose shoulder Dad held bit into Dad's arm at the same time another zombie bit into the side of his neck.

  "Run!" Dad yelled. "RUUUNNNN!"

  The dead closed in on either side of us.

  Michelle ran, and I followed.

  The rest is sort of hazy. I stumbled a lot, but I ran as fast as I could behind Michelle, the weight in my head flopping everywhere, Chuck thrashing in my arms.

  But I didn't throw up. I didn't drop Chuck or my bat and I only fell over once, by which point we were far enough away from the dead for me to have time to get to my feet again.

  I looked back.

  I couldn't see Dad, but I saw the zombies that had attacked
him bent over beside the cruiser. Feeding.

  I kept running.

  53

  KEEP HIM SAFE, RICKY.

  I've been staring at that sentence for the last 15 minutes. Or maybe 20. I've never needed a watch, but my phone's dead, as is Michelle's, so we have no way of knowing exactly what time it is.

  If we live long enough, we'll forget what day it is, maybe even what year.

  But we won't live that long.

  Michelle's been pacing back and forth on the roof behind me and if she doesn't go crazy, she may drive me crazy.

  Not that it matters. Our food supply is low, much lower than I thought.

  I don't know where it's gone. I suspect Michelle's been taking extra rations while I've been sleeping, but I'll never prove it and she'll never confess.

  We have to get off this roof.

  I don't know how to get off this roof.

  In a way, I'm glad Chuck's not up here with us. His skin isn't red with sunburn like my arms and face. His stomach isn't twisting with a hunger there's no satisfying.

  Chuck doesn't have to sit up here knowing he'll eventually die of starvation, or have to face the horde of dead moaning on all sides of Ernie's.

  Chuck's concerns are straightforward.

  I've been watching him.

  His shirt is ripped at the sleeve and somehow he's lost his left shoe. His sock is bunched up over the arch of his foot and eventually, if no one pulls it up for him, he'll lose the sock and then he'll be partially barefoot walking around all the broken glass from Ernie's windows.

  He's been wandering among the much taller zombies, who occasionally trip over him or the catchpole hanging off his neck and dragging on the cement behind him.

  He doesn't appear to have a destination. He simply lurches slowly from one side of the parking lot to the other, moaning and watching for signs of life.

  The only difference between him and the other zombies is he's shorter.

  And he's my brother.

  Keep him safe, Ricky.

  His hair is matted to his head and his face is streaked with dirt. His eyes are all white, of course, but his tiny face remains the same. His skin has started to rot and his face sags against his skull, but he's not beyond saving.

  Not yet.

  If I can get him to Kirkman's before the real damage sets in, he can be made well. I know he can.

  He has to be.

  Keep him safe, Ricky.

  I have to get to Kirkman's.

  I have to get off this roof.

  And I will.

  54

  I'VE ONLY EVER BEEN DRUNK once. Last summer was a bad one for Dad. There were bottles all over the house.

  One night in June, when Chuck was asleep and Dad passed out, Ben and I split a bottle of whiskey. I don't think either of us liked it, but neither of us wanted to admit it, so we drank the whole thing.

  The next morning I couldn't remember much about what Ben and I'd done after the bottle was half gone, except I know we finished it.

  My memory of leaving I-65 is like that night. I know there was a stampede of people running off the highway, and I remember Michelle and I ran with them, the dead lumbering after.

  At some point, we separated from the group and Michelle led us into the woods, where I set Chuck on his feet because I couldn't carry him anymore.

  I fell on my face.

  Michelle shook me. "Get up, Ricky! We can't stop."

  "I can't," I remember saying. The adrenaline rush I'd felt on the highway was gone. The weight in the center of my skull was spinning in circles and it spun the world with it.

  "Do you hear that?" Michelle asked.

  I couldn't hear anything except the dull roar in my head.

  "They're coming! Now get up!"

  "I don't know if I can."

  Michelle slapped me and the ringing in my ears shot up an octave. "You and I are not going to die here," she said. "Your brother is not going to die here. Get. Up. Now."

  The strength I saw behind her eyes gave me strength. It was the strength of a girl who's been forced to look out for herself and become her own mother. Where had it been before when we could've used it?

  I held out my hand. Michelle grasped it tight and helped me to my feet.

  Michelle led us, one arm gripping my shoulder to keep me going, her other hand grasping Chuck's. We walked through the woods, me stumbling and falling a few times, but we encountered no dead. Most likely they'd followed the pack of living and left us strays to get picked off later.

  We came out of the woods into the backyard of a two-story brick house. We walked around their pool and I sat down in a lawn chair while Michelle banged on the back door.

  When no one answered, Michelle peeked in the windows. "I don't think anyone's home."

  "My dad's dead," I said and rushed forward to puke in the pool.

  Afterward, I sprawled on my belly and laid my head on the ground to sleep.

  The next thing I remember, Michelle was shaking me until I got up. She led me to the back door of the house and inside. The window beside the back door was broken.

  "Whoever owns this house is going to be pissed," I said.

  Michelle pushed me forward to a darkened sitting room. There was an enormous television, two recliners, and a big comfy couch. I sprawled onto the couch and closed my eyes.

  I slept.

  When I woke, the enormous television was on and the president was addressing the nation from the press room of the White House.

  "What remains more powerful than any enemy is the spirit of the American people," the president said.

  "When we come together as a nation, unanimous and impenetrable, there is no army, living or dead, who can threaten us. When we realize we are irrevocably bound to one another, we become one people, one nation, indivisible."

  I looked away from the screen and saw Michelle was sitting in the recliner beside the couch. Chuck was in her lap.

  "What time is it?"

  "7:00."

  I tried to sit up and winced. If I'd had anything in my stomach, I would've thrown up. I lay back down.

  "Is there any Tylenol?"

  "I can check," Michelle said. "How's your head?"

  "Not good. You should turn the TV off before it gets dark, and also the lights. You don't want them to see the lights from outside the house."

  Michelle nodded.

  On television, the president was gone. A news reporter interviewed a man in an orange vest holding a large rifle. "These zombies are nearly indestructible," he said. "You have to kill the brain. Anything but a headshot may slow a zombie down, but only a bullet to the brain kills a zombie dead so it stays dead."

  The screen filled with footage of soldiers firing on squadrons of dead and Michelle flipped the television off just as a zombie snarled so loudly I wasn't sure if it came from the television or inside the house.

  55

  WHEN I WOKE AGAIN, IT was morning.

  Dad's dead.

  This was my first conscious thought and I wondered, is this the way it'll be from now on: wake up, stretch, scratch, remember that Dad's dead, Ben too, and all the rest of them?

  "Power's off," Michelle said. "So are the phones."

  I sat up and a wave of agony swept from the back of my skull to the front. I put a hand to my head and groa—I started to write groaned. I straight whined. I'm no wuss, but it hurt.

  "I found some Tylenol."

  I held out my hand.

  Michelle was sitting in the recliner to the left of the couch and Chuck was passed out on the floor. Cradled in her lap was a gun.

  "I got you something stronger if you want," she said, holding up a prescription bottle. "It's hydrocodone."

  I shrugged, which hurt my head.

  "That's generic for Vicodin. Daddy took it when he hurt his leg. It's a pretty heavy-duty painkiller. So if the pain's not that bad, you should do Tylenol. But if it is, I'll give you the hydrocodone."

  "It hurts bad," I said.

&nbs
p; Michelle handed me the prescription bottle and a glass of water.

  "There's a family that lives here. Just take one," Michelle said, seeing I had two pills in my palm. I put one back in the bottle.

  "There's pictures of them everywhere," Michelle said. "Dad, Mom, and twin girls. But none of them have come home. I've been waiting, watching the doors, but nobody's come."

  "Maybe they're staying someplace else."

  "Yeah, right," Michelle said.

  "We're not at our houses."

  "True. Anyway, I found this upstairs," she motioned to the gun in her lap. "I figure, given what's happening, they won't mind if we borrow it. And some bullets."

  I nodded. I never noticed how much I moved my head until it hurt to do so. "Do they have any food?"

  "There's leftover lasagna in the fridge. Chuck and I ate it for dinner. You can't put in the microwave, but the fridge isn't completely thawed, so it should still be okay."

  I stood to go to the kitchen and collapsed to the couch.

  Michelle sighed. "Sit down. I'll get it."

  I couldn't argue.

  Michelle returned with a plate of lasagna and a fork. It was more cool than cold, but it didn't smell bad and I was so hungry anything would've tasted amazing.

  "Thank you," I said between forkfuls.

  Michelle shook her head as she sat back in the chair beside the couch. "I didn't cook it."

  I sat up as much as I could. "No, I mean thank you for yesterday. You saved our lives."

  "You would've done the same. I'm sorry about your Dad."

  I set the empty bowl and fork aside.

  "Before the power went out," Michelle said, "the news was saying there were zombies in France and England and, although the Chinese government won't admit it, they're people online who say there are zombies in China too."

  "Yeah," I said, mostly because there isn't anything you can say to that.

  "Yeah."

  "Good thing your Dad's working on a cure."

  Michelle looked away.

  I heard a faint tapping sound, like the limb of a tree scratching the house on a windy night. By the look on her face, I knew Michelle heard it, too.