by Evans, Mike
“And what, exactly, are you thinking you'll do?” Leslie asked.
“Me? Oh, I'm going to go out there and smash through some jaws. I'm damn sick of these things already, and we need to get on the road, together and all alive!”
They started their saws, walking out into the room and doing exactly as Jude had planned. The first one that came up to Chuck got a kneecap sliced off, and as it fell forward, Leslie was already bringing the saw down, a look of disgust painting her face. She was starving for this insanity to be over.
Charlie went for the first of his and missed. The dead jumped at him, knocking him back a few feet and off-balance. Joann yelled, “Hey, Jude! Jude, help Charlie, damn it. I can’t get that close to his face without cutting him and that thing open!”
Jude ran back across the floor, doing his best to avoid the dead roaming the studio looking for easier meals. He kicked the dead in the ribs. It went over easy, rolling to a stop a few feet away. Jude got Charlie up on his feet and covered him until he got his saw back in his hands. As the dead started to rise, Jude brought the blunt side of the axe down into the back of its skull. The force of it was loud enough to echo through the studio. Each of them cringed, thinking of the pain the blow would have caused a normal, living person.
When the path out looked clear enough, Jude yelled for them to follow him. In the hallway, they found a few of the confused dead pushing clumsily at buttons on the wall.
Chuck laughed. “Man, they are dumb as shit.”
Jude said, “Shut up and keep it quiet. If they wanna push random buttons for the rest of eternity instead of doing horribly violent shit until someone takes them all out, I say that's wonderful."
Chuck did not retort, and they started walking down the stairs slowly. The five of them looked over the railing, trying to see if there would be any issues as they descended. When they were near enough to see outside, they saw a giant horde trying to get into the building. They were also blocking the path to the truck, which was currently the group's only means of escape.
They stopped at the edge of the last set of steps, not wanting to tease the dead into coming for them. Joann said, “Okay, studs, the lobby is full, the truck is blocked, what are we going to do?”
Jude stood there for a moment, trying to figure something out. Chuck said, “How about everyone hides in the elevators while one of us lures them out of the lobby, and we leave.”
“That's the best we can come up with?" Charlie scoffed. "I mean, that sounds great and all, but it kind of seems like there are plenty of ways for that to go completely to shit.”
“Right now, that's the best we've got,” Jude said. “You guys get up the stairs and in the elevator, and I’ll get them coming this way.”
Chuck said, “No, it was my idea; besides, with all this I got here, they’d much rather chase me down than your bony ass. You’d be lucky if they showed any interest in you at all, Jude.”
“All right, Chuck," Jude agreed. "Your idea, your plan, go for it.”
“Wait, you're gonna let me do it alone? You…you aren’t going to come with me?”
Jude smiled, nodding for the rest to go up the stairs. He gave his broken saw to Joann and took her working one. “I’ll make sure and get this back to you real soon, I promise. Chuck’s hand is all kinds of messed up right now. I don’t think him being on his own is that great of an idea.”
The other three turned, running back to the stairs. Leslie stopped and yelled, “Hey, so are we going to wait and have you ride down with us?"
Chuck snapped back, “You bet that sweet little ass you're waiting! When you hear us coming, get ready to let us in!”
Leslie could be heard, as they ran back up the steps, saying, “Why don’t I ever go for the smart ones?”
Joann said, “We can figure that out later.”
Chapter 8
Patrick sat on the floor of the basement, smashing two of his favorite cars head-on into each other. He loved his Hot Wheels, and would rarely go anywhere without them. Maria said, “Honey, you stay right there. I need to run upstairs for a moment, okay?”
“I'm so bored, Aunt Maria. I want to go outside. I want to go upstairs and at least watch cartoons. Why don’t we get to go upstairs? Is there more tornado warning, or something?”
Maria said, “Yep, that's exactly why we're downstairs. So you make sure that unless I say we should go upstairs, you keep your little butt down here.”
“Well, I don’t ever remember staying down here for this long before.”
Maria loved having a very bright nephew, but knew coming up with excuses, at some point, was going to be difficult. “Just for a little while longer. Your daddy is only, like, two or three hours away, I hope. He said they were heading this way. Your dad said he and Chuck would be here as quick as they could.”
Patrick said, “What about the other guys? Why aren’t they coming back?”
Maria gawked for a moment and finally said, “That is an excellent question; you can ask your father when he arrives home.”
Patrick shrugged, going back to his cars, and yelled, “Grab a juice box, Aunt Maria, I’m dying of thirst down here.”
Maria pushed the door open slowly, looking around and listening for a moment. The blinds were open, so she crawled on her hands and knees to the fridge, taking all of the pop and juices that they had and stuffing them quickly in a paper grocery sack. Looking around, she made her way to Jude's room, pulling his shotgun out of the gun locker. The advice he’d given her made it seem like shooting with anything smaller would be a waste of time. She was let down at the limited number of shotgun shells he had. She decided, at the last second, to take the twenty-twos that she and Patrick shot when they went out as a family.
She stuffed everything into one of Jude’s army duffle bags, along with a few pairs of jeans she grabbed from her own room and Patrick's. Maria wanted to be sure that they didn't get stuck with no more than the clothes on their backs. When she returned to the kitchen, she took all the canned goods, a few pots to cook them in, and the family first aid kit.
She looked down at her makeshift bug-out bag, thinking it was pretty pathetic. Going forward they would keep more damn food in the house than a family of ten needed. If Jude had the money, they could live out in the country, and very far away from all of this. After a second thought, she realized there might never be another normal day again, that searching for food, hiding from the dead, and being on the move might be the new norm.
She looked up at the open blinds, wanting to close them. One of the dead was looking down at her, licking the window; it left a blood streak behind. She smiled uneasily, hoping it would simply go away. The dead answered by moving out of view and then coming back, smashing its face into the window. When it did, the glass shattered and ripped the skin from the dead’s face, leaving flaps and spraying the counter with its blood.
Maria reached for the duffle bag with the shotgun in it. She thought how it might have been a poor choice now to put all the food, bullets, and shotgun shells in one bag. The dead was smashing out the rest of the glass with its hands, and it seemed to get angrier the longer it fought to gain entry. Maria gripped the bag, turning to run back to the temporary safety of the basement. When she did, a loud thud and growl came from behind her. She looked over her shoulder, seeing the dead falling off the sink and then to the ground. When the dead got its bearings back, it pushed up from the ground, gripping tight onto her ankle and pulling her back towards itself with mouth ready, already chomping at the potential meal. She flipped over, bringing her free foot back and kicking it once, twice, three, and four times until she finally snapped its neck and paralyzed it. Its arm went limp and the grip loosened. She pushed herself away, crab-walking backwards. The dead, frustrated at being unable to move, was screaming at her now.
Patrick came up to the door, looking out, yelling, “What’s wrong, Aunt Maria—you all right?” His eyes grew to the size of cue balls when he saw the bloody man lying in their kitchen, the b
roken window, and the blood-covered counter. Patrick whispered, “Oh my, what did you do to him, Aunt Maria?”
Maria said, “He’s the real reason we have to stay downstairs—because he is a bad man and we need to stay away from him, honey.”
Patrick could barely take his eyes off the dead lying there and chomping at air. He pointed with a shaky hand over her shoulder. “Are those bad men, too, Aunt Maria?”
She turned around, seeing additional bloody faces at the window. She saw they had been shot multiple times in the chest. Maria could only assume the people of the town had yet to figure out head shots were all that counted. She could not blame them; the only reason she had any clue was because of Jude. She looked back to Patrick and the basement, and thought of the small windows down there and the slim chance she’d be able to squeeze herself through one. She said, “Yes, those are bad men, and you don’t let them touch or bite you. Do you understand me, Patrick?”
He nodded. He very much did not want to get close to the bad men. “You wanna go back down to the basement, Aunt Maria?”
“No, no, I don't. I want to get out of here. I want to drive out of town, honey, and keep on driving until we can get somewhere safe and away from here.”
“Where we going to go?”
“I haven’t the slightest clue. Your dad said something about a hunting cabin he and Chuck use in the fall that maybe we could go to.”
“You know, Dad has that old tent in the garage above where you park your car sometimes. We could grab that and the cooler from the garage, and we can stay wherever we want, Aunt Maria.”
She pulled him close, giving him a kiss on his head. “You know you're a genius, right? I mean, you are just as smart as they come.”
Patrick laughed. “Of course I’m a genius.”
Maria opened the bag, pulling out the shotgun and already thinking of the kick it would give off.
Patrick said, “Whoa, what are you doing with Dad’s shotgun, Aunt Maria? What are you going to do with it?”
“Well, Patrick, I’m going to make damn sure that they don’t touch you.”
“Oh, Maria, you said damn!”
She put in a shell and pumped the shotgun. “Damn right I did. Now come on, we need to get out of here before more come in.”
Patrick sprinted down the stairs and grabbed his Hot Wheels. He nodded as he came back. “Okay, I got my stuff.”
She said, “You follow right behind me, honey. These things aren't going to do anything good.”
She threw the duffle over her shoulder, carrying the shotgun in one hand and pulling Patrick with the other, past the dead on the ground. When they were clear of it, they rushed through the living room. The dead were all trying to get in now, smashing at the window, furious to get in. When the living room window shattered, bitten dead rushed the two. Maria pushed Patrick behind her, shouldering the shotgun, and put the bead dead center on its skull. The blast tore through its cranium, sending it sprawling back out of the window. When the next came through, she missed, and it rushed, gripping the shotgun. She knelt with it, aiming it straight up and under its chin. She pulled the trigger, sending a decimating shot through its head and blowing the top of it off, sending it to an eternal rest. Maria gripped Patrick, not wanting to fight off the rest coming through. She knew there were only two shells, and refused to click empty.
Patrick said, “How we gonna get out of here, Aunt Maria?”
“We're going to get out of here, Patrick.”
“Yeah, I know, but how? We can’t go outside with those things. Isn’t your car parked in the driveway?”
Maria walked as close as she dared to the window. Gleaming in the afternoon sun was her Ford Thunderbird, surrounded by the dead in the driveway. She couldn’t in good conscience take Patrick out there. The two climbed into the attic just as the dead charged through the broken living room window. She pushed Patrick hard enough that he practically flew up into the storage area. Patrick looked down as Maria shoved the duffle up and saw the dead directly beneath her. “You best get on up here, Aunt Maria, or that thing is gonna take a bite out of you.”
She looked over her shoulder, seeing one of them attempting to climb the ladder. Their motor skills did not seem on par with her own. When a cold hand gripped her ankle, she brought up her knee as high as she could and then brought it down, cracking it in the skull with her heel. It let go instantly, falling back, and then three more took its place.
Maria pulled herself up over the edge of the attic floor. Patrick gripped onto her, using all the weight of his little body to pull her back, and the two collapsed onto the floor. When the first head came up through the attic, its dead eyes stared around until it found what it was looking for. Maria squeezed off the shotgun, sending a shot that demolished its skull. The dead’s head split into two pieces, still wobbling. Maria walked over to it, smashing the shotgun butt down into the bloody head, cracking its skull open. She put it out of its misery, and it went falling down to the dead waiting below.
She tried to pull the ladder up. The two were trapped in the attic, and Maria wasn't sure if she could make the jump down to the car below. She hadn’t planned for this.
Patrick, not waiting for her, ran to the only window in the small space. He pushed Christmas boxes out of the way so that the two of them would be able to get out onto the roof.
Maria said, “Now, Patrick, I want you to be careful. I know it's a very long way down from here, but I'll be right here and you'll be okay, honey.”
Patrick slid the window open like he’d done it a million times before. “You don’t have to worry about me, Aunt Maria, I come up here all the time. I love it up here. Heights don’t scare me at all.”
While she was relieved that he wasn’t scared, she shot daggers at the boy for breaking her rules. He was well aware that going up on the roof was a grounding offense from television for a very long time. She looked out over the street—even when they did make it to the car, driving through the streets was not going to be a simple task. She counted, thinking there had to be at least a few hundred of the dead.
Once she and Patrick were sitting on the roof, she saw the neighbor, Michelle, waving frantically at them from across the street. Michelle opened the second-story window and screamed across the street, “Maria, what in the hell is going on? They keep playing Jude over and over again on the news broadcast down from Missouri. He says you have to smash their heads open. What in God’s name is he talking about?”
Maria yelled back, “It is a very long story, but he's right.” She held up the shotgun, reminding herself at the same time to reload it. “You can shoot them, but you have to use a couple of shells.”
The neighbor nodded slowly and said, “Yeah, we don’t have guns. Billie doesn’t believe in them. Billie is a dumbass.”
Maria gave her a thumbs up. “Do you think you could help us?”
Michelle shrugged. “What do you want us to do?”
Maria sat there for a second, looking at Patrick and at the long drop from the house. She said, “Patrick, honey, can you tell me, in all the times you’ve been up here, were there any easy ways to get off of the roof?”
Patrick looked almost annoyed at the question. He said, “Geez, Aunt Maria, of course there’s a way to get down. No good military man goes up on a roof without a plan to get down.”
Maria said, “You're wearing Scooby Doo underwear, Mr. military man. Let's try not to give me too hard of a time.”
Patrick hopped up, running over to the edge of the house and nearly giving his aunt a heart attack with each unworried step he took. He pointed over the edge, smiling. “We can take the plant ladder.”
She looked over the edge, much more nervous, and said, “You use the trellis to get down? What are you, a monkey?”
He tried to go over the edge to show her, not thinking about the dead below. Maria gripped him tight, pulling Patrick back up next to her. “Okay, Patrick, now we need to get the dead away from here so we can get down, run to the
car, and drive away. I think your dad’s tent is a great idea, but I don’t see us having time to run into the garage.”
Patrick said, “I got an idea. You want them to go follow noise, right?”
Maria nodded slowly and Patrick said, “What about Dad’s fireworks? The ones he hides in the garage above the toolbox.”
“And how do you know about those?” Maria questioned.
“Because that's where he hides everything he doesn’t think I'm supposed to see. Which—you know what? —I got a question for you.”
Maria, who could just barely continue on with the day at this point, said, “What, what could you possible want to know in the middle of all of this, honey?”
“Why he has magazines where there’s girls in it, and they aren’t wearing nothing. Not even a towel, naked as can be. Who stands around at the beach naked? I don’t. I mean, taking a leak out in the middle of nowhere is one thing. But nak—”
She gripped his mouth. “I don’t have an answer, honey. Daddy apparently really needs a girlfriend. Let’s just focus on those fireworks for now—you can ask your father all the questions you want when he gets home.”
Patrick nodded, pulling her hand down away from his mouth. “I can get them, we just go through the garage and get 'em.”
Two minutes later, he was wiggling down into a second attic. Maria shone a flashlight around the garage. The dead from the house hadn't made their way in yet. Patrick was quick to point out where the magazines and fireworks were, and Maria grabbed the small bag of fireworks, the tent, and a cooler. She wanted to take a hundred things with her, but knew she wasn’t going to have time to pack up an entire trip in a matter of a few minutes. Jude had extra gear in the garage, and she took a belt, putting on a machete and a hatchet. Patrick, who couldn’t really grasp the severity of the situation, was in a fit of laughter at his aunt dressed like his dad and the boys. He said, “Oh, Daddy would laugh if he saw you.”
