Benton: A Zombie Novel: Volume One

by Jolie Du Prè

  “Of course; we can’t leave him here.”

  I kiss Mark on the lips. Then I look over at Gary to make sure he’s still asleep. The last thing I need is for him to wake up and be staring at us.

  Then Mark kisses me on the lips, allowing me to melt into his mouth, once again.

  But then Mark pulls his lips away and puts his hands on my head. “I wish I could kiss you all night, but we should get some sleep, yeah?”

  “I’d like to sleep with you.” I’m surprised at myself for blurting it out.

  Mark raises his eyebrow. “Well, I could take you into the bathroom and lay you in the bathtub.”

  I laugh, grateful Mark is going with it. “No, I don’t think Bill would appreciate us doing it in his bathroom.”

  Mark kisses me on the lips again. “Someday, Jen, someday soon, I hope. Now let’s go get some sleep.”

  I nod my head. Instead of sleeping next to Katie, I decide to place my sleeping bag on the floor next to Mark’s. We lie side by side. Mark holds my hand as I fall asleep.

  16.

  I FEEL A TAP ON MY BACK. I look up. Katie is standing over me. “Have you seen Sara?”

  “No, Katie. I’ve been asleep.” I look over at Sara’s empty sleeping bag. “Did you check the bathroom?”

  Katie rolls her eyes. “Yes. She’s not here.”

  Bill is sitting up in his bed, but Gary is still sleeping. “Did she run away?” Bill asks.

  “I don’t know!” I say as I rush out of my sleeping bag.

  “What’s the matter?” says Mark, waking up.

  “Sara’s not here.”

  “Christ! Okay, let’s go find her.”

  “I’m coming with you,” I say.

  “What’s going on?” says Gary, waking up as well.

  “Sara’s gone,” says Mark. “We’ve got to find her.”

  “You guys stay put,” I tell Bill and Katie. “We’ll go out and look for her.”

  * * *

  Gary, Mark, and I check the van, but there’s no Sara. There is a parking lot in front of the motel, a road, and then woods next to the road. “Let’s go look in the woods. Maybe she’s in there,” I say.

  “She could be any fucking where,” says Gary. “This is bullshit!”

  “Gary, stop making it worse,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Mark. “Let’s just find her.”

  I want to scream Sara’s name, but I know that’s not the thing to do anymore if you’ve lost someone. You can attract zombies by screaming, just like you can attract them with gunshots.

  We walk into the woods, guns ready, leaves and twigs bunching and crackling under our shoes. My nerves are on high alert. I know there are zombies in here.

  It doesn’t take me long to see it. Everyone knows Sara by her black boots. They’re sticking out from behind a tree.

  I grab Mark’s arm. He looks at me. Then I point at the tree. Mark motions to Gary and we all rush over. I gasp. Sure enough, just as I feared, there’s Sara, on her back behind the tree. Her arms are stretched above her, her gun by her arms.

  I look at her head. Blood covers the ground below it. Her hair and her face are also covered with blood. I fall into Mark’s arms and he holds me tight.

  “Damn, Sara, why’d you do it?” says Gary.

  I cry as Mark pulls me in tighter and then I feel Gary coming in to hug as well. We all just hold each other, in silence, as Sara’s body lies by our feet.

  Then, we hear them. Zombies coming our way. There aren’t three or four or even ten. We see twenty or thirty.

  “Oh my God,” I say. “We’ve got to move Sara.”

  “No! There are too many. Run!” says Gary.

  “Come on, Jen. Let’s move!” says Mark.

  We run out of the woods. I don’t look back. I can’t look back.

  We bang the motel room’s door, and Bill lets us in. Then I fall on a bed, unable to move or breathe. We’ve lost three people to this horrible mess. I don’t think I can take losing any more.

  “Where’s Sara?” screams Katie.

  “She’s dead,” says Gary.

  Katie starts to cry and falls next to me on the bed. We hold each other tight.

  17.

  WE’RE BACK ON THE ROAD. Mark is driving and I’m up front with him, but we’re not speaking. Nobody in the van is.

  It doesn’t surprise me that Sara took her own life. I imagine we’ve all felt like killing ourselves. Depression can ruin a person’s body and soul, especially if the person is as fragile as Sara was.

  I look behind me at Bill. He’s sitting back, relaxed, writing in a crossword puzzle. We’ve just met him, but I know the situation we’re all in has gotten to him as well. Yet, he seems to be doing what he can to calm his nerves.

  Katie has never been one to hide her emotions. She’s been crying most of the trip. I don’t blame her.

  But it’s Gary who has changed. Now he’s calm, quiet, a man beaten by all this, whether he has admitted it to himself or not. His callous attitude and grins are gone, and he looks human.

  Mark pulls the van over to the side of the road so we can pee. I don’t need to go and neither does Katie. Mark, Bill, and Gary pee and then after Gary finishes, he leans against the side of the van to smoke a cigarette.

  I leave the van to go talk to him. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” he says.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m good.” He doesn’t look at me.

  I bump him. “You sure about that?”

  This time, Gary does look at me. He tries to smile, but then he brings a finger to his eye and wipes it. “It’s crazy, you know? It just goes on and on.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Tears well in my eyes as well. “Just think about Texas and how great it’s gonna be over there.”

  “He’s got you buying that shit too, huh?”

  I’m not mad at Gary for saying it. I’ve tried not to question Mark’s plan, but my skepticism is still there. “Well, I have to hope the place is gonna be okay. Otherwise, I guess we’ll have to go find a camp to live in.”

  “Nah, screw that.”

  “Yeah, I guess the camps are not the best places to be.”

  “I lived in one for a month, over in Indiana.” He looks at me. “You ever been to prison?”

  I laugh. “No.”

  “A camp is just another prison. Just another overcrowded prison.”

  “They seem scary to me.”

  “A girl like you would have a hard time there.” Gary looks me up and down. “Yeah, that’s for sure.”

  I hate when Gary inspects me, but I’m trying hard to like him.

  “No, once we get to Texas, I’ll go out on my own. Go find me someplace to hole up and some woman to hole up with.”

  I laugh. “You got it all figured out, huh?”

  “You gonna stay with Mark? Be his woman?”

  You’d have to be blind not to know that Mark and I like each other. “Yeah, I’m staying with Mark.”

  “So what you gonna do with dipshit and the old man?” Gary takes another smoke. “‘Cause they’re not coming with me.”

  “Katie and Bill can stay with Mark and me. Lord knows Katie can’t make it on her own. I would hate for anything to happen to her. And obviously, Bill needs us as well.”

  Mark walks over to Gary and me. “You folks ready? We need to get moving.”

  “Yep, we’re ready.” It occurs to me that the entire time I’m talking to Gary, I don’t even think about zombies. Even though I question how safe Mark’s home is in Texas, it’s become a huge fantasy for me to think the place is secure enough for a person to de-stress in all this.

  I never thought I would spend my life with someone like Katie or that Bill would come into my life, but we all need one another now. Gary thinks about Gary and that’s no surprise, but I do hope that if he decides to go on his own, he’ll be okay.

  18.

  WE’VE FOUND ANOTHER ABANDONED HOME, a ranch that looks to be less than ten years old.

/>   The neighborhood it’s in reminds me of Waterbank, the small, quiet place where I grew up. Yet, unlike what I left in Waterbank, I’m not staring at dead bodies here.

  Green signs are on the doors of these homes, directing people to a nearby camp.

  Many people have abandoned their houses for these camps. The government encouraged people to do it.

  I’ve never thought the government has people’s best interests in mind. It’s ironic that I’m now living with people who feel the same.

  It wasn’t hard for Gary and Mark to break into the house, and now they’re checking it out.

  Me? I’m sitting here with a knot in my stomach, content just to wait in the van with Katie and Bill. I have no interest in proving my worth as a female in the zombie apocalypse. It’s natural for Mark to take over and to call on a fellow male for help. That’s just the way he is. I don’t feel the need to prove anything to him or to anyone right now.

  I sit next to Katie. I put my arm around her, and she looks at me with those bright blue eyes. Then, she puts her head on my shoulder. The energy has left her usual bubbly self.

  * * *

  As I’m looking at the house, I see a zombie walk out the front door. Judging by the tattered and dirty skirt it wears, the zombie looks like it was once a female. Half its head is missing, as if some other zombie took a chomp out of it when it was human.

  The knot in my stomach tightens. Are Mark and Gary okay?

  The zombie heads straight for the van. It doesn’t seem to see us, but it’s coming for us. Then, the zombie veers off to the left and wanders off.

  I look at Katie and Bill. “You guys duck down. I’ve gotta go see if Mark and Gary are okay.”

  Holding my machete, I get off the van and run to the front door.

  Slowly, I walk inside the house. Mark and Gary come downstairs. “Jen?” says Mark.

  “Yeah, I saw a zombie walk out the door. So I came in here to make sure you and Gary were cool.”

  “I thought we closed the door, but it’s obviously a good thing we didn’t,” says Mark. “While we were upstairs, we heard something moving around, but we never found it. The zombie you saw leaving the house must have been it. There are no other zombies in the house. So let’s get Bill and Katie out of van now.”

  As we head back outside, I see that the same zombie I saw leaving the house has got its hands on one of the windows of the van, growling and trying to get to the humans inside. Katie and Bill are still ducked down, but one of them must have gotten up at some point

  I run to the zombie with my machete. It immediately turns to look at me, and it growls with that sound that will haunt me for as long as I live, coming after me, hands sprawled. I plunge the machete into the part of its head that still exists. Blood splatters and, as it falls on me, I manage to roll out from under it.

  Then, even though the zombie is down and permanently disabled, Gary rushes up to it and shoots it in the head. “Cocksucker!” he says.

  Mark rushes over to me. “Hey! Good job!”

  “Thanks. We better go check on Bill and Katie.”

  Gary, Mark, and I enter the van. Bill is still crouched down in his seat. I don’t think he’s moved since I asked him to duck. But Katie has changed seats. She stares at me with saucer blue eyes. “I thought it was gonna get us.”

  “Well, it’s dead now,” I say. “Let’s go get in the house. It’s safe there.”

  19.

  THE SALT AND PEPPER SHAKERS in the kitchen of this house are little black and white cows. My mother would have loved these.

  She decorated our home in country modern with colorful pillows and quilts and her beloved cow collection.

  I think about my mother and how much I miss her. When she died, we were not close, but I had hoped someday that would change.

  “You okay?” Mark says to me.

  I look at him with tears in my eyes. “I’m fine. I just miss my mom, is all.” Mark puts his arms around me and hugs me tight.

  Inside the kitchen cupboards and pantry, we’ve managed to find food supplies we can use. We can add the items to our stash.

  Katie, Bill, Gary, and I have decided to sleep in the bedrooms rather than sleep in our sleeping bags. I’m staying with Katie in one bedroom. Gary and Bill are in another. However, Mark has decided to sleep in his sleeping bag in the living room by the front door, where he can keep his eyes and ears peeled for anything.

  The worst thing about staying in an abandoned home are the family photos I see. In this house, it looks like there were two girls and three boys, plus the parents. They look at the camera, happy and not knowing a zombie apocalypse was coming. Are they all alive and living at a camp? I hope the zombie who wandered out of here was not the mother.

  20.

  “YOU KNOW THAT CONVENIENCE STORE WE PASSED ON THE WAY HERE?” Gary says to me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go check it out. Maybe there will be cigarettes.”

  “You’ve got a million cigarettes, Gary. Seriously?”

  “Let’s go check it out.”

  I sigh. “I’ll wake Mark up and . . . ”

  “Let the dude sleep. It’s just up the street. Katie and Bill can stay here too.”

  “Okay, you’re right. Sounds like a plan. Let me get my rifle. Do you want me to drive?”

  Gary holds up the keys. “No, I got it.”

  * * *

  As Gary and I leave the house to enter the van, I look around for zombies. I don’t see any, but I know they’re out here.

  No sooner do we get on the road, a zombie wanders onto it. It’s young and thin with long, dirty auburn hair, and it’s wearing a ragged shirt and torn blue jeans. I get a sick feeling looking at it, not just because it’s a zombie, but because it’s my look-alike. It’s what I could become.

  It stares at nothing in particular as it enters the road, but then it sees us and its expression changes to a rabid undead after its prey.

  “Watch this,” says Gary.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Gary drives up to the zombie. Much closer than I want him to.

  Then Gary puts his gun up to the zombie’s face as it approaches, and shoots. The zombie’s head splits open and the blood splatters all over Gary’s clothes, and a bit of it lands on me as well.

  “Gary! What the hell?”

  “That was awesome!”

  “Look at you. It’s all on you. Let’s just get to the store.”

  * * *

  We’re approaching the store. From the outside, it appears ransacked. Still, it’s worth looking inside.

  “Okay, get ready to roll,” I say. But Gary gives me the meanest look I have ever seen and just keeps on driving.

  “What are you doing? The store is back there.”

  * * *

  I open my eyes. My upper body is lying on the seat behind Gary. My head feels like it’s been hit with a baseball bat. My hands are tied behind my back and there’s duct tape over my mouth. I sit up.

  “Back down, bitch, before I kill you,” Gary screams.

  I put my head back on the seat. I’m shaking and my heart is thumping. What’s going on? Why did Gary do this to me? What’s going to happen to me?

  It’s not just my head that hurts; my nose and mouth, covered in duct tape, feel as though they’ve been smacked as well. I lie quiet, wondering how far Gary has driven past the store.

  The car is moving, but not too fast. It seems Gary has driven off the main path and onto a side road. I look up at the window and watch the trees pass. Then I look over to the side door.

  If I can get to it, my hands are free enough to manipulate the handle. Maybe I can pull it open and get out. I’m thankful Gary didn’t tie my feet as well.

  Gary swerves the car. “Fuck,” he screams. The car veers off the road and then it stops, almost crashing into some trees. Two zombies throw themselves at Gary’s partly open window.

  As Gary shoots one in the head, I move my body over to the side door and st
ruggle with the handle. I pull open the door enough for me to squeeze out. Then I run, duct tape over my mouth and hands tied behind my back.

  I dash through the trees, but then I trip, and my face falls hard against the ground. The pain is excruciating as I roll to my knees and get back to my feet. If zombies are around, I don’t notice. If they are chasing me, I don’t know.

  But I heard Gary peel the van off the road and leave. I know he hasn’t come after me. He’s left me out here, bound, mouth covered in duct tape, and no weapon to protect me.

  21.

  I PLOP DOWN BY A TREE. My head jerks around, looking in every direction for zombies, and then I see it: a house and a woman standing near it, holding a gun and looking around her.

  I lift myself up from the ground and then I run to her. When she sees me, her eyes grow big. Rather than help me, she runs inside the house and slams the door.

  I keep running toward the house. My hands are tied behind my back, but my plan is to kick the door. I can’t let this woman ignore me.

  I reach the home. I notice a weathered and torn American flag has flown off of its holder and lays by a pot of dead flowers. On the door is a sign: The Finn Family.

  I see two zombies in the distance. They don’t see me. But if I don’t get help soon, they will. I kick the door.

  The windows of the house are boarded up, but one window is not completely covered, and I can see a curtain behind the wood. The curtain opens and then shuts fast. Is the woman scared of me? Does she think I’m a zombie? Why won’t she let me inside? Doesn’t she realize I need help?

  Now the zombies see me, and they’re headed my way. I kick the door again. This time the door opens. A man answers, holding a gun in his hand. I hear zombie growls. He pulls me into the house, then I hear gunshots, and the growls stop. The man slams the door.

  “Over here; please sit down,” says the man. The woman who ran away from me is there as well. A little girl, who looks to be about five or six, stands by her side.