Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead

by Jesse Petersen

  “Sarah, fuck!”

  I swung the wheel away from the wreckage and the passenger door tore off entirely, but we managed to break away and slide to the shoulder. But the road was just as bad there, where we bounced over glass and metal pieces from earlier accidents and explosions.

  In the backseat, Amanda slammed to the side as the car careened and she let out an angry, hissing cry before she grabbed the back of both our seats and yanked herself closer.

  “Oh God!” I screamed as I thought of what she’d said earlier about tearing my flesh with her teeth. “Shoot it! Please, shoot —”

  Before I could finish the sentence, Dave fired the gun. At such short range, Amanda flew backward from the pressure of the blast. Blood, sludge and brains blew against the back window, blocking any view I had. Amanda, or what was left of her, slumped forward onto the floor of the backseat. She twitched once and then lay still.

  “Fuck!” I cried as the car rocked, only this time it wasn’t from my shitty driving.

  Now that Dave’s door was gone, the zombies along the side of the road seemed to sense our renewed weakness. Racing forward in small groups, they growled, swiping at Dave. He scootched closer to the middle console and cocked the gun he’d just used to kill our friend, firing into the crowd of them even while he reached into the backseat with his free hand to grab for a shotgun.

  “Watch the road, baby!” he said. “You watch the road and I’ll take care of this. Just please don’t stop, whatever else you do.”

  I concentrated on the pavement ahead of me as best I could, swerving around cars, sideswiping zombies into the highway barriers when I was able to catch them.

  “What do I do?” I yelled as I looked ahead of me at the long rows of cars still broken down and abandoned ahead. “It’s so blocked up, I can’t go any faster.”

  “Get off!” he barked as he tossed the empty handgun into the back and started firing off shotgun shots that made my ears ring in the close quarters.

  I slung the car across several lanes toward the next off ramp, smashing broken vehicles as I went and rolling over flailing zombies as our car threw them to the ground. I gunned the sputtering vehicle up the exit ramp and hit the flipped motorcycle that was lying in the middle of the road. For a minute we went airborne and then hit the street with a crunching sound. It may sound cool or look cool when that happens in a movie, but in reality… not so much, especially since the engine started smoking the second we hit.

  At the end of the exit, the way left was blocked by another overturned semi, so I roared to the right and headed into the heart of Seattle’s International District, with zombies running up the ramp after us and our car lurching and coughing from all the hits it had taken.

  The surface streets were actually less congested than the highway and it was easier to move around the cars and debris scattered along our route. As I swung the wheel from side to side in an effort to compensate for the damage done to the steering, I tried to look behind us, but my view was blocked by the splattered remains of Amanda’s head. I forced myself not to puke.

  “Can you see any of them?” I finally asked when I could breathe enough to talk.

  Dave leaned out the gaping open side of the car and looked back toward the ramp we’d just driven up. “No. They can’t seem to make it off the highway, the exit is too steep for them to figure out.”

  I let out a sigh of relief at that. With the ones behind us stuck, there weren’t any zombies, at least not where we could see them. I’m sure they were lurking around, but they hadn’t figured out that Dave and Sarah’s All You Can Eat Buffet On Broken Wheels was rolling their way yet. So for a minute, at least, we were safe.

  “Look for a car dealership,” Dave said softly as he reloaded his shotgun and reached in the back for the empty handgun and a box of bullets.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead and didn’t answer as I scanned around us and down side streets.

  The International District was a funky place, with all kinds of ethnicities represented in the brightly colored shops and restaurants, though the culture with the biggest influence was Vietnamese. We had pulled into the area known as Little Saigon.

  “There,” Dave said, motioning down a side street I’d just passed. I came to a lurching stop, put the car in reverse (which elicited a great deal of loud protest from the transmission) and rolled the car back to turn down the narrow side street.

  Dave was right. Sheesh, I end up saying that a lot. But there was no denying that up ahead was a gaudy car lot. “Happy New and Used Cars, We Work With Any Credit!” it touted with a garish sign that swung from the paws of an enormous inflated gorilla.

  “Why do these joints always try to sell cars with inflatables?” Dave muttered under his breath. “So cheesy.”

  “We should try to get something new,” I said as I came to a stop and put our choking, hissing car into park.

  He nodded as he handed me a fully loaded shotgun along with a bunch of shells and got out. We walked onto the deserted lot and looked around.

  “All the keys will probably be in a lockbox inside,” Dave said. “Come on.”

  “We should get something big,” I said. “Something that can move smaller vehicles because —”

  I broke off. I didn’t want to say why. Dave seemed to understand though. I mean, it was pretty obvious that without a third person in our party, moving cars out of the way was going to be way more dangerous. We wouldn’t want to do it if we could use a big vehicle to push them instead.

  We opened the big glass door that led to the showroom floor. Canned music was playing, “Highway to Hell” in muzak version and I shook my head as I looked at the convertibles that were showcased for the discriminating buyer. In Seattle. Where it rains practically every day. Awesome.

  Dave motioned to a big desk in the back corner. A tall lockbox was attached to the wall behind it and that was probably filled with car keys for test drives.

  I followed him, gun at the ready as he edged up to the desk. It was really tall and you couldn’t see under it, so we shouldn’t have been surprised when a female zombie jumped up from behind it and gave a roar of welcome.

  She was dressed in a light blue polo shirt with “Happy New and Used Cars” blazoned across it in bright orange lettering. Oh yeah, and it was also splattered with black zombie sludge and little flecks of freshly eaten brains.

  Inviting. I could tell my car-stealing experience was going to be “happy,” indeed.

  Dave fired off the shot that dropped her without even flinching and came around behind the desk to check that the job was done. He fired a second one out of my line of sight, I guess to be safe rather than sorry (a very good thing during a zombie apocalypse) and then bent over the corpse.

  “What are you doing?” I asked as I kept an eye out for zombie stragglers.

  “Getting the box key,” he explained as he came up with a bloody key ring. “We might as well not have to waste ammo or time trying to force it. Keep an eye out.”

  I did as I was told while he fiddled with a few keys, testing them in the little round lock that held the box closed. Finally, the metal door swung open to reveal row after row of keys all arranged neatly.

  Dave started calling out makes and models of vehicles for my approval, everything from completely crappy shitters like our now-dead car to really nice vehicles.

  I had an opinion about which one to pick, I really did, but I didn’t answer because from down a hallway toward the back of the office came two zombies. They were dressed in cheap polyester pants and ugly ties and both wore nametags, so I assumed they were sales zombies.

  “Shit, I wouldn’t have bought anything from these idiots anyway,” I muttered as I fired off a shot.

  One of the sales zombies flew backward as his head exploded like a watermelon. But the other leapt toward me before I could manage a second shot.

  I backed up out of instinct and found myself falling backward over a low ottoman that had been placed near the sales desk, no doub
t for customers to be comfortable during the wait for their terrible credit scores to be run by the fine sales crew.

  I hit the ground and my shotgun skidded across the parquet floor out of my reach. The zombie was bearing down on me now and Dave swore as he grabbed for the handgun he had set down while he jimmied the lock.

  I raised my hands in the hopes I could somehow hold the approaching beast off. The whole world seemed to slow to half time. He lunged over me, a ridiculous-looking zombie with a fucking goatee and an earring stuck through his gray, dead ear. Oh yeah, he also had a mullet. I was going to get killed and turned into a zombie by a guy with a mullet.

  And then the strangest thing happened. Instead of dropping down and sinking his teeth into my flesh, there was a bang and the zombie let out a cry as a gaping hole appeared in his forehead. He collapsed down on top of me, but not in an attempt to kill me. The light went out of his eyes and he whined out a final breath as he died.

  David raced around the sales desk and grabbed the zombie’s mullet to pull his now-lifeless corpse off of me. As I got up, we both turned toward the door. Standing there, dressed like a character from Underworld or something, was a petite Asian girl carrying a huge shotgun.

  “Hey,” she said as she reloaded with one hand. “What’s up?”

  Present a united front. You against the zombies.

  I think we all must have just stared at each other for at least a full minute. Dave and I were honestly pretty shocked to see another human person. If you think about it, this was the first live human we’d found since the previous afternoon when Amanda came to our door looking for Jack. I wasn’t even sure what to say to a stranger anymore.

  As for the girl, well, she looked pretty unimpressed and bored by the sight of us. So I guess she didn’t have anything to say.

  “Um, thanks for your help,” I finally said as I moved a little closer.

  “No problem.” She shrugged like saving my life was no thing. “I saw you guys pull in the lot from the apartment above the restaurant across the way. From the looks of your car, I figured you might need help.”

  Dave and I exchanged a look at her pointed statement, but then he smiled.

  “Well, we did. And we really appreciate what you did for us,” Dave said as he moved toward her with his hand extended. He’d always been good with people, that was why we’d thought he’d be so successful in business. “I’m David and this is my wife Sarah.”

  She didn’t make any move to shake his hand. I noticed at that point that she was wearing plastic gloves. Also a mask like the ones painters wear dangled around her neck and as we moved closer, she lifted it up to cover her nose and mouth. It reminded me of all those outbreaks of things like swine flu when people had worn those masks to protect themselves in airports or stores.

  But a mask wasn’t going to do shit in this case.

  “I’m Lisa,” she said, her voice a little muffled by the white cotton that now covered her mouth. There was a long pause and then she motioned us toward the door. “My grandfather owned the restaurant over there. Do you want to come up and I’ll share some of my food? It’s perishable so it has to be eaten before we lose power.”

  I looked at Dave and he nodded. “It has been a while since breakfast.”

  That seemed to be enough for her, because she turned and glanced around the parking lot before she headed toward the back of a restaurant that faced the car lot. We followed her, keeping our eyes peeled for zombies, but the lot was just as quiet as it had been when we approached it.

  Lisa took us through the back door of the restaurant, still fragrant with the previous day’s food. My stomach growled and once again I was ashamed that I could want to eat after everything that had happened. But not ashamed enough to stop following her up the small hall that led to the main dining room.

  The room was still pretty tidy with small tables arranged in a pleasing way around the room. Different sauces and salt and pepper still stood on their tops. There really wasn’t a stick of furniture out of place.

  From the looks of the place, one might have thought it was just a slow day… well, except for the bodies stacked by the front door and the fine spray of sticky blood slashed across the menu display above the counter.

  I flinched as I counted the bodies swiftly. Eight. All of them headless. I guess Lisa, or whoever had killed them, hadn’t wanted to take any chances with zombification. Smart. We’d adopt the same policy in time.

  “This way,” Lisa said as she opened up a door behind the counter with a key and took us up a flight of stairs to another locked door. She let us in and as we got inside the foyer of a tiny apartment she bolted the door and moved a big chair in front of it.

  I looked around. The place was in an older building and it had that faintly musty smell of it, along with the strong scents of a thousand meals made below. But it wasn’t unpleasant, just nostalgic and almost comforting.

  “The food is in the fridge,” Lisa said as she went into another room.

  We followed and soon found ourselves seated at a chipped Formica kitchen table covered in traditional Vietnamese noodle soups and dumpling dishes. I took my first bite and moaned with delight.

  Lisa looked at me sharply, I guess looking for signs that I was infected, but then I thought I saw her smile behind her mask.

  “My grandfather was a good cook,” she said.

  I nodded as I looked at her. She was so young and so far we hadn’t seen anyone else with her. I had to hope her family was just out searching for food or helping survivors.

  “He was, this is wonderful,” I said when I swallowed my bite. “Is he still here? Are there others with you?”

  She arched a brow and her eyes got sad and hard all at once. “No, there’s no one left.”

  I shut my eyes and tried not to think of my own family. “Oh. How did it happen?”

  She swallowed hard. “Yesterday one of the tour groups that come through this area came into the restaurant around lunchtime. We make a lot of money off those people, so my family is always excited when a bus parks outside our door. But one of the men with them had a bandage on his arm. He was acting weird and eventually he collapsed. Grandpa tried to help him but —”

  She broke off, but we didn’t need to hear her say it to know what had happened.

  “The outbreak had already started by then, hadn’t it? The tourist turned into a zombie and he bit your grandfather?” Dave whispered.

  She seemed relieved not to have to recite those details herself. She nodded. “My Mom and my older brother rushed to help, but he got them before they knew what was happening.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I looked at Dave from the corner of my eye.

  “How did you keep from being turned, too?” he asked.

  She looked at him like he was accusing her of something and her glare narrowed.

  “I wanted to fight them,” she snapped. “But my boyfriend forced me come up here. We bolted ourselves in and waited. We could hear them outside all night. Finally, this morning he couldn’t take the way they were clawing at the door anymore. He took a shovel from the back deck and went down to deal with them.” She swallowed hard. “He never came back. I finally dared to come down and found all these bodies. I shot some, bashed the heads in on others and stacked them up at the front door so the others wouldn’t come in.”

  There was a long silence in the room. Finally, I shifted.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, though the sentiment seemed really stupid. “Uh, our friend got it this morning.”

  “I saw her body in your car when I walked by,” Lisa said with a shrug. “It looks like she got shot in there, by one of you, after she turned.”

  Her eyes were really difficult to read and they were all I could see with her face covered by her mask, so I’m not sure if she was disgusted with us for killing Amanda or impressed that we had the guts.

  I looked at Dave and he nodded like he read my mind.

  “So how old are you?” Dave asked.r />
  She turned her glare on him sharply. “Old enough.”

  “You can’t be more than seventeen or eighteen,” he pressed.

  She folded her arms. “I’m nineteen. I graduated high school this year.” She shifted slightly. “I was going to U-Dub in the fall. So was Alex. He is my… well, he was my boyfriend.”

  We were all silent for a moment. I guess we were each thinking about what we’d lost in the last couple of days. I had my own shit to deal with, but I couldn’t imagine being ten years younger and on my own dealing with what was happening in the city around us.

  Problems or not, at least I had David to depend on. And even though I was worried about my Dad down in San Diego and my Mom, who lived a couple of hours south of Chicago, so far there was no reason to believe they had been hurt. In fact, I knew my Dad had been okay as recently as yesterday afternoon when he e-mailed me. Probably they were both just scared out of their wits and wondering about my health and well-being.

  This girl had lost her entire family, her boyfriend, her dreams, and her future in about thirty-six hours. Suddenly my life didn’t seem so bad.

  “We’re on our way to the border, Longview, Washington,” I offered awkwardly even though Lisa hadn’t asked. “To find Dave’s sister. If you want to come, you’re welcome to ride along with us.”

  Dave nodded immediately and his hand settled on my knee under the table. He squeezed gently and I smiled at him. We might butt heads, but obviously we agreed on this point that the kid shouldn’t be left alone like this. I was glad he didn’t hesitate with her like he had with poor Amanda.

  “So I’m some charity case for you?” she snapped as she grabbed the dirty plates and took them off the table.

  Dave stared. “No, not at all. You’d be doing us a favor. We could use a third person to look out on the highway. And you’re obviously a good shot and can take care of yourself.”