“Well, I’m not letting that happen to you,” he said without looking at me.
I shook my head as I thought about the cult again. “The thing that bothers me is how in the world did these people get so crazy so fast? This outbreak only started yesterday.”
He shrugged, still not looking at me, but outside. “They were already crazy. I mean, you saw that sign outside the ballroom! ‘Blackwell Truth Church’… these people were already spouting nonsense. This whole situation just gives them the excuse they were looking for to carry out some kind of manifesto. It’s like Jonestown or those comet people from a few years ago.”
I swallowed. All those people in the cults he was talking about had ended up dead. And they hadn’t had an imminent threat of zombies right outside their doors to ramp up their mass hysteria.
“Well, how do we get away?” I asked. “There are guards at the door. And there’s no reasoning with good old Bill and Mel, down there.”
He turned slowly. “We aren’t going to reason. We’re just going to run.”
“How?” I asked, then looked toward the door and lowered my voice again.
He jerked his thumb toward the window and arched a brow. I hurried over to his side and looked out. The sun was pretty much down now and the world was frighteningly dark outside, but there were still some parking lot and exterior lights. In their glow, I could see that our room was just above the awning that hung over the casino entrance.
I turned back toward him with wide eyes and my first feeling of hope since our capture. “Holy shit, Dave! It’s only about what… ten feet down from here to there?”
He nodded. “And another short drop to the ground after that. I think we can make it. William took the keys to the Escalade, but I’ll bet at least one of these cars in the lot has keys in the ignition from when the owner was attacked. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot one right away and we can make a break for it.”
I shivered. “But… but there are zombies out there,” I whispered as I stared again into the looming darkness where real monsters roamed looking for flesh.
He put his arm around me as we stared out into the unknown abyss. “Yes, that’s very true. And it’s going to be dangerous, I won’t lie to you. But I’m pretty sure if we stay here that these crazy people are going to hurt us just as badly as any zombie could. In fact, maybe worse. I’ll take my chances on the open road.”
I nodded. His words were creeping past my fears. Worming into my brain. I had argued with him about a lot of things and a lot of decisions, but this time there was nothing to say. He was right.
“You know, I almost feel sorry for the zombies,” I mused as we stared out at the parking lot that could mean our freedom. “They kill for food… for base needs. They’re like an animal. They have no choice.”
Dave shrugged. “I don’t know if I’d go so far as pity. But you can’t blame them.”
“But this guy… this William and his wife… they know what they’re doing… they know the consequences of their threats and their teachings… but they do it anyway. And you’re right, that’s scarier than the dark. It’s scarier than any zombie.”
“So you’ll do it?” he asked, looking down at me.
I turned toward him and nodded up. “I will.”
He touched my cheek and for a minute I think we both lost ourselves. The moment felt tender and real and it broke up the horror of everything we’d been through over the last forty-eight hours.
But reality had to set back in and I was the one who backed away. “Okay, so we need some kind of rope to get down to the awning.”
I looked around for something that would serve the purpose and my gaze fell on the two beds.
“What about the sheets?”
Dave looked at the bed with worried eyes. “Um, didn’t Mythbusters once do an episode about how you couldn’t use sheets as a way out of prison?”
I laughed. “I don’t remember if they busted it or not. But I guess we’ll have to field test it again for them. There isn’t anything else and I think the drop without any kind of way to slow it might get us hurt.”
He shrugged, but I could see he was nervous. Have I mentioned Dave is a little afraid of heights? When my Mom came to visit and we took her to the Space Needle a year ago, he wouldn’t look out the window. He just stood in the shop in the middle of the dome, pretending to check out postcards. So the fact that he’d recommended climbing out a window… well, it meant our situation was pretty bad.
“I’ll go first,” I promised as I started stripping the bed. “And catch you if you fall.”
“Great,” he laughed as he threw the pillows on the floor on the other side of the bed. “I’ll remember you said that when I land on you.”
Show physical affection. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like bearing the entirety of your spouse’s body weight.
Looks great,” I said as I watched Dave finish securing our makeshift sheet ladder to the radiator.
He had braided the sheets from both beds together until they were a strong, cohesive rope and the knots he used on the radiator looked as powerful as any I’d ever seen. These were the times I was glad I had married a former Boy Scout. Those rope-tying skills had come in handy more than once during our relationship.
What? Everyone experiments. Don’t judge.
Anyway, I pushed the window open as wide as I could and slung the rope out into the night. It swung gently in the breeze before it settled above the awning below.
“It doesn’t quite reach,” I said with a sigh. “But the drop is a lot less.”
I looked back to find Dave staring at me, eyes wide. He was trying to control the fear, but I could see it was hitting him hard now that the time had come to actually go out a two-story window.
I patted his arm. “Hey, it’s going to be fine. Look, I’ll go first.”
Dave tensed, but before he could argue I swung out over the edge of the window and held tightly to the sheet as I began to shimmy down.
Here’s the thing if you ever decide to rappel out a window: wear gloves. By the time I reached the bottom of the sheet, my hands were raw and sore from the friction of the cotton fabric rubbing against them.
I was so ready to let go at that point that I really had to think hard about how I wanted to land so that I wouldn’t just drop willy nilly. Luckily I hit the awning just right, with only the barest creak of the old metal, and stepped back to give my husband some room.
I looked up. Dave was still staring down at me from the window.
“It’s okay,” I called up, trying to make my voice soft and yet still let it carry to him. “It’s not so bad.”
That was a lie, of course. Dave was bigger than I was, so he was going to struggle with the pain of the descent as much, if not more than I had, thanks to his added body weight. But I didn’t think it made much sense to tell him that when the height of the drop already made him nervous. So I merely gave him the thumbs up and held my breath.
“I can’t do this, Sarah,” he finally whispered down.
“Oh shit,” I muttered to myself.
I knew he had issues with the height, but I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that he might freeze. And I wasn’t up there to help him, to push him.
“David,” I said, my voice sharp to make sure he was paying attention. When he nodded, I continued, “You can do this, babe. Look at me.”
His face was pale, but he focused on mine in the light above.
“You can do this,” I repeated. “You have to do it for me.”
To my surprise, that woke him up. He grabbed the sheet in both hands and swung out over the ledge. I could see him dragging in heaving breaths, but he started down toward me slowly.
The closer he came, the more I could see the agony on his face. Just like I had, he was struggling with the unexpected friction of the cotton on his palms. But unlike me, he didn’t make it all the way to the bottom before he ground out a curse and then the sheet slipped from his hands with a whizzing sound and he
fell.
He landed at a weird angle and then went down on his backside. At first I thought he was okay, but then he started rocking gently as he grabbed his leg and bit his lip so he wouldn’t make too much noise and attract any zombies… or cult leaders… waiting around outside.
I dropped down on my knees next to him and grabbed his arm. I wanted to cry out as I watched his face constrict with pain, but I couldn’t.
“Babe,” I whispered just under my breath. “Oh, baby, are you okay?”
He shut his eyes hard and I watched him struggle to pull it back together, but then he nodded. “Yeah,” he bit out. “I’m okay. Let’s just get moving.”
I had my doubts, but Dave wasn’t waiting to decide our next move by committee. With a moan worthy of any brain-seeking zombie he dragged himself to the edge of the awning and looked down. It was about a seven-foot drop. Definitely doable, especially since we intended to dangle from the edge, but if he was already injured…
Well, we’ll just say it added a new element to the idea. But I’ll give him credit. He sucked it up, he manned it up and he hung over the side of the overhang. He drew in a deep breath and then he dropped.
I went over the side as fast as I could and let go, landing with a jarring hit on the ground, but I wasn’t hurt. Dave, on the other hand, sat on the ground, holding his leg as silent tears streamed down his face.
“Shit,” I whispered as I put my arm around him to help him to his feet. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
He nodded silently. “Let’s go, we just have to go.”
I let him brace on me for support and we started in a limping run across the parking lot.
There are times in a marriage when one person has to give a little more for the other one. I knew this was my day and for once I didn’t bitch about it.
As Dave bit his lip in agony at my side, I scanned the lot for a car that had keys in the ignition. Anything, any piece of shit would do. I no longer cared about satellite radio or bucket seats. I just wanted to get Dave into a car where he wouldn’t have to put weight on his fucked up leg and get us as far away from here as I could.
We were about halfway across the parking lot when I heard a roar behind us. I looked over my shoulder while we continued to run and I was shocked to see that it wasn’t zombies who made the sound.
From the door of the casino, the members of the cult were rushing out toward us, their wild charge led by William. His blond hair streamed out behind him and with the light behind him he actually did look like a messenger of God, sent to deal with sinners like us.
“Run, baby,” I urged Dave. “Run!”
He limped as fast as he could, but I could feel him slowing down with every step as he fought the pain of his injury. I looked back again and the cult members had erased half the distance between us. They were carrying machetes and knives and one even had a sword.
They were going to butcher us when they caught us. And I was terrified by that prospect. I can admit that now, hell, I would have admitted it then. I could hardly breathe as I pictured all the awful things they would do before we died. It was worse, I think, because we had survived so many zombies only to probably get killed by a bunch of freaks who were twisting the Bible for their own purposes.
But just as they started to close the final distance, close enough that I could see William’s bright eyes sparkle in the parking lot lights, a horde of zombies broke from the trees on the left side of the parking lot.
I almost came to a stop at the shock of seeing them attacking as a group. There were too many to count. Probably even more than there had been when we burned the car in the International District back in Seattle. They rolled from the trees in a gray, sludge-sprewing, limping wave, growling with hunger and pain.
I had never been so happy to see them before in my life. Their appearance distracted the cult and they turned toward the galloping horde to let out a war cry.
“Purge the unclean!” William bellowed and he charged toward them.
“Run!” Dave whispered. “Go, go, go!”
I shook off my surprise and started booking it across the parking lot again. One of the zombies broke toward us and caught up to us pretty easily since we were slowed down by Dave’s injury. I pushed my husband behind me and did the thing you always see at some point in zombie movies.
I went all kung fu on his zombie ass.
I sucked at it, too. The thing they don’t tell you in all the zombie movies is that zombies are a bit… squishy. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. They are the living dead, after all, and their flesh is rotting away slowly but surely.
So when the first zombie reached us I did a straight kick into his abdomen. I expected him to fly backward a la The Matrix, but instead my foot sank into his flesh, almost like it was landing in really squishy quicksand.
The zombie and I stared at each other for a second, our twin expressions of confusion probably pretty comical. But then he bared his teeth and growled at me. Black sludge rolled down his chin and his red eyes glinted in the parking lot lights.
“Oh hell, no!” I grunted, then I pulled my leg away from his spongy stomach and instead did a big high kick across his chin.
That rocked him back and he staggered away into a parked car. His back hit the side mirror and to my shock it pierced his rotted skin and went straight through until it bulged out through his shirt, the mirror perfectly outlined though the plaid fabric.
“Ew,” Dave and I both said together.
The zombie grunted and tried to pull away from the mirror, but he was stuck. I shook off my disgust and surprise. This was our opportunity! I grabbed Dave and we started running again. The zombie roared behind us and I glanced back to see a few more breaking away from the main group that was fighting the cult.
“Car, we need a car,” I muttered. Without any other weapons, that was the only way out.
“There!” Dave said, his voice strained as he motioned a row over.
I hurried in the direction he’d indicated until I saw the car with the big wad of keys dangling from the ignition. It was sitting under a light and the keyring was fluorescent green, but I still patted Dave’s shoulder as I threw the door open and shoved him into the passenger seat.
“Good eyes.”
I hurried around the car, trying not to be entirely appalled by the vehicle. So Dave and I had owned a shitty car. Mid-90s-style sedan, no frills beyond a CD changer. It was rusty and loud and it smelled like cheese fries when we ran the heater in the winter.
But that car looked like a luxury model when compared to this. An early-80s-model boat, later Dave told me it was a Chevy Caprice, it was this awful shade of blue… at least where the cake of dirt and the red rusty spots were cleared a bit.
As I got in, I sort of thought that this was the kind of car the owner probably just left the keys in all the time. I mean, who would steal it?
I slammed the door shut and metal ground against metal with a grinding, crushing sound. But I’d done it just in time because not one but three zombies hit my side of the car at the same time. I let out a really girly scream as they clawed at the big car’s windows, smearing them with blood and sludge as they drooled on the glass and tried to dig their way in.
My hands shook as I turned the key and the massive V8 engine roared to life. I pulled out of the parking space in reverse with my foot to the floor and swung the wheel, sending the zombies on my side of the car flying through the air. It was very satisfying to see them soaring across the parking lot, bouncing off cars and poles.
For a minute Dave and I looked at the scene around us. I had turned the car toward the battle being waged between the cult members and the zombies. We stared, silent, as the humans swung their blades, lopping off zombie heads just like we were watching a video game.
But occasionally the zombies got their points, too. A few clung to the necks of the living, biting and clawing at live flesh with the zeal of a rabid animal.
I craned my neck and found William in t
he fray. He was slashing at a group of zombie children, hacking them to bits with a joy that was a bit frightening. Then he turned toward our car lights and stared at us. His expression was angry and bitter. He scowled as he started across the parking lot toward us. I was about to throw the car into drive and get the fuck out of there when a zombie stood up on top of a van next to the “prophet.”
With a growl, he jumped and landed squarely on top of William. They fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and clawing fingers. The zombie dug his teeth into the preacher’s flesh without hesitation. William’s screams were faint through the glass and I shook my head. I guess God hadn’t protected him after all.
“Look,” Dave said.
He motioned toward the entrance to the casino. Standing there, watching everything unfold, was Melissa Blackwell. She stared as the zombie devoured her husband, draining his life and damning him to walk the earth as the undead.
But before I could feel too sorry for her for what she was seeing, she turned around and went back into the casino, ushering the women and children who stood around her back inside.
“It looks like the Blackwell Truth Church has a new leader,” Dave said with a shake of his head
I thought of Melissa and her sharp, intelligent eyes and strong grip on my arm earlier in the night.
“God help them,” I murmured as I pulled around in a big circle and headed out into the dark night and all the uncertainty that faced us.
Admit when you’re wrong. It doesn’t fix a busted leg, of course, but it’s a nice gesture nonetheless.
Under normal circumstances, the park we pulled into near the airport probably would have been a very dangerous place. It wasn’t well-lit for one thing. The light we’d parked under barely flickered and two of the others were burned out entirely.
Because of its proximity to the airport, it would normally be filled with jet noise all night and all day, which meant the neighborhood wasn’t exactly prime and ended up attracting a bad element that led to a high crime rate.
Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead Page 14
