Dead Man Running

by Davis, Barry

  Hank peeked inside the room. "May I come in, darling?"

  She was his "darling" now.

  Tamesha smiled, sat her book on the bed covers, and nodded.

  "I just wanted to say good night to my bride," Hank said. He took a seat on the edge of the bed and gingerly kissed her on the cheek.

  "Are you okay? Do you need anything?" he asked.

  Yes, I need my freedom. I need all the zombies like you to be dead.

  "No, I'm okay," she said. She yawned, which caused her jailer to yawn, although as a zombie it was a wasted gesture – they did not sleep.

  "I better let you get your rest." He smiled. "All the arrangements have been made, all the guests will be here at two sharp tomorrow." He took her hand and kissed it. "Finally darling, our wedding day has arrived. After Reverend Portlow marries us we'll have a quick dinner then retire to our wedding bed. Would you prefer to do it in this bed? I never asked if you had a preference."

  Tamesha smiled, pretended to think about it. "I like this bed a lot, Hank."

  He stood, patted the bed. "Here it will be," he said. "We'll lose our virginity right here." He patted the bed once more, smiled, then left.

  Tamesha heard the locks engage one by one.

  She picked up her book once again and read and waited.

  At three a.m. she climbed out of the bed. She peeled the nightgown off to reveal the jeans and t-shirt underneath. She removed her socks as she had decided that she would be quieter in her bare feet.

  She took Melissa's desk chair into the closet and sat it underneath the attic opening. Tamesha climbed onto the chair and immediately found that she had a problem: she still could not reach the opening.

  She tamped down the panic in her mind and thought for a moment. Seconds later she was back in the bedroom where she grabbed several books off the bookcase. She brought them into the closet and placed them under the legs of the chair until the chair was raised about six inches.

  She gingerly climbed on to the suddenly less than stable chair. It wobbled as she reached as high as she could. Her fingers found the piece of painted plywood that covered the opening. With a firm push, it lifted and she was able to sweep it aside. She grabbed the sides of the opening and lifted herself up and through.

  She never felt so grateful for being forced to do all those chin-ups during gym class.

  She had no flashlight and it was very dark in the attic, with only a few slats of moonlight to guide her way. Her eyes adjusted to the dark as well as they could and she knew that she just needed to walk straight ahead to reach the opposite opening. There was no floor to walk upon, only the parallel wooden beams.

  Tamesha got in a crouch and began to make her way across. It was warm in the attic, away from the house's central air, and she began to sweat. Midway, she paused. She was above Hank's bedroom and she stopped to listen. She could hear nothing – no noise to indicate his presence - and she felt momentarily safe and confident. She continued on.

  She reached the opposite opening. Her hands glistened with sweat and she wiped them on her pants and shirt before reaching for the piece of plywood that covered the opening into the master bathroom. She placed a finger under one corner of the board and attempted to lift it.

  It would not move. She took a deep breath and got fingers from both hands under the board and pulled with all her strength. The board still would not budge.

  She fought back her fear and panic. Maybe the board was just warped, she thought. I just need to keep trying, she told herself.

  Somewhere, deep in her mind, the Devil was telling her that she would be a zombie bride to Hank Bartholomew.

  She spent several more minutes tugging on the board. It would not move. Finally, she felt around the edges of the board and discovered the nails that had been used to prevent the board from moving. The tips of the nails pricked one of her fingers - it had been nailed shut from the bathroom side.

  She was still in a crouch – her knees hurt her now, the sweat covered her skin in slick sheets, and now her eyes were leaking.

  She felt low, in a dark deep pool of despair. Her breaths were short and shallow, coming fast.

  When she hung her head an image of Granny T's gnarled feet flashed in front of her. She looked up and followed the feet – attached to an image of Granny T dressed in her favorite bright red tent like mu-mu – as they walked over to a huge window. The image pretended to unlatch the screen and then floated out of the attic.

  Tamesha blinked once, and then pinched her arm to make sure that she was awake and alive.

  She crab walked over to the window, regained her full height and looked out. Directly outside was the barn. There was a rope that stretched from just outside the window to the hayloft of the barn.

  As Granny T had showed her, Tamesha unlocked the screen and swung it open. Again using skills learned in gym class, Tamesha used a hand over hand technique to transit the thirty feet of rope leading to the barn.

  Good old Katniss had nothing on Tamesha Louise Holloway.

  Approximately two hundred and forty-seven miles above the Earth's surface the International Space Station was accepting a visitor, the Firefly capsule. It was the first private spacecraft authorized to dock at the ISS. Station commander Oleg Kononenko and astronaut Don Pettit watched as the spacecraft completed its docking sequence. The pair confirmed a successful dock with NASA and Virgin Spaceways, the craft's owner. The two suited up and opened the airlock between the two crafts. Pettit gave a thumbs up as he entered the capsule. He could feel the history of this moment, the first private spacecraft to enter low Earth orbit and execute a docking sequence.

  The pair buzzed around the capsule for several minutes before retrieving the supplies inside.

  Kononenko and Pettit were soon back in the ISS with the other astronauts, unpacking and stowing the supplies. Astronaut Suni Williams was the one who found the globes.

  Afterwards, the crew assembled for a special transmission from the Earth.

  "Welcome, astronauts, to the dawn of a new era for the Earth, to the transcendence of a new race of beings. And you, my children, are the anointed ones chosen to make it happen. You will plant the seeds of the salvation of our planet."

  "We will serve you until the day we die," said Kononenko.

  Benjamin Wiley laughed. "Hopefully you will serve me a bit longer than that, my friends, you lovely children of God. You see, you are already dead. Now, listen carefully, this is the work I need you to do."

  Tamesha climbed onto the hayloft and looked back at the house. It would be so easy to run away now but she knew she couldn't run.

  Where would she go? Her foster parents would never believe her about the zombies and Hank would just kidnap her again. If she ran away from Daly City, she would be easy pickings for all the zombies she knew were out there. No, she had to make a stand here. She had to make this a safe place. And the only way to do that was to destroy that zombie Hank Bartholomew II. She just hoped that she would find a weapon inside the barn that would do the trick.

  She climbed down from the hayloft. The Bartholomew's two horses – Itsey and Bitsy – were in their stalls behind heavy wooden gates. As Tamesha walked past the animals each whinnied at the intruder. Sensing no danger, the animals quickly quieted, retreating to the thoughts animals maintained during the night.

  Just past the animals she found a small room. Tamesha stepped inside and discovered what she was looking for – the Bartholomew's gun cabinet.

  The glass door of the cabinet revealed the weapons inside – several hand guns, two shotguns and a bow and arrow.

  She tried the door and as expected it was locked. There was a dusty, worn desk in the room and Tamesha searched fruitlessly for the key.

  She would have to break the glass door.

  Her first concern, if she could find something capable of breaking the glass, was the noise it would make. Her second concern was whether Hank would come out here during his nighttime wanderings – she had heard him walking through t
he house during the past few nights and could imagine his path including the barn and grounds.

  She examined the cabinet again. The cabinet appeared old, the glass and wooden door loosely clinging to the cabinet frame. If she could find a crowbar, perhaps she could wedge open the cabinet, take a weapon or two, and then close it back without Hank noticing.

  She left the tack room and began walking around the barn again. Soon she found where the tools were stored and she had her hands on a huge screwdriver which would be perfect for levering open the cabinet.

  Back in the tack room she inserted the blade of the screwdriver in the gap between the cabinet door and the frame as far as it could go. The screwdriver was above her head. She reached up and placed both small hands on the huge tool. She fell back and pulled with all her might. She heard a splitting sound and a chunk of wood struck the top of her head.

  She looked up and the top of the box hung open, attached to the bottom surface of the box by three severely bent nails. She got on her feet. She placed the screwdriver in the side pocket of her carpenter jeans with the intention of putting it back where it belonged before she left.

  She considered what she would take. Unlike some of the kids in her neighborhood, Tamesha Holloway knew nothing about guns, except for what she saw on TV and the movies.

  She reached inside and pulled out a handgun. She knew that there was a safety and she found that easily enough. What she didn't know was how to put bullets inside it. She spent a few moments examining it, and then gave up. She put it back in the cabinet.

  She next got out the bow. Outside of "The Hunger Games", she wasn't familiar with this weapon either. She spent a minute or two pulling on the bow. She tried placing an arrow on the bow but she didn't have the strength to pull the string too far and the arrow harmlessly fell to the ground. She put the bow and arrows back in the damaged box and pulled out the shotgun.

  She had seen enough movies to know how a shotgun was loaded and fired. She examined the weapon until she located the safety. She easily found a button on the side that opened the weapon. Inside the weapon was empty. She looked around the room until she located the shotgun shells.

  She played with the ammo until she filled both barrels. She put the safety back on and sat the weapon on the floor. She pushed on the side of the cabinet for several minutes, in an attempt to make the damage invisible to an excited monster hurrying to feed horses on his wedding day. She knew that a hammer could do a better job but was not willing to risk the noise.

  When she was done the cabinet hung open slightly but since it was on the inside left wall, invisible except while standing inside the doorway, perhaps it would not be noticed. If it was, she and her new best friend would have to deal with it.

  As the shotgun had a strap, she slung the weapon over her shoulder. It nearly dragged on the floor. She took it off, adjusted the strap and the weapon was now tight against her slight back.

  She stuffed several boxes of ammo into her pockets and left the room. She would get back to Melissa's bedroom and wait for her 'groom' to unlock her bedroom door, presenting an inviting target for the twin barrels.

  She climbed up to the loft and looked over to the attic. The trip back would be harder – uphill with the extra weight of the shotgun and shells. In that moment of uncertainty, when she wondered if she could make it, she saw a flash of red in the attic window. Her granny had returned to inspire her.

  She knew that she would make it.

  The seaplane landed near Ovalau, a middling Fiji island, and the team disembarked to measure the effectiveness of the zombie atomic bomb. Mira and Elias rode aboard the first launch that hit the shore.

  The bombs had been deployed high above this island home of fifty thousand Fijians. All the instruments aboard the C-130 had registered successful transit of the bombs into clouds. The bombs exploded per design and the nanobots deployed in clouds, seeding the clouds and riding the raindrops down to the surface.

  The question was: Did the nanobots convert one hundred percent of the population?

  The first clue the team had that something was amiss was the presence of a boy on shore carefully gnawing what appeared to be someone's hand, possibly that of a female or another child.

  "Not one hundred percent coverage," Elias said as they stepped past the child.

  A woman ran out of the trees that framed the beach. "Help! Help!" She was white and obviously American. She was heavyset and very out of breath by the time she reached the group.

  "Please get me out of here! Something has happened, everyone seems to have gone mad."

  "What's the problem?" Elias asked.

  "Oh, thank God! You're American." She grabbed onto Elias like he was the Savior Himself.

  "Yes. Now what exactly is the problem?" Dr. Rothmans asked.

  "What's the problem? Why, they're eating people." She pointed to the native boy enjoying his meal. "They've gone back to being cannibals. My God, they ate Harold, my husband."

  "Is that so?" asked Elias. He smiled.

  "Is this really necessary?" asked Mira.

  "I guess not," answered Elias. He looked at Mira, disappointment dripping from his features. "Party pooper." He peeled the woman's hand off of his own.

  The woman searched her rescuers' faces for any assistance. "What? Are you people crazy? We need to get out of here. They. Are. Eating. People. Do you understand me?"

  "Perfectly," Elias said. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a globe. "And we would like you to join in." He eyed Mira and she briskly walked away. Once she was a safe distance he placed the globe on the sand.

  "What are you doing?" the woman asked as the weapon snicked open. The others left her as the bomb exploded, covering the woman with poison and potion filled darts. She thrashed upon the sand and Elias knew that indeed she would be feasting soon on the unfortunate humans not already converted.

  Tamesha refused to look down as she commenced to transit the rope, small hand over small hand.

  She was halfway back to the attic when she froze.

  In the attic window stood the smiling face of one Henry 'Hank' Bartholomew II.

  "Out for some exercise, darling?"

  Tamesha looked down – it was at least a thirty foot drop onto the gravel path that separated the two structures. She would probably break her legs and still be alive to be eaten, married or both. She considered dropping anyway when a voice startled her from behind.

  A burly man dressed in black with a clerical collar adorning his neck stood in the hayloft. He held a knife in his hands. "This is no activity for a bride on the morning of her wedding. You should be resting child. Let us put you back to bed."

  He smiled that wide grin and Tamesha knew he was one of them.

  "Meet Reverend Portlow, darling. He's the pastor of the First Lutheran Church of Daly City. He came in early for our wedding. I had him in my old bedroom watching TV when he noticed you grunting around out here."

  She looked back at Hank and he had a knife, too. "I think we'll just have to kill you now my darling. I wanted to marry a human and have many babies but I guess we'll have to marry as zombies." He dropped a silver globe to the ground.

  "You'll feel some pain Tammy but once this works on you, the reverend says you won't feel any pain anymore."

  She felt the rope vibrate as each began to saw at their ends. Tamesha held onto the rope but she knew she was dead, whether she held on or let go. There was no hope – she would be a zombie.

  Just then, there was a red flash behind Hank that distracted him. He stopped sawing the rope and turned to look. Portlow stopped sawing as well but it was too late – his side of the rope separated and Tamesha slammed into the side of the house. She dropped the remaining ten feet onto the gravel and rolled twice before stopping.

  Hank and Portlow leaped from their perches. They stood watching her and she didn't understand why until she heard the globe approach as its traction drive engaged and it began to roll in her direction.

  Tamesha di
d not bother to get to her feet. She knew enough not to give up hope again.

  She pulled the shotgun off her back, disengaged the safety. She calmly laid a box of shells on the ground. She waited until the globe was close then she pulled the trigger. She toppled backward with the recoil but when she had righted herself the globe was still coming – as were Hank and Portlow.

  She aimed and fired again – this time the globe blew into bits.

  There was no time to celebrate as Hank and Portlow were almost on top of her. She had time to load only one shell and she aimed the weapon in Portlow's direction. The thing's right leg was blown off at the kneecap. Thick black blood sprayed far enough to reach her bare foot. Then the beast she had damaged grinned in her direction as Hank reached her and knocked the shotgun from her grasp. He kicked the shells away.

  He lifted her off the ground by her neck. The damaged zombie crawled more quickly now in her direction.

  "You have been a very bad girl, Tammy. I think I will take you now. The reverend can marry us right now and we can have sex on the gravel."

  She was having difficulty breathing and she knew she was about to black out. She was too young to be married, especially to an unpleasant zombie boy like Hank.

  How dare he do this to me?

  Tamesha Holloway felt not fear but anger. Her anger became unbridled rage. It coalesced inside of her and it made her remember the long blade screwdriver she forgot to put back in the tool box.

  She whipped the tool out of her side pocket and jammed it in the soft skin under Hank's jaw. The monster screamed and dropped her to the gravel.

  She spun away from the outreached hand of the good reverend, placing her within arm's reach of the shotgun. She grabbed the gun, got to her feet and pulled another box of shells out of her pocket. Like an experienced Western lawman, she calmly loaded the weapon and shot the fast approaching Hank, separating his head from his body. The body spun around for a few moments before tripping over the crawling body of the former holy man. She aimed the weapon once more and blew the head off of the immobile Portlow.