The Zombie Zovels (Book 1): Zombie Suburbia

by Lake, D. K

  I followed him to the end of the corridor and we slipped through the double-doors. I thought I saw movement at the other end through the windows. Lane must have seen it as well because he grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner. He let go and ran to the end, ducked down, and looked through the glass window, checking both ways. There was supposed to be patrols on the floors during the night... they were a bit lax, though, and usually the whole lot of them ended up in the games room playing cards or taking one of the girls to the back rooms. That was the main reason Lane wanted to get me out of here. But even with the prison-like atmosphere and us under lockdown, I did feel semi-safe here and was reluctant to leave. My pace slowed down. I was having second thoughts, trying to rationalize why we were doing this. Lane had noticed I was dawdling and jogged back to me.

  “What's wrong?”

  “Are we sure about this?” I asked.

  “What, you're not?”

  “Lane, if we leave, we can never come back.”

  “I don't want to come back. I want to get as far away as possible.”

  “It's suicide. We might get eaten outside.”

  “This coming from the tough girl that lived in the woods, washed in the river, and survived day to day. You never complained about being eaten back then.”

  “I've just gotten used to not sleeping in a tree, that's all.”

  “You've changed your tune, I thought you wanted to get out of here? You were dead set on it last week. I'd rather be eaten than spend another day in this place!”

  He stalked ahead of me and ducked down again near the last set of doors before the main ones. He peeked through the glass window and I kept my eyes on the corridor behind us, expecting one of them to come after us at any minute.

  “It's clear.”

  “Really?” I said. Not really believing breaking out would be this easy.

  “Yeah there's no one there.”

  We stopped at the main doors. The locking system no longer worked so the doors were unlocked. I, at least, expected a guard or some sort of extra security measures.

  “Wait,” I said, stopping him, grabbing his arm before he opened the door.

  “They're probably outside patrolling.”

  “Then we'll be careful.”

  “Have you even thought this through? How are we going to outrun these guys? They have transport.”

  “For a start, it's dark. I don't think they're going to risk their lives for a few bottles of water and a handful of protein bars.”

  “Protein bars?”

  “Don't complain. It's all I could get my hands on.”

  He stared at the door handle, hesitating. I crossed my arms waiting for him to make a move. “Well, genius, what next?”

  “Will you just trust me for once?”

  He looked desperate, I knew he was doing this for me.

  “Okay,” I mumbled.

  He pushed me behind him and pulled the large door inwards to open it. It creaked loudly, and he quickly stopped moving the door, leaving just enough of a gap for us to squeeze through. Outside was pitch black.

  “Worst idea ever!” I said to myself, following Lane as he led me around the side of the building with a flashlight.

  “Where are we going? The gates are back that way.” I said.

  “Transport.”

  “Transport?”

  “I figured we wouldn't get very far, even if we got out of the gates. You're not a fast runner.” he said over his shoulder.

  “I have tiny legs.” I replied.

  It was the only smart thing I could think of to say.

  We stayed close to the building and every time we heard a noise Lane switched the flashlight off. When the vehicles came into view Lane ran ahead and disappeared with the flashlight, and left me stumbling around in the dark. I walked into the Jeep. At least, I think it was the Jeep, it was so dark. “Lane...” I whispered. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Over here,”

  I spun around looking in the direction I thought I'd heard him.

  “That's not helpful.” I muttered, cautiously walking toward him.

  “Oi!” he called, flicking the flashlight on and off to get my attention.

  I was walking in the wrong direction. I hurried over to him and managed to lose my footing on a stone. I quickly regained my balance and walked the last few steps, deciding it was safer to walk in the dark.

  Lane was already pushing a motorcycle along the ground when I reached him.

  “You got the keys?” I asked.

  “Obviously. I'm not pushing this thing for the fun of it. I thought this would be easier to roll out than the Jeep.”

  “Good thinking.”

  He handed me the flashlight, but I didn't switch it on. I knew someone had to be around here somewhere. At least, that's what I thought. The only reason I got any sleep in this place was because I was told it was secure and there was always someone patrolling. We made it to the main gates and I hurried over with Lane to help untie the rope, which wasn't very difficult.

  “Whoever was the last one in, didn't do a very good job of securing these gates. A toddler could have undone this.” Lane grumbled. “I think it's a good job we're leaving, we could have been attacked in our sleep and we can't even defend ourselves properly without any weapons.” he continued.

  “It's freezing out here! We're probably going to die from hypothermia before we even see a zombie.” I said, bobbing around to keep warm.

  “Take this,” Lane handed me his rucksack, I slipped my arms through the straps and turned to walk back to the motorcycle, leaving Lane behind me to open the gates. I was only a few steps away from the bike when a flashlight shone into my face, blinding me. I was so stunned and confused, it took me a moment to realize it wasn't Lane as I was the one holding the flashlight. “What are you doing?” Scottie asked, lowering the flashlight to the bike.

  I cursed under my breath.

  “Alex, what the fuck are you doing out here?”

  “Leaving,” I said barely above a whisper.

  “Why? It's not safe out there.”

  “It's not safe in here either.”

  He didn't respond. He knew what I was talking about.

  “You can't go,” he said, moving closer to the bike.

  “You can't stop us,” Lane said from behind me.

  “I'm sorry, but I can't let you leave and I can't let you take the bike.” Scottie said. I went over and over the current situation in my head while Scottie tried to reason with us, but I knew it was too late for that now. Lane grumbled under his breath and I heard the jingle. We're so screwed.

  A couple of the guys kept a whistle, and I knew that familiar jingle was that of a whistle. I waited for the whistle. Instead, I heard the safety click off from a gun.

  “Lane... What are you doing?” I asked, looking at the gun that was pointed at Scottie. “Don't do it, man. I don't wanna hurt you. Just let us leave with the bike and they'll be no problems.” Lane said.

  “Scottie you don't have to stay here, you don't have to do everything your father tells you to do.” I said.

  “Alex!” Lane hissed near my ear.

  “Scottie,” I pleaded.

  “Move now!” Lane ordered, taking over the situation.

  I looked at Scottie, I couldn't see his face properly, but he could see us as he had the light on us. “Scottie, please,” I begged.

  “I'm sorry, Alex,” Scottie said. “It's not up to me.”

  I heard gunfire and immediately ducked down out of reflex. Scottie's flashlight rolled across the ground... I slowly straightened up.

  “What did you do?” My voice came out broken and shaky.

  Lane walked around the bike and over to Scottie. I shuffled closer, flicking my flashlight on and shining it over Scottie.

  His body lay lifeless on the ground. Lane bent over Scottie, patting his pockets down for anything useful.

  “You killed him!” I spluttered.

  “He was reaching for a g
un, Alex.”

  “No, he wasn't.”

  “Yes, he was.” Lane said, retrieving a gun from behind Scottie's body.

  I stood motionless, in shock, horrified at the fact Lane had just killed a healthy human. Lane laughed. “This thing's not even loaded.” Lane said, chucking the gun on the ground beside Scottie.

  I continued to stare at the ground where Scottie was lying, even after Lane had pulled the flashlight from my hand and shoved it back into the rucksack along with Scottie's flashlight. A single gunshot snapped me out of my temporary daze and I fell to my knees, and crawled behind the bike. A moment later another gunshot went off and Lane slid up beside me, leaning over me, shielding me with his body.

  More gunfire ricocheted around us.

  “Where's it coming from?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” he replied.

  After a few more rounds of gunfire, it stopped, and all I could hear was Lane breathing heavily above my head. Then we both heard the main door slam against the wall.

  “Come on, we need to go,” Lane said, pulling me to my feet.

  He climbed onto the bike and I held onto his shoulders and lifted my leg over, and slipped my hands around his waist. The bike roared to life and we sped off just as I heard shouting and more gunfire behind us. We made it out of the gates and I looked back over my shoulder. The doors were open, lights inside the building spilled out and flashlights bounced around in the dark. I crossed my fingers and prayed they wouldn't follow us. Lane gave the chained up zombies a wide berth and weaved the bike around the long windy road and out through the main entrance, and back onto the main road. The bike picked up speed. I turned to look back once more before we disappeared behind the trees.

  There were no vehicle lights following us.

  I huddled closer to Lane, trying my hardest not to cry. I hadn't cried since I'd lost my parents. I'd killed zombies, seen humans eaten and humans killed by zombies and never shed a tear, but after having witnessed Lane killing Scottie I couldn't help it. I silently sobbed into Lane's back. After twenty minutes of driving the sun was rising. I felt numb with emotion and tired from getting up so early. I sat up and blinked my sore eyes. Trees lined the road either side with not a house or town in sight. I rested my face against Lane's back and noticed it felt damp. I held on tightly with one hand and felt over his back with my other hand. It wasn't raining, so why was Lane's hoodie wet? I found a tear in his hoodie and pressed my finger against it and Lane jerked his shoulder away from my hand. I pinched his waist with my other hand, signaling I wanted him to stop the bike. He slowed the bike down and pulled off onto a narrow dirt road. He didn't drive too far away from the road, only far enough to conceal us from view.

  The bike stopped and I hopped off and looked around at our surroundings. The trees looked still and the only sound I could hear was that of the birds chirping. Lane was already off the bike and had flipped the kickstand on. He walked over to a large rock and sat down staring at the ground. I walked over to him and dropped both bags on the ground. Then I ran my hand over his shoulder and examined my hand.

  “You're bleeding,” I said, realizing it was blood.

  He was wearing a black hoodie so I couldn't see how bad it was. I started lifting his hoodie at the hem and he obligingly held up his arms and let me slide it up, along with his T-shirt, and over his head. He turned his head and looked at his shoulder.

  “You got shot!” I said, a little shocked he wasn't freaking out about this.

  I checked both sides of his shoulder, finding an entrance wound and an exit wound. The bullet had gone straight through. “Why didn't you tell me you'd gotten shot?”

  “Because I didn't want to stop. We needed to get away from that place.”

  “They're not going to drive out this far. They won't waste the gas. You should have stopped sooner.” I dug around in my bag, searching for my First Aid kit. It was one of the few things I still had. He balled his T-shirt up and used it to clean off some of the blood, and pressed it against the wound. “You're such an idiot sometimes. You could bleed to death.”

  Okay, so I may have exaggerated, but it still wasn't good to be losing this much blood. I took the T-shirt from him and dabbed the wounds. The exit wound appeared ragged and was bleeding a lot more than where the bullet had entered through the front of his shoulder. Five minutes later, the bleeding continued and didn't look like it was about to let up anytime soon. I thought about just putting a clean dressing over the top but it would most likely bleed straight through in minutes. “How bad is it?”

  “Um, well, I'm not a nurse so I can't really answer that.”

  “Do you think I'll live?” he asked, trying to reach over and touch the exit wound. I smacked his hand away.

  “Don't touch it with your dirty paws.”

  He grunted and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

  I leaned over him, pressing the T-shirt back onto the wound, after a few minutes I carefully lifted it back up.

  “The exit wound isn't slowing down.” I said as Lane sat up again, and I had to mop up another trickle of blood from dripping all the way down his back.

  “I think it needs a few stitches to hold it together.”

  “What? Stitches? Are you sure?”

  “No, I'm not sure, I have no idea, Lane, I'm not trained for this. But it won't stop bleeding.” I opened up the First Aid kit and pulled out a needle and thread, and Lane's eyes widened. “It's just leaking down your back, and I don't have enough gauze to change every five minutes. If I stick a couple of stitches in, it will at least hold it together for now. I don't even have any alcohol to disinfect anything... shit, you're probably going to die from infection at this rate.” “That's reassuring.” He pointed at his bag.“There's a bottle at the bottom of my bag.” “You managed to steal some alcohol?”

  “Yup. I wasn't planning on you using it for First Aid, though.”

  “I bet you weren't planning on getting shot either?”

  I pulled out the bottle which was half full.

  “Smokes are in the side pocket,” he said, pointing again, and holding his hand out. “When I said get supplies, I meant food, water, maybe a few pieces of cutlery. I didn't mean smokes and liquor.”

  I slapped the pack of smokes into his hand.

  “Easy nurse. I'm the patient, remember?”

  “You're an idiot, that's what you are.”

  “So you keep saying,” he grumbled, pulling out his lighter. “It was either Scottie or us.” “His gun wasn't even loaded.” I snapped.

  “How was I supposed to know that?”

  “You killed him!”

  “He would have killed us. I made a decision and went with it. I was trying to save you.” “Save me. I don't need anyone saving me. I was doing fine until you showed up, since then I've been chased, cornered, trapped, and nearly bitten by zombies. I'm the one that has to take care of you, I mean look at this, this isn't going to stitch itself.”

  I cleaned the needle and threaded it and stared at the open wound. Then I picked up the bottle and tipped some over the wound. Lane gritted his teeth, trying to be a big man about it. I handed the bottle to him.

  “You should drink that. We can get more alcohol.”

  “Is this going to hurt?” he asked, tipping the bottle back.

  “What do you think?”

  “Do you even know what you're doing?”

  “Me and my mom loved watching all the different hospital programs. I think I can do this, and I have experience.”

  “Experience?”

  “I used to stitch little outfits for our Yorkshire Terrier when I was little.”

  Lane shook his head and took another swig. “Just do it and get it over with.” he said, lighting a cigarette.

  I pushed the needle in and tried my best to put on a brave face, but inside, I was gagging. I hated blood, and I hated TV medical shows. I lied. I'd never watched any hospital related TV shows, neither had my mom. But I had stitched outfits for our littl
e dog, Rufus, and I was quite good at needlework. I just wasn't used to stitching skin.

  I started stitching the wound, in-between scanning the trees for any movement or figures. Lane had nearly finished the bottle and not said a word... except for the odd curse word.

  “I can't believe you shot Scottie,” I said, sticking the needle in a little harder than necessary. Lane winced but didn't respond.

  “Lane... Lane!”

  “What?” he grunted, flicking his cigarette into the trees.

  “You're not saying anything?”

  “So?”

  “So? Don't you have anything to say about it? You just shot a human being in the head. You make a big ass deal about killing a zombie, but you had no problem killing a human.”

  “He was going to shoot us or blow the whistle on us. I didn't have a choice.”

  “I didn't even know you could shoot, then you go and do that, right between the...” I trailed off. “I used to go shooting at your father's gun range on the weekends. Aside from teaching at the university, my dad also loved guns. Every Saturday we went, I always hoped I'd run into you.” “I worked at the Riverside Hotel on the weekends. I usually went shooting after school on Tuesdays.”

  “I didn't know you worked there.”

  I shrugged. “Did. I didn't like it and the manager was a real dick... I would give anything to go back, though.”

  I finished stitching the hole and tied it off neatly. Lane turned his shoulder inwards, inspecting my needlework. We were silent for a few moments, but I couldn't stay quiet for too long. I was still upset over Scottie.

  “If it had been any of the others I wouldn't care, but Scottie... it was just wrong.” I cleaned the needle and placed it back in the box with the thread, then I cleaned up around the wound the best I could and placed a gauze dressing over the top.

  I moved around to the front of him and cleaned the entrance wound.

  “I didn't know you had the hots for Scottie.” he said, looking up at me.