“We aren’t sure,” I answer, “When they caught me, you were already passed out.”
“Where’s Nate?” She asks looking around.
“They killed him,” I answer, my eyes falling to the ground as I speak, “they murdered him for the fun of it, so I stuck the blade of my sword into the leaders gut.”
Tears fall from Kennedy’s eyes as I speak, “What now?”
Everyone looks at me, choices rush a mile a minute in my head. I fear that I will make the wrong choice and doom my whole team, my family. “As soon as you get your strength back, we have to get moving.”
Chapter 7
September 10th, 2037
It’s been a couple of days since we were invaded by the marauders. Kennedy has regained her strength, well most of it anyway. She hasn’t slept a full shift since being molested by Jack and his gang. Penelope has stayed up with her the last couple of nights. I can overhear them sometimes, when I pretend to be asleep. Their whispers and sobs are hard to ignore, I wish I could have done a better job protecting them, of protecting Nate. Connor seems to be doing the best of us all, at least in a post apocalypse sense. He has spent the last few days cleaning out each of our guns and sharpening each of their machetes. I won’t let him touch my sword for personal reason. There is a slight chill in the air, it’s easy to tell that summer is fading away and fall will be here soon. The sun has just barely begun to rise as we left our most recent safe house. Each of us anxious to leave the only place that has caused more of our nightmares than all the Zombies we have faced.
“Can I have the honors?” Kennedy asks Connor as he lights his match. Connor nods his head as he hands the match over to Kennedy. She uses the match to set the curtain of the living room ablaze. She seems to get a strange satisfaction from burning the house, it’s the first time I’ve seen her smile since that unholy night.
We walk in silence, I’m not sure any of us would know what to say to one and other anyway. By the end of the day we have made it into Rhode Island. There isn’t a lot around us except for abandoned and destroyed homes. There are shells of cars littered around the road, half eaten bodies, or at least body parts are scattered around near the car parts.
“Think we can find a useable battery?” I ask Connor.
“I’m not sure. Most of what’s lying around here is worthless,” Connor replies.
“Do we have the time to look? I mean the sun will set soon and we still have no idea where we are spending the night,” Penelope speaks up.
“We might be able to do both,” Kennedy speaks as she points to an old gas station with garage attached to it.
“It’s worth a shot at this point,” Connor agrees.
We start off for the gas station. Normally we avoid such buildings, the kinds with big windows that give our position away. The service door to the convenience store swings open freely, the unforgettable smell of death and decay invades our nostrils. Soft growling is heard from somewhere inside the store.
“We should split up,” Connor says.
“Agreed,” I nod, “Head for the garage with Penelope and look for anything that might be able to work that radio. Kennedy and I will check around here for provisions.”
Everyone agrees as we part ways. I can hear the door to the garage open and shut, the place seems empty as I stand in the middle of the store with Kennedy. The growling is heard again, Kennedy whips out her machete a stern face embedded on her face as she goes looking for the sound echoing around the convenient store. I check behind us, I can see the setting sun hiding behind the tree line random rays of light peering out through the leaves.
“Hey over here,” Kennedy’s voice calls out to me.
I walk over to her, she is just standing in front of the coolers a door wide open humming coming from the motor. I stick my hand into the cooler feeling the cool air on my skin. “The power is still on here,” I say with a smile.
“And there is still quite a few bottles of water here. Looks like our luck is starting to turn around,” Her words ring out as a hand reaches out from inside the cooler trying to pull my arm through to the other side.
I fight back, trying not to scream as I feel the nails digging into my arm. I can see two cloudy eyes almost staring at me from the cooler. The creature groans and wails as it tightens its grip on my arm. Kennedy wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me backward. My arm makes it out of the cooler, the creature’s fingers still dug deeply into my skin. Kennedy jumps back up and looks at my arm in shock. She tries to pull the decaying fingers out of my arm but I push her away.
“Don’t worry about me,” I say wincing in pain, “just go kill that son of a bitch.”
Kennedy nods, leaving me alone on the floor. I force myself back to my feet watching as Kennedy enters the back room. I can see glimpses of her from behind the products still stocked in the cooler. Screeching comes out from one side of the cooler followed by a scream, Kennedy’s scream.
“Kennedy? KENNEDY?!” I yell fighting my way over to the cooler door. I can hear heavy breathing coming from the other side.
I push the door open slowly and spot Kennedy on her knees, the decapitated Zombie’s body lying on the floor in front of her. I kneel down beside her, wrapping my good arm around her, comforting her.
“Are you OK?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” She says with a halfhearted smile, “how’s your arm?”
“Hurts like a bitch. Think you can get these fingers out?” I ask.
She looks at my arm, looking at the boney fingers impaled deeply in my arm, “I can get them out, but it’s going to hurt.”
“It hurts now,” I snap back.
She opens her backpack and pulls out an unsharpened pencil, “bite down on this and try not to let everything know where we are.”
I try to smile but she forces the pencil into my mouth before I can even grin. She bares down and pulls each of the fingers out of my arm one by one. The pain slowly becomes a dull stinging feeling that is a lot more acceptable than the alternative. Blood slowly pools out of each of my wounds as Kennedy filters through her backpack. She pulls out her small first aid kit. She rummages through the small box of items before closing the top and dropping it onto the floor.
“I’m out of bandages,” she says pulling out an old shirt from her bag. She wraps it tightly around my arm, “keep it tight, I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“There might be something here I can use to patch you up,” She says before sliding out the door.
It doesn’t take her long before she returns with a few items wrapped up in her arms. She removes the now blood stained shirt from my arm and tosses it off to the side. She cracks open a tube of antibacterial gel and rubs it into each of the wounds. I can’t help myself I let out a small cry as the gel burns each one of my sores.
“Stop being a baby,” She laughs before tearing open a package of gauze. She packs each of the wounds with the gauze before wrapping my arm up with duct tape. “I’m sorry about the tape, but it’s the best I can do until I find a proper pharmacy to ransack.”
“I’ll make sure we add it to our places to visit in Rhode Island,” I wink.
“Good. But until then the tape and gauze will have to do. Can you move your arm freely?” she asks. I move my arm side to side and up and down until she is pleased. “Good. Here take these too.” She tosses me a box of pain killers.
I tear open the box and swallow four of the pills dryly, “thanks.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says running her hand over the tape making sure it’s tight enough.
“I don’t just mean for the arm, I mean for everything,” I slide her hand down my arm and cup it in both of my hands, “you truly have a talent and I admire everything you do for us.”
“It’s not much of a talent,” She blushes, “I really wing it more than anything.”
“Well whatever you do it seems to be working well,” I say.
“Thank you. It’s good to
know I’m appreciated,” She says, an honest smile forming on her face.
I pull her into me and wrap my arms around her, holding her tightly, feeling the warmth of her body throughout the front of mine. She is so warm, I almost forgot that we were in a cooler. She pulls away from me slightly, her head tilted up slightly, her soft, sad blue eyes staring into mine. She pulls my head down slowly until her soft lips touch mine. I pull her back into me, her hands clinging tightly to my back, my bad arm wrapped around her lower back as my good arm holds her head underneath her long hair. We slowly begin to pull away smiles plastered on both of our faces.
“Wow,” she says when I release her from my grip.
“I know,” I smile back at her.
“We should find the others,” Kennedy suggests.
I nod in agreement as Kennedy grabs me by the arm and leads me out of the cooler. The convenient store is dark now, the sun has set completely with only the moonlight providing light inside the store. We enter the garage and hear nothing but silence, my gut starts to feel twisted. Kennedy and I draw our guns and step lightly throughout the garage. Moonlight shines brightly through the windows in the bay door.
I can’t take the silence anymore, “Connor? Penelope?” my voice echoes throughout the concrete building.
“We’re up in the loft,” Connor’s voice calls down.
We follow the light trail up the fragile stairs and meet Connor and Penelope who are rummaging through the boxes laying in the loft.
“What are you looking for?” Kennedy asks.
“A battery charger,” Connor replies, “the one downstairs is toast, I’m just hoping there is a spare up here.”
Kennedy and I join in, opening up boxes and hoping that somewhere up in the loft there is a spare charger waiting to be found. It feels hopeless but still we keep on searching.
“I found one,” Connor calls out, lifting the portable charger out of the box.
The girls and I follow him down the stairs. He lifts the hood of the Oldsmobile parked in the middle of the garage bay. The car looks old, possibly early 80’s. I can see some of the white paint chipping off it near the hood. Rust covers the left quarter panel and most of the trunk. The black leather inside has seen better days as well. Gray duct tape patches up some of the holes on the inside.
“Do you think it runs?” Penelope asks.
“I won’t know until the battery charges,” Connor answers, “Why?”
“If it runs, couldn’t we just drive to Florida? Or at least most of the way there,” Penelope states.
Kennedy, Connor, and I look at each other none of us thinking of a reason why we couldn’t drive at least part of the way to Florida.
“We’ll see if it runs first,” Connor speaks up, “if so I don’t see why we couldn’t.”
“Agreed. Connor why don’t you take first shift with Penelope and do your best to get that radio working,” I say.
“That sounds like a good idea,” he agrees.
Kennedy and I agree that the loft is the better place to go since the rest of the garage has concrete floors. We break down a few of the boxes and uses them as a make shift bed. I lay down first and Kennedy rests her head on my arm, her back pressed against me. It doesn’t take long before I hear faint snoring sounds emanating from her. I can’t help but smile as I slowly start to drift off as well.
My head feels heavy as I wake up, sunlight poking through a crack in the ceiling above me. I’m a little surprised that Connor and Penelope would have let us sleep so long. I shake Kennedy’s shoulder excitedly but she doesn’t as much as budge from her spot in front of me. I roll her over forcibly and pant as I see her torn face, dry blood coming out of a series of cuts and slices. Her eyes have been removed, leaving only dark holes in her head. Her mouth is sewn shut and her shirt is ripped open, a pentagram insignia carved into her chest. I roll her off of my arm and jump to my feet backing away from Kennedy’s dead body. Her body sits up as I continue to back away. Her arm raises up, pointing at me. I reach behind for my bag, looking for either my gun or my sword but there is nothing on my back. Instead I fumble around looking for the first available item I could find, a small wooden plank. I swing the lank wildly before I finally connect it with the side of Kennedy’s head. I can hear her growling each time I slam her in the head. It takes me a while but I finally knock her to the ground. I press my boot to her back, holding her down and hack at the back of her neck with the plank of wood. It takes me less time than I expected to remove her head with just the single plank.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper before throwing the plank off to the side.
I stumble my way down the wooden stairway before standing at the bottom. The Bay door is left wide open, sunlight pouring in from the outside. The world looks different than when I last saw it yesterday. There is no grass, just burnt Earth. The sky is still blue but there is eerie mist in the sky less than a few feet above me. I turn around wildly looking for the car to take me away. The Oldsmobile is torched, fire still burning where the engine used to be.
“Son of a bitch,” I mumble. I have nowhere to go, I’m trapped inside this god forsaken building with no idea what had happened.
“You should have known the end was coming,” Connor’s voice calls out behind me. I turn around and see him standing there an evil look on his face. Penelope is standing beside him, hunched over growling at me as she swipes.
“What has happened to Penelope? And Kennedy?” I ask.
“The inevitable happened,” Connor answers with a grin forming on his face, “The Zombies have won Damian, there is no stopping it. Just give in to the virus and let it take over your body, become one of us, the new master race in human development!” His skin begins to crawl, black ooze comes out from the bottom of his eyes. His eyes start to bubble as the ooze starts to crawl of his nose as well.
“This isn’t you, fight it,” I urge, “your stronger than this.”
Connor laughs at me, “I used to believe that at one time, back before I realized the Zombies true power…their true potential.” His eyes finish melting away leaving the same dark void inside his eye sockets, the same void I saw in Kennedy’s sockets.
Penelope rushes me first in a feral rage swiping her claws at my face, her teeth aiming for my neck. I throw every single item I can find at her, screwdrivers, wrenches, everything. Each item bounces off her barely slowing her down. She manages to grab both of my wrists, her grip has gotten extremely strong and I can feel the bones inside crushing. I kick her backward, knocking her on her back and landing on top of her. I manage to get back onto my knees, keeping one firmly down on her chest and pulling as hard as my arms will allow me. I end up pulling so hard, both of Penelope’s arms pull out of their sockets allowing me to get back to my feet. I step on her throat pressing down with as much force as possible, her boney hands still wrapped around my wrists. It takes me a moment but eventually I hear a crunch come from her neck. Her body lays their lifeless as I remove my foot from her throat and pry her hands off of my wrists. They fall and land on her body. Cries come out from Connor’s body as the ooze begins to change his body. I fumble around the workbench closest to me and find a tire iron. I turn back toward Connor’s body ready to strike with the iron only to find Connor’s changed body standing behind me chuckling. I swing the tire iron as strong as my damaged wrists will allow me. He stops me, grabbing my arms and shaking the tire iron out of my hands and causing me immense pain.
He drops me to my knees still chuckling, “you had a chance you could have been one of us, a god, but instead you chose the fool’s path and for that you will pay with your blood.” His voice is deep and distorted as he talks. I tremble in both fear and pain, unable to free myself from his massive grip. His face peels back revealing rows of teeth, saliva dripping down from his oversized mouth, as he leans forward to bite me.
I shoot up from my sleep out of breath. It takes a moment but air eventually rushes back into my lungs. It’s still dark, Kennedy is still laying down beside m
e. I watch as her chest rises and falls and I feel relief. I check my watch with the only bit of moonlight coming from a crack in the wall. There is still an hour left before my watch, but there is no way I am getting back to sleep. I head down stairs and find Connor and Penelope still working on the radio inside the Oldsmobile.
“How’s it going?” I ask startling them.
“What are you doing up? You still have an hour left,” Penelope says checking her watch.
“Couldn’t stay asleep,” I reply. I look around the garage, everything seems to be the way it was before I went to sleep, and I feel slightly better. “How are things going with the radio?”
“I was just about to turn it on and see if it works,” Connor answers as he turns the dial. Static comes out of the car’s speakers. “Hello? Hello?” Connor calls out into the microphone as he shuffles through the station. There is nothing but static. “Hello, is there somebody out there? My name is Connor and I am looking for any survivors that can hear this broadcast. I repeat, I am looking for any survivors that can hear this broadcast!”
Nothing for a while but static. We continue to listen, Connor repeating his message every couple of minutes until finally between the static we hear it, “Hello? Hello, Is there anyone out there? My name is Matthew, I have a small group of survivors all clear of any sign of the virus. I repeat there is no sign of the virus here. But we do have injured, I repeat we have injured survivors. We need medical help.”
Chapter 8
September 15th, 2037
It’s been five days since we last heard the transmission come over the radio. We’ve decided to stay in the garage a few extra days, with any hope the people who made contact over the radio will try again. This garage has proved to be a better safe house than we could have ever imagined. The water and sports drinks in the cooler have helped us rehydrate. The few cans still stocked on the shelves have helped us fight off starvation. But no matter what this is just a temporary fix, and Connor has recommended leaving after day break if we don’t hear anything from the mystery voices. According to my watch the sun will be up in less than an hour. I hope they reach out to us again. Connor tells me I shouldn’t get my hopes up, that if you truly were in medical need they are probably dead by now. Part of me thought the same thing, I just feel ashamed admitting it.
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