by James Barton
The world had taken a turn from the worst, but as I splashed around in the pool with the girl of my dreams and my best friend, I realized that hope could be the hardest thing to kill.
That night Shay and I decided to go for one last swim, alone in the quiet darkness.
“So … where are you from exactly?” I asked, standing next to her in the shallow end of the pool. The light from the stars reflected off the pool and illuminated her face against the cool water. She looked up at me, tucking her wet hair behind her ears.
“Medina, North Carolina,” she responded.
“Oh … I meant, um,” I stumbled.
“Oh I get it, what race am I? You could have just asked me that.”
“What? No, of course not, but I mean since you brought it up,” I said, embarrassed.
“I’m half white and half Japanese. My mom was in the Air Force as a nurse and she deployed to Guam.”
“I didn’t think people from Guam were Japanese,” I said.
“Well, the locals aren’t, but it’s a big tourist spot for the Japanese. My dad was working at a restaurant as a chef. I guess he made a better living there than he had back home. While she was deployed, she ate there almost every day. Somehow they fell for each other and before she left the island they got married. He packed up his things and moved to America with her, which was very untraditional, to say the least.”
“Well, a lot of things are untraditional lately.”
“What about your parents?” she asked.
“My dad was a Marine and my mom made a career of taking care of us both. They were killed by a drunk driver when I was 17. Ever since then, Harvey has really been the only family I have left; we have known each other since fifth grade,” I said while fighting back emotions of missing my parents.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as she leaned in to hug me.
I paused to enjoy the moment. Her embrace took me to a place without monsters and murderers. She pulled away and I gazed into her eyes just a few seconds too long and she looked down at the water embarrassed.
“Where are your parents?” I blurted out.
Her face grew solemn. “Dead,” she responded simply. “I was in an accident and I fell into a coma for a couple months. The last thing I remember was trying to do a trick at the skate park.”
“Skateboarding?”
“Yeah, I never was into that girly shit. So I tried it out and liked it, but apparently I wasn’t very good. I don’t even remember the trick or what happened exactly. I just remember waking up in the hospital. There were zombies all outside my room.” She started to tear up.
“Hey it’s okay,” I said and put my arm around her shoulder.
“My mom and dad were out there … turned. The log next to my room showed they visited me every single day. Hospitals were the first to be affected by the virus. If I hadn’t been so stupid, then they never would have been there.” She cried quietly while hugging me tightly.
“Hey, it’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for any of this.”
She looked at me with watery eyes and kissed my cheek. She let go and just swam over to the edge and left me alone in the night. So, I just stood there in the dark listening to the sounds of distant groaning.
“I’ve never seen her cry,” Desmond whispered to me.
“You scared me! I forgot you were, wait … ugh, the whole time?”
“Yeah man, gotta work out my arms,” he said swinging the hammer at the air. “But I think the zeds are scared of me now. They don’t come around as much as before.”
“Maybe you killed them all,” I said.
“Not yet, but I will,” he said, extending his muscular arm to help pull me out. “I need to show you something.”
I got out of the pool and grabbed a dingy white towel and threw it around my shoulders.
“You guys were saying that there are different kinds, right? Like all evolved and stuff?”
“Yeah, Pablo even claimed there was a fast one. Why?” I asked.
“That one,” he said quietly and pointed through the bars of the fence. There in the middle of the road, was the hunter from last night. His stomach entrails dangled loosely out of the bottom of his zipped up vest. He stood there almost motionless, except for a gentle sway from the wind. He just looked at the two of us, I mean really looked. There was something different about him and I could feel it right away. He was close enough to pick up our scent and investigate and yet he just kept staring. His head moved more than his eyes, almost if the eyes were locked in place, only looking straight ahead. I could see him moving his head, his eyes creeping across us. There was a slight pause as he peered at Desmond’s hammer.
“See, creepy mofo,” Desmond said. He moved the hammer into the air and made a few slow circles with it. All the while the hunter followed it with his gaze. Then it lost interest and began to scan the fence line. Looking slowly from one side to the other before coming across the gate where we stood. His gaze came back to us and he unleashed a quick throaty “Kerargh” and continued to scan the rest of the fence line.
“Please tell me it’s not doing what I think it is,” I said.
“It looks like it’s, I don’t know, looking at stuff,” Desmond replied.
Now that may seem like a rudimentary thing, but zombies don’t look at things. They charge at you and try to eat you. They don’t analyze fences; they just slam against them and try to reach through. They don’t … think.
“Should I go out there and kill it?” Desmond asked.
I wasn’t even sure what I was seeing, let alone any impact it could have. “It might be too risky, especially in the dark,” I responded.
“I don’t trust it. I might take the risk,” he said and pointed to the lock. I shrugged and started moving the digits on the lock. Across the street was a series of quick throaty yelps as the hunter began to walk away at a power-walker’s pace. Three zombies came into view, staggering and pulling themselves towards us. I set the lock to 1215 and started to unlock it and then stopped. Our guy had disappeared and was now replaced with three generic biting men. Desmond smashed in their skulls as they pressed their faces up against the bars. I secured the lock and spun the digits randomly, leaving it at 4286.
“It’s gone,” Desmond said.
“Did it just … run away?”
That night I had trouble sleeping, more so than most. We had told everyone what we saw and it wasn’t their lack of disbelief that stunned us. It was their casual acceptance of it. Things were getting worse and the zombies weren’t following any rules or patterns it seemed. I could have told them I saw a zombie with wings, playing a guitar, and they might have just shrugged.
While lying in the bed, covered in sweat, I heard something. It was a noise that didn’t even register at first. It was a light metallic clicking and a small thud. Over and over it happened and it was so perpetual that it faded into the background like the sound of clicking clock hands. Then I sprung out of bed. What the hell was that?
I exited my room and looked out the window, but it was too dark to make anything out. So I tapped on Desmond’s door and he opened almost immediately.
“You hear it, too?” he asked.
I simply nodded and we went outside together. The front door swung open with a hearty creak and we stepped out onto the patio. There was only silence. We stood there for at least thirty seconds, just listening. It was gone, whatever that sound was—it had stopped.
“Let’s look around,” I said.
We walked around looking for anything that could have made those noises. The patio seemed undisturbed and nothing was out of place. There on the gate, though, the lock swung slightly. I squinted at it and said “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
I walked over to the lock and put it in my hand. The digits on the lock read “0048.”
“What’s going on?” Desmond asked.
I turned the number to 49 and pulled on the lock. There was the sound of the metal h
oop clacking and a slight thud of the fence shaking against the pull. I changed the number to 0050 and did the same; again the identical sound.
“That’s the sound!” Desmond almost shouted.
I held the lock in my hand and looked at Desmond. “It was trying to figure out the code,” I said.
“How do you know that was our guy?”
“Who else starts from zero and works their way up?” The sound didn’t return that night. I didn’t sleep much after that.
That morning we all circled around as Harvey pulled us together.
“Alright everyone, we are going to try to make a supply run,” Harvey said. “We know a group of good people that have fortified one of the piers at the beach. They have twenty fishing poles going at one time and seem to have a good handle on food and water. What they don’t have is anything else.”
“I want fried skrimps!” Peter shouted while pretending to reel in an invisible fishing pole.
“If we can bring them any excess blankets, pillows, or even a mattress, they would probably trade us a few pounds of fish,” Harvey continued.
“We could all…” Desmond started.
“Fish smell fishy!” Peter shouted.
“Use more protein in our diet,” Desmond finished. “We aren’t starving, but our bodies are getting weaker eating nothing but…”
“Farts!” Peter shouted and then made a barrage of fart sounds with his mouth.
“Peter shut up! You are interrupting people,” Todd yelled.
“Peter, c’mon let’s go play in your room,” Nikki said while guiding the child to his room. As he departed, the sound of fake farts faded behind a closed door. Todd looked at us with an embarrassed smile.
“What was I saying?” Desmond asked with frustration.
“Sorry, our bodies are breaking down our muscles because we are living off of sugar,” Todd cut in.
“Yeah, that.”
“We can’t all go,” I said.
“Right,” Harvey agreed. “We need to leave enough people here to defend against zombies or raiders.”
“So … just me then?” Desmond said while flexing his right bicep.
“Actually I was thinking if you guys had a truck, me and Jim could make it,” Harvey said.
“Well, we have a work truck in the back. That’s how we got here alive,” Nikki said.
“Is it sturdy?” Harvey asked.
“We hit a couple dead on the way here and it just keep going, so I’d say it’s your best bet,” she replied.
“I’m coming with you,” Shay said.
I nodded to her and looked around the room. “What weapons have we got?”
“We have that rifle I found last night with only one round, a 9 mm pistol with two bullets, and that empty shotgun you guys brought,” Shay said.
“We can take the shotgun, just to look like we are packing. In a vehicle we should be able to evade the zombies. Plus, even three rounds aren’t going to help us against a truck full of raiders,” I said.
“So, it’s the three of us,” Harvey said. “Think you can hold down the fort, Dez?” Harvey asked.
“Yeah, with one finger.”
So we all split up and began preparing for the trip. I was getting some string to help tie down a spare mattress when Nikki pulled me aside.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly.
“Yes?” There was a long pause as she stood in my path without saying anything, picking nervously at her hands.
“Okay, well nice talk,” I said and began to walk around her.
“Wait. I just wanted to say I was sorry for how I acted when you got here.”
“Well, thank you. I get it though. You voted to leave us out there so that you could ensure your friends and family stayed safe. I don’t blame you, times have changed and trusting the wrong person could get us killed.”
“Wow, thanks for being so cool about it. I can get what she sees in you now,” Nikki said.
“Who, Shay?”
The outside door flung open and Shay peeked inside. “Hey, we’re waiting on you.”
I looked over at Nikki and she had a sneaky grin. “We are going to have a nice talk when I get back.” She rolled her eyes at me and punched me in the shoulder.
“Okay, sure,” she said and walked to her room.
I stepped around the side of the building and we finished loading the truck. The white F350 had a Green Blades Lawn Care logo on the side. It was filled with one room’s worth of pillows, sheets, and mattress. We all looked at each other for courage.
“Alright, who’s ready for a day at the beach?” Harvey asked, cocking the empty shotgun for emphasis.
Chapter 7: Heroes and Cowards
As we drove over the bridge, the mattress we had tossed in the truck bed – no pun intended – flapped around, making everyone nervous that it would catch a draft and dislodge from the vehicle. This time the number of zombies on the road had nearly doubled. The drive felt like a high school teenager’s first time behind the wheel as we swayed back and forth trying to dodge the undead. Harvey had struck a small female zombie and she nearly exploded underneath the F350. Hitting her filled the vents with an atrocious odor, but the truck roared on down the road as if nothing had happened. We came up to the Oceanview sign and made the turn.
Every single door to the condos was open. By open, I mean knocked off the hinges. There was a crowd of zombies wandering around the parking lot and two of them caught my eye. It was the couple from before and they were milling about, not even a shoulder length apart. They had no visible wounds anywhere on their bodies.
“I told them to go down to the pier,” Harvey grumbled.
As we turned in, all the zombies in the lot focused in on our direction. They started to shamble our way, including the older couple. Most of these undead were clearly older folks; at least they used to be. We came to a stop and Harvey surveyed the parking lot and surrounding sand dunes. There was a determined squint in his eyes that told me he was about to do something stupid.
“You aren’t going to try to go across those dunes are you?” I asked. Shay perked up a little and looked at them with concern.
“Speed is key!” he shouted. He slammed the pedal to the floor and it jerked with sudden motion. He dodged past a couple zombies and aimed for the flattened sandy patch that ran along-side the wooden walkway. Right in front of us was Alice and Alfred reaching and stumbling towards the vehicle. Harvey swerved towards them, striking Alice and dragging her under the vehicle. The truck rocked as her body was crushed beneath the left tires.
As we drew closer, the small concrete parking blocks seemed much more dangerous. Shay, who was stuck in the middle, with only the lap belt, gave me a frightened look. I reached out to grab her and she leaned into my protective embrace.
“Just for the record, this is a bad idea!” she shouted right before we struck the parking block. The vehicle jumped and the seat belt locked and it felt like a punch. I held Shay tight, as inertia tried to pull her away. We leapt over the parking block and rocked violently as we made small jumps over the short dunes. We made it over two short wavy dunes and a blast of sand exploded behind us as we clipped the top of it. A few more seconds and we exited the path and went sailing out onto the beach. The ground was flatter and more solid. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Stop trying to cop a feel,” Shay said smiling while removing herself from my arms.
“You know this was his master plan,” Harvey said.
“Ha, very funny, Harvey. You know there is a road that actually connects to the beach, we could have just gone around,” I said.
“Should have told me before,” he said.
“You didn’t give me a chance!”
“Come on boys, hug and make up. I just want to deliver this junk so we can get some real food and get back. I’m nervous leaving everyone there.”
The truck engine hummed with power as we cruised down the beach. It reminded me of those days at the beach. Sometimes the lifeguards woul
d drive around in a white work truck, only to step out and emasculate you with their perfectly toned abs. Well, on the bright side, that would never happen ever again. That said something about the world now; there were no more lifeguards. Never again were there people that made it their job to save you from doing something stupid. If you went for a swim in rough waters, you were on your own. Life had become the ocean, you either struggled to swim to shore or let go and be carried off.
Shay pointed up ahead, “Those tracks look pretty fresh.” She was pointing at two sets of tire marks that ran along the beach. They were pretty deep and were similar to our own tread marks. I had no idea how fresh … “fresh” was, but I knew she was right.
“You don’t think, they, came out here?” I asked.
“The raiders? Who else would blow all the doors off the condos back there?” Harvey replied.
“Who the hell are these people? They have all that food and they just go around harassing everyone,” Shay said.
We slowed down and crept along the beach. It was colder than usual and rain was in the horizon. There was a thick haze that hung over the beach. We should have been able to see the pier as soon as we got onto the beach, but with this haze, our visibility had dropped drastically. The pier started to materialize in the distance, but something was wrong. There were two lights that barely showed through the haze. One was aimed up at the entrance of the pier and the other straight away from pier on the ground level. We slowed down to practically coasting speed and rolled the window down.
“What the heck is that?” I whispered.
Everyone was trying to get a better look as we cruised 5 mph towards the light. The light on the ground jerked forward, moving the angle of the rear light.
“It’s a truck,” Shay said.
I looked closer, “You’re right, it’s one of those damn spotlights.”
