by Dana Fredsti
“Now that would be totally unrealistic,” said Kai with what I thought distinct lack of self-preservation considering he was within arms reach of three gun-totin’ women.
We finished Zombie and moved on to Dawn of the Dead, picking it up from the scene where they first arrive at the mall.
Gabriel paused the movie after the scene in which the young ingénue puts everyone in danger by going after her dog.
“We call this Ripley's Syndrome,” said Gabriel. “If you want to increase your odds of surviving, don't go back for the cat.”
“Well, no shit.” Tony looked scornful. “Who the hell would be that stupid?”
Lots of people, I thought. I could see myself doing it under the right circumstances. But I didn't say anything.
“And especially this chick,” Tony continued. “I mean, they just proved in the last scene the deadheads aren't interested in eating anything but people, right?”
“It's an emotional reaction,” said Gabriel. “And that sort of emotion-based response can get you and your teammates killed.”
“Heaven forbid anyone have an emotional reaction,” I muttered loudly enough for Gabriel to hear. I had the satisfaction of seeing the muscles in his jaw clench. Score one for me.
Lily raised a tentative hand. Gabriel nodded at her. “Is it true the zombies aren't interested in eating animals, just people?”
“At this juncture the evidence points to a definite preference for humans, but we believe they will eat any warm-blooded creature if nothing else is available.” He resumed the film.
As we watched the very end of the movie while Gabriel lectured us on never assuming the coast is clear without verifying first—as the entire surviving cast gets eaten in the last minute of the film as the end credits roll—I heard a muffled sob. I snuck a sideways glance at Lily as she tried her best to inconspicuously wipe tears from her eyes before they trickled down her face. I didn't have to be a psychic to know what was wrong.
I reached out and squeezed her hand. After a few seconds, she squeezed back.
Lily managed to hold it together for another hour of cinematic intestinal tug-of-war games, but the minute we got back to our room she lost it. Tears came out in loud, gut-wrenching sobs. She cried for so long and so hard, I thought she was going to make herself sick. I sat with her, handing her tissues as needed and pressing a cold washcloth to the back of her neck, until Lil had cried herself out.
“I can't do this, Ashley.” Lil looked at me, eyes puffy, reddened wells of pain. “All I can think about is my babies. They're probably out of food and think I've abandoned them and…” Tears started welling up again.
I took the washcloth and gently blotted Lil's face. “Look. You told me before you'd just bought a bag of food, right? Well, it would take them a while to go through that. And if your roommate left the toilet seat up, they've got water.”
“But what if some of those things got in the apartment?”
I thought about this. “They're cats. Cats are better than any other animal at running and hiding. Zombies are only so smart, right? So even if they did get in, odds are your boys are fine.”
“But they're gonna run out of food.” Lil blew her nose again. I handed her a glass of water; she had to be dehydrated about now. “Ashley, I just can't stand thinking about them all alone and wondering where I went. I just can't stand it.”
“So let's go get ‘em.” The words were out of my mouth before I even thought about it.
“You heard Gabriel.” Lil said miserably. “If you want to live, don't go back for the cat.”
I hunkered down in front of Lil's chair and took her hands in mine. “You know what? I think Gabriel's wrong. There's a reason people risk their lives to go after pets in burning houses. Because if they didn't try, they'd never forgive themselves. It's the kind of thing that eats a person alive from the inside out.”
Liy bit her lip. “Do you really believe that?”
“I do.” And I really did, too. “And I see it happening to you. So if you want to go after … Binkey and Noodle?”
“Doodle.”
“If you want to go after Binkey and Doodle, I'm with you.”
For the first time since I met her, Lil's face brightened with something like hope. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yup. The rule should be that if you want to live with yourself, go back for the cat. And if you want to go back for your cat, I'm going with you.”
Lil looked excited and horrified at the same time. “Gabriel's gonna be so pissed if he finds out.”
I laughed. “There are so many worse things than Gabriel getting pissed off at us.” Like getting eaten by zombies, I thought, but didn't say it out loud. “Besides, if we're careful he won't find out. And if he does find out, what's he gonna do, spank us?”
An unexpectedly mischievous look flashed over Lil's face. “I dunno, that might be kind of fun.”
Yikes. I really hoped Lil was joking, but I was glad I hadn't confided in her. I tsk'd tsk'd and shook my head in faux disapproval. “Lil, I am shocked and appalled. Not that I necessarily disagree with you.”
She grinned, but almost immediately resumed her worried expression. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Have you seen Alien?”
“No.”
“Once again I am shocked and appalled. Your film education is sadly lacking. But the main point here is that both Ripley and the cat survive.”
* * * *
You'd think it would be difficult to sneak out of an armed and secured facility in the middle of the night, especially armed with a couple of M4s, a pickaxe and several wicked sharp blades. But Lil and I practically walked right out the front door of D. B. Patterson Hall without a peep any sort of armed guards. In fact, we only saw two soldiers walking the perimeter. Guess we'd done a good job of clearing the campus our first time out, which made it so much easier to sneak out. It was like breaking curfew, except instead of an overprotective house mother, Lil and I had to worry about trigger-happy soldiers with shoot-to-kill orders and, once we left the safety of Big Red, ravenous zombies.
If we were spotted outright and not mistaken for zoms, I'm sure I could come up with several good cover stories, but why risk the possibility of word getting back to Gabriel and the Powers That Be? Why borrow trouble?
Getting across campus was easy. Once out of sight of DBP we didn't have to worry about questions—any of the few soldiers left would assume we were patrolling. We stuck to the shadows, though, hugging the sides of buildings and using trees and bushes as cover until we reached the Gillette barricade at the point where it butted up against the parking lot in back of the gymnasium. There weren't enough healthy soldiers to patrol the entire perimeter twenty-four/seven so it was just a matter of waiting until the lone soldier making his rounds on this side of campus moved out of sight.
We hunkered down in between the gymnasium and the box-hedge lining the back of the building.
“How are we gonna get over the barricade?” whispered Lil.
I scanned the area, my attention honing in on a big ass SUV near the edge. “There. Easy peasy if we use that Ford Expedition as our launching point.”
“What about the razor wire?”
I shrugged. “How far can you jump?”
Lil nodded. “What about when we come back?”
I pulled a pair of wire cutters out of my belt pouch. “Last resort. I'm hoping we can snag some heavyweight gloves at the hardware store and pull it out of the way, but if not…” I shoved the wire cutters back in the pouch.
“Gabriel's really gonna kill us if we screw with the barricade.”
I couldn't argue with that. “Last resort, I promise.” We waited for a few minutes and watched the soldier patrol the barricade until he vanished out of sight around the other side of the gym. I smacked Lil on the arm. “This is it. Let's go.”
Still keeping low to the ground, we dodged around the parked cars until we made it to the Explorer. I clambered up first, holding out a
hand to hoist Lil up next to me. We paused for a minute, crouched low on the hood of the vehicle, making sure the soldier on patrol wasn't coming back any time soon. When the coast was definitely clear, we both clambered up to the roof of the SUV and surveyed the situation.
The foam barricade was about six feet tall and five feet wide at the base, tapering down to three feet at the top. We'd have to jump from the SUV to the top of the foam barricade. Easy enough.
Glancing around once last time to make sure the soldier hadn't doubled back, I took an easy leap from the SUV onto the hardened foam, my boots finding good traction on its rubbery surface. Lil joined me a few seconds later, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet like a kid on a trampoline.
“This stuff is awesome.” She gave another experimental bounce. “Kind of like Silly Putty.”
It was kind of awesome, seeing as it started as foam and turned into a relatively sturdy barricade, but we didn't have time to admire it. I shook my head impatiently. “We can imprint comic strips on it later, okay? Let's just do this.”
Lil obediently stopped her bouncing and joined me at the edge of the barrier. We stared at the distance between our current vantage point and the open ground on the other side of the slinky. There looked to be about two feet between the razor wire slinky and the foam. The slinky itself was about four feet tall and maybe three feet in width. So, about five feet between us and safety.
I suppose safe could be deemed relative considering the zombies on the other side. Not as many were swarming the walls—our sharpshooters were good at staying out of sight and inflicting maximum damage on our necrotic enemy—but there were still at least a few dozen staggering through the field towards the parking lot. Nothing Lil and I couldn't easily dodge or dispatch, but we needed to make our jump and get our feet firmly beneath us before any of them reached the barricade.
To do this would require us to vault five feet over the wire from a standing position and land cleanly on the ground. At least we were jumping down and over as opposed to having to clear the wire at equal height or worse. And the ground on the other side of the slinky was soft.
“I've always hated the standing broad jump,” I muttered, trying not to think what would happen if either of us got hung up on the razor wire.
Lil nodded solemnly. “If we miss, it's gonna hurt. A lot.”
I took a deep breath. “Then we won't miss.” I flexed my knees once, twice. Swung my arms back and forth a few times, then positioned myself at the very edge of the wall. “Remember, think forward, not upward. Ready?”
Lil nodded and stood next to me.
“One. Two. Three…” We bent our knees and swung our arms on each count, revving up for the jump. “Go!”
We flew through the air together, arms pinwheeling to give us more forward momentum like some sort of half-assed version of Butch and Sundance's famous leap off the cliff. I landed on the ground with a bone-jarring thud, hitting feet first with bent knees. My teeth snapped together and I felt the shock up through my feet and ankles and into my knees. But I cleared the Slinky of Death. So did Lil, who landed right next to me.
Straightening up, I held out a hand and pulled Lil to her feet. “Let's go get those cats of yours.”
Moans began rising from the fields and the woods beyond as wandering zombies noticed free-range humans in the vicinity. “And let's get out of here before we get shot by mistake.”
Lil nodded her agreement and we took off through the field towards the tree line and the road connecting the college to Redwood Grove.
We kept our firearms holstered, not wanting to attract the attention of the soldiers with the sound of gunfire if we could help it. Instead I carried my primary blade and Lil had her pickaxe at the ready. We weren't out to kill every zombie we saw between Big Red and the town, but if we took a few down along the way, we wouldn't have to take them out later, right?
A fleshy female, wearing the tattered remnants of criminally tight jeans and a tank top several sizes too small, staggered towards us, looking like an undead example of the “People of Walmart” website. She stunk. I mean, we're talking ripe, Senior. I realized I'd forgotten my nose plugs.
Well, crap.
I glanced over at Lil, who looked as if she'd just smelled the world's worst fart. Yup, she'd left her nose plugs behind too.
“I won't puke if you won't,” I said.
She nodded, a stoic expression on her face. “Can I kill it?”
“Be my guest.”
Lil raised her pickaxe and slammed the pointy end down into the zombie's head before it could take another step in our direction.
Splat.
Placing one booted foot against the zom's shoulder, Lil gave a heave and extracted her pickaxe with an unpleasant suction sound. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the smell seemed even worse after that.
“That really stinks,” I said.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Let's go.”
We reached the cover of the trees and headed in the direction of the road. Our night vision was definitely on the list of enhanced senses, a good thing since the only light in the woods was a bit of reflected gleam from the kliegs off in the distance and a little bit of moonlight filtering through the trees.
We ran as quickly as we could, pine needles and leaves crunching under our feet. It was eerily quiet other than the sound of our footsteps—no crickets, birds, animals or any other ambient noises at all. I didn't share my observation with Lil; she'd just freak out in the certainty the zombies had eaten every living organism in the general vicinity.
I hoped her cats were okay.
We reached the road, a cracked and weathered stretch of asphalt connecting Big Red to Redwood Grove, long overdue for maintenance. Several cars sat off to the side of the road, doors flung open and ominous dark stains splattered on the seats and the road below. Whatever happened here had not ended well for whoever had been in those vehicles.
We stuck close to the tree line at the side of the road, jogging at a steady pace towards town. For the most part we ignored any zombies lurching along towards campus, only engaging in battle if any of them presented an immediate threat. In those cases either Lil or I took them down with sword or pickaxe (or, in one case, both). Synchronized slaying, the sport of champions.
“Do you think there are any survivors?” asked Lil as we neared our destination. It didn't take a genius to figure she was thinking about her mom.
“Sure. We had survivors in the dorms, so no reason to think people couldn't hole up in a safe spot off campus. A lot of those older houses have attics and crawl spaces.”
“Yeah…” Lil fell quiet as the first buildings became visible a few hundred yards down and across the road.
Redwood Grove has one main street running in and out of town, with the rest of the streets laid out in your basic grid. You'd have to really work hard to get lost in Redwood Grove. Normally the lights from town would have lit the sky above it, but a lot of them were out. Not all of them; some streetlights, probably on automatic timers, still gave a comforting glow and it looked like a few buildings had lights burning in windows, but it was as if someone had hit the dimmer switch on Redwood Grove.
Closest to the college were the fraternity and sorority houses, big old Victorians with the house letters either hanging from banners or signs on the front of the buildings. Normally they'd be well lit, music blasting from the windows until the Redwood Grove police received the inevitable complaints from less party-hearty-inclined residents a block or so away. Now the windows were dark and the silence downright eerie. The Alpha Chi Kappa house's front door stood wide open, the entryway a black throat leading inside. My enhanced night vision showed splotches of dark liquid on the porch, pretty much signaling that was all she wrote for good old ACK. Talk about a perfect acronym. I didn't look too closely at what lay scattered about on the lawn next to an aluminum keg. Time enough for that when we came back to search for survivors and clean up the town.
Th
e sound of shuffling feet caught my attention. I grabbed Lil by her shoulder and held a finger up to my mouth for quiet. We hunkered down behind a Prius as a lone zombie made its way unsteadily out of the frat house. Well, I guess it could have been a totally drunk-off-his-ass frat boy, but the blood on its L.L. Bean flannel shirt said otherwise.
Lil and I stayed hidden behind the car until it lurched out of sight, then resumed our careful journey towards the town's business district. No sense ringing the dinner bell unless we absolutely had to; this was a recovery mission and the less attention we called to ourselves, the better. I still wasn't sure exactly how we were gonna get two no doubt freaked-out felines back to Big Red, but we'd figure it out. We could always find a car with keys in it, although driving back up to the barricade wasn't exactly the way to keep up the stealth part of the mission. If there was any way of getting back in without anyone else (okay, without Gabriel) finding out we'd been gone, I was determined to find it.
We cut through yards to save time, keeping our eyes and ears open. The quiet was as unnatural as the walking dead. No dogs barking, no babies crying. No sounds of insects or cars or televisions. Nothing.
“Where are they?” Lil whispered as we crept through past a swing set in the backyard of a single-story Craftsman bungalow. “The zombies, I mean.”
I shrugged, stepping over an overturned tricycle. “Probably a lot headed up to Big Red because of all the noise up there.” I led the way through a narrow side-yard leading to the front of the bungalow. “Maybe they've eaten everything there is to eat here.” Seeing Lil's expression, I hastily added, “Or that they can get at. Or maybe—”
I stopped short, words drying up in my mouth.
We'd reached the end of the side of the house, a chain-link gate separating us from the front yard, which looked out on the far end of the main drag—which was crawling with zombies. I swallowed once, then twice. “Or maybe they're all hanging out on Main Street.”
