When They Come

by Jason Sanchez

  The group, save Tommy, was walking towards the nearest highway exit faster and faster.

  Tommy stood there, screaming to the Lord for help.

  Paulie smashed a nearby zombie’s head with a hammer.

  “TOMMY! CUT IT OUT! WE NEED TO GO!”

  “Tommy! Come on! This isn’t funny anymore! We need to go!”

  Paulie and Kara said, respectively.

  Margie ran to the group, the ghouls were gathering fast, she ran past the kneeling Tommy. She had her back to Kara and Paulie.

  “We need to leave”, Margie said.

  “What about Tommy? We can’t just leave him here!”

  “Fuck him. Let’s go. He’s not right. We need to leave! That exit doesn’t have too many of them. We can run past them!”, Kara yelled.

  “Margie, come on!” Paulie urged her to go. She didn’t know what to do.

  “He’s attracting way too much attention. Someone needs to kill him!”

  “WHAT?!”, Paulie and Margie said at the same time.

  “You heard me, he needs to die. All his yelling just keeps bringing more and more of those things to us. Our lives are in danger!”, Kara said.

  “No, it’s not right. We can’t just kill Tommy. We need to get him to come with us”, Paulie almost pleaded.

  “Margie, shoot him! Kill him! If you don’t, we all die! Kill him!”, Kara yelled

  Margie held up her gun. She had Tommy’s head in her sights. She scanned the area and saw almost two times as many ghouls raised by Tommy’s noise. She turned around to Kara and Paulie. Margie saw a sea of zombies, attracted to the noise, coming in their direction. It would take about 10 minutes for them to meet their destination.

  “Margie, no, don’t do it. Come on, get him to come with us! Make it better!”, Paulie stood pleading. Margie didn’t want to look into his eyes.

  “No, kill him! He’s trying to kill us all!”

  “Don’t shoot him! Margie, please!”

  “He needs to die now!”

  Margie stood there, now shaking. The devil and angel were on her shoulders, but the choices weren’t cut and dry. She let their voices drown out and she began to pray. The right choice would come to her, but she didn’t have the time.

  “God is good, Jesus saves. God is good, Jesus saves.”

  She opened her eyes and the choice was clear to her. It wasn’t perfect, but it would buy them all enough time.

  Margie lowered her father’s gun.

  “We need to leave. Let’s go. Head to that exit. We’ll find a hiding spot.”

  Margie ran past Paulie and Kara. She had spared Tommy’s life.

  “What? What happened?”, Kara asked as she began to run. Deep down, she was a little disappointed in Margie’s choice.

  “I’m with you, Margie!” Paulie was only glad that he didn’t see Tommy die in front of him. He began to run with what was left of the group.

  “If I killed him, he would have stopped making noise. We would have lost our distraction. If he lives, he makes a lot of noise, calls those monsters over and he buys us a lot more time. He’s more useful to us dying than he was alive. He would have been excess baggage”, Margie blurted out as she was running.

  The group stood quiet for second. Kara and Paulie both agreed that it was the best idea, even though it pained Paulie much more than Kara.

  Tommy’s cries could be heard and while they were getting lower and lower, their passion remained the same.

  There was a pause in his praying.

  A blood curdling scream rang through the air.

  It turned into a half sob and scream. It was full of pain.

  The group kept running to their unknown destination. Anywhere was better than where they were.

  Margie shed a few tears. It was obvious what had happened to Tommy. She hated to think about it, but it was a reality.

  The group began to slow down. There was no immediate threat. They all took a chance to look back at the highway. Smoke was rising in their air and they could see a large mass of off the undead moving about. They were still heading to the source of noise that was Tommy.

  “What’s that over there?” Kara pointed off into the distance. A large building was in the fog.

  “That’s the mall. It’s probably the only thing fun to do in this town.”

  “Fun or not, we should probably hold up there for the night. Hopefully it won’t be too bad in there”, Margie said

  “Well, mall it is. Let’s go”, Paulie said.

  They all began walking to the big, imposing building. Margie looked back one more time.

  “Bye, Tommy, and good bye, Mr. Fontaine. Thanks for everything”, Margie said silently to herself.

  Creature of Habit

  It had already been a few weeks since Matt locked himself in his apartment. He used to hear muffled voices, talking, and even screams of more neighbors being lost to the enemy. He sat in the corner. He had already lost some weight since he began rationing what was left of the food. His apartment stunk as the water he saved in the bathtub slowly became stagnant and rancid.

  The noises that were his neighbors became shuffling steps and pained groans. He didn’t know what more to do with himself. He noticed that where voices used to be, the moans and shuffling came from. As a result, Matt hadn’t spoken in some time.

  He would sometimes return to his computer, mostly out of force of habit. Sometimes, just for fun, he would click on his inbox and read the old e-mails. It was his only link to what was the outside world. It gave him some comfort and made him a little emotional to read and remember what life was before the world went to shit.

  He then blinked and saw the screen was off. It was off for weeks. It was one of very few rituals left that kept his sanity in check.

  Matt wiped a single tear from his eye.

  “I miss them”, He thought to himself.

  He heard his stomach growl a little. The noise startled him a little bit. He made his way to his refrigerator. Knowing that there was not much in it, he carefully weighed the decision to open it or not. There was a small temperature difference in there. Opening it could mean a few hours or even days lost to some freshness.

  “Fuck it. If it’s rotten, it’s rotten”, Matt thought.

  He opened the ice box.

  The cold cuts looked slimy. The yogurt, Matt chuckled to himself; he grabbed a cup and looked out the window.

  He turned back to the refrigerator and only saw baking soda and shriveled vegetables. Matt grabbed a carrot and a tomato, he saved the cabbage since it had very little mold on it.

  Matt put his “feast” on the counter. He closed the refrigerator.

  He took the spoiled yogurt to his window and looked both ways. He spotted some ghouls wandering around by the building. They were in range from this height. He wound his arm back and hurled the rotten yogurt at one of them.

  “Bulls-eye”, he thought to himself. He smiled.

  He watched the cup splatter and spray its contents all over the monster. It lazily tried to smear the stuff off of itself but soon gave up.

  Matt thought about how long it’ll be covered in the goop, maybe until it rains, or forever if it stays inside of a building or something. Whatever, it was all he had left for entertainment.

  Matt bit into the carrot. Carrying both vegetables in his hands, he took turns biting into them. They were both dry and spongy. He tried not to think that he could be eating mostly fungus. As long as it sustained him, he didn’t mind. However, he knew that he had maybe one day’s worth of food left with the cabbage and he wouldn’t dare touch the rotten cold cuts. The water wouldn’t last very long anymore, the smell was getting very bad and there was a film on the surface of it.

  He slumped in a corner, taking a few bites and thinking of what to do about his situation.

  “I have to leave”, he thought.

  Matt gagged a little bit when he bit into a bunch of fluff. He knew what the fluff was and he spit it out and started coughing. It made his throat b
urn. He did what he could to stifle the coughs, but his body demanded it. He was surprised with how loud he sounded. Maybe it was because of how quiet he had been lately.

  Matt definitely had to leave now. The noise would surely bring unwanted attention. Maybe it was psychological, but Matt heard some shuffling from higher floors heading to his direction. He got scared. He didn’t know what to do. They were closing in and he needed help. What would he do? Who could he call? What should he do? What should he bring?

  Matt’s heart began to hurt. That slowed him down. His years of inactivity were a mixed blessing. His out of shape heart anchored him and caused him to slow down a bit. His thoughts cleared up.

  “The shuffling wouldn’t be here for a while”, he thought.

  “I have some time to get myself together and leave. I need to get out of this apartment”, Matt said to himself in a soft voice.

  Breathing hard, he supported himself by placing his hand on the wall as he slowly made his way into his room to search for something, anything, that could be of use to him.

  Going through his closet, he found a hockey stick covered in dust that his parents gave him years and years ago, back when his Dad had hopes of him becoming a pro athlete.

  Matt laughed to himself and swung the stick around. The dust that flew off of it brought him back memories of how his mother would scold him for leaving his room so dusty. He fought back tears thinking of how those were now his good memories.

  He put on winter boots even though the weather was comfortable outside.

  “Everything counts, I guess”, he quietly said to himself.

  He made his way to the front door of his apartment. Placing a hand on the door knob, he took in a deep breath and looked at his apartment. He thought how he may never come back again…ever.

  Just as he was about to turn the knob, he felt a crisp breeze caress his face. He looked at the window and at his fire escape.

  “Wait a second.” He said.

  Clutching the stick hard, he walked over the fire escape and took a look around.

  He saw a few ghouls milling around the entrance of the building. He laughed a little as he saw the zombie with yogurt splattered on his head.

  “I doubt some people will need whatever they left behind at this point.” Matt spoke to himself at a normal voice since being outside offered him a sort of freedom.

  “First, I need food.” Matt’s rumbling stomach agreed with him.

  He slowly walked down the creaking fire escape, again, taking a last look into his apartment.

  He gathered his courage and tiptoed down the metal structure. To his surprise, a few of the windows were boarded up with small viewing slots. He highly doubted that the people inside would help him in, let alone take down their defenses. Some of the boarded windows, the few that were there, had boards crudely torn off of them, some had half a board taken off and blood smeared on them. Matt heard loud shuffling and items behind dropped.

  “No way, how would the monsters get in?” Matt realized that for some of the boarded windows, the people inside had unknowingly trapped themselves with an infected family member or neighbor.

  He closed his eyes and lowered his head, trying to imagine their final moments.

  Matt thought it was best to not even go near the boarded windows, shuffling or not, surely the people inside would be a little paranoid and rightfully so. Last thing he needed was some sort of sharp object or well intentioned bullet to hit him.

  There were just a few floors left to look through. The lower ones didn’t seem to be boarded up for some reason.

  Looking through the first clean window, he saw a neat living room everything in place and looking spotless. This made Matt scared. Gathering more of his courage, which he was surprised he had, Matt knocked the window with his hockey stick. The closed window offered protection against any beast that would pop out.

  Tap, Tap, Tap.

  He waited.

  Nothing.

  Tap, Tap…

  Nothing.

  Matt tried to open the window, and with no surprise, it was locked. His stomach rumbled. He needed to take a chance. Matt smashed the hockey stick into the window. It only cracked. The loud noise rattled his skull, but he closed his eyes and clenched his teeth and hit it again.

  It cracked.

  Again.

  A small gap.

  Again.

  A large enough hole to go through.

  Matt cleared the glass by running the hockey stick along all the corners, making it much safer for him to pass through. He didn’t hear any shuffling and didn’t see any of the ghouls on the street taking much notice of him. He took a deep breath and went inside.

  The living room was immaculate to say the very least. All the couches were perfectly arrange, the place was still decorated and nothing seemed to be out of place. There was a spot of dust here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. Matt walked through the place very carefully. Who knows what could be inside?

  The door was chained shut, so no one left and he remembered that the window was still locked.

  “No one came in from the outside. But the lock… does that mean no one left?”, He whispered to himself.

  “What if they were infected and stood behind?” Matt began to enjoy talking to himself.

  He checked every corner, being sure to look behind himself every few seconds. He found nothing. He looked under the couches, behind the TV, and even poked the hockey stick through the closet.

  Now for the bathroom.

  “Which one of these is the bathroom?”, he whispered.

  He carefully knocked on the first door that he walked by.

  Silence.

  Carefully turning the knob, Matt ventured in slowly. The toilet was clean, the sinks were dry, and the shower curtain was partially drawn. It offered him enough room to see that it was empty.

  Matt breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good.

  Only one more room to check…

  Walking to the last door in the apartment felt like an eternity. Matt’s heart was racing. He kept reassuring himself that the apartment was quiet, so there would probably be an empty room behind that door.

  His palms were sweaty, his knees grew weak, and his arms turned to limp noodles. He could barely hold onto the hockey stick.

  He let his hand rest on the door knob for a few seconds before taking a deep breath and turning the knob.

  He pushed the door open. It creaked ever so slightly. Inside there was a bed with a netted drape hanging over it. Matt squinted his eyes and barely noticed two figures under the drape.

  A breeze that tickled his face startled him. He gasped and picked up the hockey stick.

  “Wind. Only the wind.” He muttered to himself.

  The figures under the drape were motionless; the wind was the loudest thing in the room.

  Matt, never showing his back to the figures, crept over the window and closed it. It shut hard, too hard.

  Matt locked up and started at the figures, expecting them to rise.

  Nothing.

  He went over to them and pushed the drape aside with the hockey stick.

  His fear quickly changed, he lowered the stick and moved the drape back with his hands.

  “Aw, shit.” He felt a tear welling up in his eye. For a moment, he finally forgot about his hunger.

  He fell to his knees and wept for a few minutes.

  Under the drape was an older couple, forever asleep and holding hands. Both were dressed in their absolute best. The husband was in a suit and tie. He even had wilted flower in his breast pocket. One hand was laid on his chest and the other held his wife’s hand. She had a small smile on her face and a dried tear on her cheek. She wore a beautiful white dress that was flawless. There was barely any light in the room, yet the dress shone brighter than the sun.

  Matt looked at the table. There were two large, empty glasses and a bottle of old wine. Beside the bottle were a prescription bottle of sleeping pills. It was completely empty.


  “Couldn’t save any for me, huh?”, Matt said to the old man. His eternal expression was enough for Matt.

  “Fine, I’ll let it slide”, Matt said to the corpse.

  “You guys got off easy, you know. I don’t have anyone. I gotta deal with this on my own.”

  Matt took a last look at the couple and choked back the emotions. His hunger slowly returned and if he didn’t do something about it, he would surely share their fate, albeit, a bit more painful.