“It’s their fault we’re still here,” she told herself, approaching the back door. She looked down to her stomach; she was leaving a trail of blood. “It’s their fault…”
***
There was a crack and a jerk, and the rotter went slack. Having not felt those jagged teeth sinking into him, Jeff opened his eyes. The tip of Cole’s sword poked out of the right side of the zombie’s head like the horn of a demon. That brown shit trickled down its gray tongue, in the direct path of Jeff’s face. He quickly scrambled out of the way and the zombie’s motionless body dropped beside him.
“You can thank me later.” Cole yanked Jeff to his feet before the soldier even realized it. “You dropped this.” Cole handed him the Beretta.
Matt was in the middle of reloading. Three corpses lay strewn about in front of him. Kristin passed by, pouring gas into the pit. Jeff couldn’t see the front yard, but he could hear all the gunshots coming from the direction from Mary, Angela, and Alex. Kristin tossed the now-empty can as Matt slapped in a fresh magazine. Cole pulled out a Zippo, lit it, and threw it into the pit. The gas caught but didn’t have the effect Jeff thought it would. He imagined roaring flames, tendrils nearly reaching the tips of the trees leaning over the pit some hundred feet up. All they got was a popping karumph and a group of zombies afire, which was good enough, he surmised.
A few more runners managed to leap across the pit, taking some of the flames with them. The three men opened fire, taking them out before they got more than a few feet from the edge.
“Behind you!” Cole yelled
Jeff turned, kneeled, and had the Beretta trained on a snarling runner. He put a bullet between its vacant eyes. Cole fired a few rounds beside him, dropping two that had made it through to the exposed side of the house. Looking around at the lot of corpses, both moving and unmoving, it seemed the little girl invited the entire neighborhood to the party.
It took a moment for Jeff’s hearing to come back, and when it did he could hear Cole talking and some shots from the front yard, few and far between.
“Where did they all—”
There was a scream from inside. The three men exchanged glances. Cole made for the front yard, worried that maybe the zombies had gotten in from that side. Matt walked up to Jeff, looking unsure of what to do.
A second scream erupted. Both men ran to the back door. Kristin was right behind them.
***
Anna came storming out the back door.
The first thing Matt noticed was the blood around her stomach and neck. “Anna, what happened?”
She answered by lifting the rifle and aiming it at him.
Both Matt and Jeff jumped out of the way.
Kristin stopped, confused, and raised her hands, but a burning sensation in her chest tore everything away. Five or six times, it felt she’d been shot. Kristin went to scream and found that she couldn’t; she could barely even breathe. Gasping for air, she dropped to the ground and felt the left side of her chest sinking.
No one came to comfort or console her as she lay dying.
The deranged Anna took a few more poorly-aimed shots, emptying the mag. She didn’t have anything to reload with, and both Matt and Jeff emptied both of their weapons into the crazy bitch.
Anna dropped to her knees. Her upper torso was littered with entry holes. She stared balefully at Matt as long as she could. He could see the hatred and jealousy in her eyes. Somehow, he knew that she blamed him for this outcome.
Jeff rushed over to Kristin, but it was too late. She was dead, staring into the heavens with unfulfilled eyes. Matt walked over with a hand on his forehead, eyes wide and bloodshot.
“What the fuck?” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Alex and Tim exited the back door as Cole and the others came around the side.
“What happened?” Cole said. He stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on Kristin’s corpse. “Holy shit! Is she…?”
Matt nodded. “Yeah.”
Cole looked to Jeff and then to Anna, saw the rifle still held in her clutches.
“Anna came out gunning. She tried—”
“That fucking cunt shot at me,” Matt interrupted Jeff. “She killed Kristin.” He leaned over Anna’s face and spat on her.
***
It took somewhere near an hour to clear the back and front yards. Everyone, including Tim and the still-crying Alex, pulled their weight. When all the bodies were in the pit—Anna’s and Kristin’s included—it was set ablaze. It was a silent, tragic spectacle, and each lamented as the bodies of two felled survivors and over one hundred other corpses caught flame and crisped.
No one knew for sure why Anna did what she did, they were only aware that she’d been bitten by Danielle. Tim hadn’t mentioned the goings-on between him and her before the little girl had turned. There was a time and place, and this was neither.
For the remainder of the day, the survivors prepared for the next day’s journey, barely speaking a word.
CHAPTER 23
All that gunfire, Randy thought. So much better to hear you by.
It was reminiscent of the fight back at the church, and it signaled a good possibility of the direction where Dad’s killers could be holing up. Remembering the corpse of his father on the front steps of the church only fueled the rage coursing throughout his body. He wanted revenge. Needed it.
Yanking the makeshift chain tied around his whores, Randy brought the herd to a stop. One of the girls shrieked behind her gag. Apparently Master was playing too rough. She’d be the next to go if the situation called for it.
They had crossed the Coleman Bridge nearly an hour before and entered this neighborhood just minutes ago. At first he thought they might be following the wrong tire tracks in the snow, but that firefight told him that he and his whores were heading in the right direction.
Two had already been sacrificed. Three were left back at the recreation center, chained together, bound, and locked in. Those survivors had drawn a lot of attention back at the bridge, and that horde was too thick to get through unscathed. The situation called for thinning the herd, so that’s just what Randy had done. He let two free, cutting their leashes, and watched as the starved and dehydrated women struggled to get away. It was all for naught, though, as they had only made it a few steps before the swarm of living dead engulfed them. Randy and the others barely managed an escape.
Miss-Too-Tortured moaned.
“Keep it up and I’ll kill you next.” He tugged on the leash and grinned. She let out a yelp and sobbed some more.
It was getting dark out, no sense in just rushing into a neighborhood he’d never been in before. Especially with all that gunfire. If those were the survivors and they were battling against a group of zombies, it was possible there were some undead wandering nearby. Randy would have to settle in a home tonight. The risks were too high in the dark. So far, he was lucky. But that luck was sure to run out.
He smiled, basking in the fact that the world still let someone like him survive. By all accounts, he should’ve been dead long before the outbreak even happened. As it was, fate saw fit to keep him breathing. This was now his world for the taking. With Dad gone, there was no one to hold him back, to keep his condition under some form of control. Randy Clyde could do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted, and only death could stop him.
These thoughts aroused Randy. He looked to the cattle. Four of them left, shaking from the cold, each as violated as the other. Maybe he should have clothed them before departing from the church, maybe not. Maybe it was just fun to watch their bare flesh shiver in this winter wonderland.
At first, when each had arrived, they’d each put up one hell of a fight. None wanted what eventually happened to them. Who would? The fact was, the thugs outnumbered the women and they were much stronger and had firearms. Now, none of the women were strong enough to put up a struggle. They hadn’t eaten in days. Their bodies malnourished, their souls stained and withered to the point where giving up must’ve
seemed easier than continuing on. He could hear them sniveling, but it was doubtful they could produce any tears. They were sure to die in a few days, one way or another. Until then, Randy would be having his way with them.
The world was going to be their worst nightmare if Randy Clyde had any say in the matter. And he surely did!
Looking to the left, he saw a house which would be the perfect home for his insanity to settle into for a couple of days, wearing these whores out until the day they died. It was a two story house on a slab foundation. He would have preferred a basement, a dungeon, but this would do. The yard was large and bordered by trees. His very own castle. Where he would be the king.
He withdrew the pistol he found back at the church and led the cattle into the yard. Stepping up to the front porch, Randy was surprised to find the door unlocked. Another of fate’s miracles, he thought while making his way in.
“Hello,” he said, hearing not a stir from inside. “We’re here to help.” He tightened his grip on the pistol, hoping for someone to show, to see sin in human form, to die by the hands of a madman. No one did, sadly.
“Welcome home, whores,” he snickered. “To the place where you’re going to die.”
The sobbing continued.
PART THREE: OPPOSITION
CHAPTER 24
Matt, Angela, and Cole left in the van at sunrise the next morning. The snow was falling, sticking to the ground in most areas. Jeff and Mary would be leaving in the next hour or so to retrieve the SUV.
Their first stop was the gas station for which Cole had the keys. They filled the empty cans without a hitch. In fact, the entire area was desolate. No birds cawing, no zombies moaning. It was actually quite peaceful. Shame it couldn’t always be like this, Matt thought.
They made their way toward Persius’s church, past the wreckage of the cars through which Cole had plowed scant days before. Matt drove slowly so that each could study the road. A set of vans would be ideal for them, but they’d happily take what they could get. As they passed the wreckage, Cole saw a potential candidate vehicle a ways to the left parked in front of a small strip mall.
“There.”
Matt maneuvered around a few automobiles and pulled into the parking lot. With the van left idling, the three got out and investigated a black GMC van lettered with Sam’s Electric on either side. Sam, or one of his former employees, sat lifeless in the driver’s seat. The door was unlocked. Matt and Angela watched out for Cole, armed and aiming at Sam or whoever. Cole unbuckled the seatbelt and, with the way the corpse was leaning, it didn’t take much effort to remove the thing from the seat.
“Wonder if he had a heart attack or stroke or something. I don’t see no bite marks or bullet holes.” Angela kicked the corpse. “And he ain’t getting up.”
“Some things are better left unknown. Let’s just be grateful he didn’t try to bite us.” Matt unsheathed his sword, drove it through the skull, and wiped the bloody tip on the corpse’s clothes.
“Shit,” Cole said. “Our luck might just be with us today.” He snatched a set of keys from the floorboard and climbed in. The engine sputtered a few moments later and then started. “Needs gas.”
Cole followed with the new van after emptying one of the five-gallon gas jugs into the tank. Angela rode with Matt and they continued down the highway until they had to turn on Denbigh Boulevard, putting them near the church where Persius, his son, and his goons had been slain.
Denbigh offered a clear view of the front of the church, and even the building behind it. To Matt’s surprise, he saw well a horde of zombies surrounding the brick recreation center. They painted the walls with their blood and tissue, not one of them looking back at the passing vehicles.
“There are people in there,” Angela murmured. “Ain’t no other reason them things’d be out there like that.” She pulled out one of the joints Matt had stashed in the glove compartment and lit it.
“You guys see that?” Cole’s voice said through the radio beside in between the two.
Matt grabbed it. “Yeah we see ‘em.”
“Better them than us, I guess.”
“I guess,” Matt said.
“Should we do something about it?”
Matt looked to Angela and shook his head. “I don’t think we have the time,” he glanced back to the weapons bin, “or the ammo to do that and get what we need. What do you think?” he asked her.
Angela shrugged. “I hate to say it, but I think we’re better off to be on our way.”
Matt nodded, and noticed the snow was falling harder, thicker. “We’ll worry about them if we actually make it out of this alive,” he finally said into the mic.
“Copy.”
Matt set the radio on the dash and sighed. He imagined countless arms bashing and banging against the siding of their house, the barricading reaching its breaking point; the moans and hollers of the hungering dead as they encroached on their next meal. What would they do then? What would he do then?
“Now that’s a positive attitude if I’ve ever heard one,” Angela said, exhaling.
Matt shook the thought away and cracked his neck.
“So,” Angela said, “you ever think in your wildest dreams that you’d live this long?”
Matt grinned, turning on the windshield wipers. “Yes.”
“Well aren’t you Mr. Cocky?”
“I’m not cocky; I’m confident. You know as well as I do that the world was full of stupid people.”
“True, true,” she laughed, hitting the joint.
“Well, I was one of those people who did a little planning for something like this. I mean, with the economy tanking and everything, it was only a matter of time before everything went down. So I got me a couple of guns, a few hundred rounds for each, two expensive swords, and stocked up on food and water.” Matt drew in a breath. “Well, I hadn’t had as much food and water as I’d wanted when all this shit happened, but I had enough to last my girlfriend, Mary, and Cole a week.”
“That’s better than most.”
Matt took the joint, glancing in the rearview to see Cole lighting one for himself. “It is and it isn’t. I should have had more, and that’s probably why I like going out on these raids. And now that we have a house that’s, for the most part, safe, I want to make sure we have everything we need and then some.”
“Makes sense.” Angela glanced at the joint, then Matt. “But where’d you get all this weed?”
He laughed. “It just so happened that everything went to shit the day after I picked up two ounces. Then about two days after shit fell apart around here, we cut a hole through the drywall and raided my next door neighbor’s house.” He looked in the passenger side view mirror briefly. “I knew he had to have dealt something; he’d always have people coming over all times of the night.”
“Yeah,” Angela said. “I had a few neighbors like that.”
“I think we all have, unless you were born with a silver spoon up your ass.”
Angela chuckled. “They got dealers too.”
“True,” Matt agreed. “But it didn’t much bother me. Anyway, we’d heard screams come from his place the night before. Didn’t last long; we knew he was dead. And when we went over there, we had to kill his five-year-old son who’d chewed off half his damn face.”
“Ouch.”
“On the bright side, we found just under a half-pound of some middies under his mattress.”
“At least that was convenient.” Angela giggled and shook her head at the irony. “So many people looking for safety and you’re out there findin’ all the drugs.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, passing the joint. “Anyway, once everything collapsed around here, we boarded up the windows and doors with what we had—which wasn’t much—and were dead to the world for the first week. In that time, most of the idiots died… Not to mention family and friends.”
“We’ve all lost people.” There was a sad look plastered on Angela’s face when she passed the joint back.
&nbs
p; “Yes, we have.” Matt thought back to Shelley and felt a knot form in his stomach, which intensified after painting the picture of the blast which likely claimed most of his family.
Angela turned on the van’s radio. There was nothing but static on both bands, so she turned it off a moment later. She hefted her legs up on the front of the dash and reclined her seat a little.
“Who’d you lose?” Matt fought the words, but they still managed to escape.
“Don’t wanna talk about it.” Angela dismissed the thought with a wave of the hand.
Matt looked over and offered smile.
Angela knitted her brows. “What?”
“I…” Matt winced. “I lost my girlfriend not too long ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He thought of Kristin and sighed. “It’s hard, but sometimes you need to do your best to put your feelings aside… or else they’ll consume you.”
“I’m not at that point yet.”
“Well,” he said, passing the joint, “if you ever want to, we’re all here for you. Well, maybe not Dr. Grant.”
Angela looked to Matt. Her green eyes were watery, yet not enough to threaten tears. There was a sense of relief in her expression. “Thank you.”
Matt nodded. “We all need people to confide in, and you’re all right in my book.”
“I mean thank you for everything. I’d be dead and so would Jeff and that pill-poppin’ bastard. Shit, I’d probably be being raped right now if it weren’t for you two.” She nodded to the van behind.
“The world’s full of sick fucks, whether alive or undead,” Matt said.
“Ain’t that the truth?”
Cole’s van pulled out of sight of the rearview, and Matt followed him through the side view mirror until the two vehicles were side by side. He looked over and shook his head.
Downfall Page 20
