Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (Book 9): Frayed

by Chesser, Shawn

  Taryn’s shrill scream shattered the silence and then there came a dry huffing sound from the inky black.

  To avoid becoming stuck when both he and Duncan stormed the narrow door simultaneously, Cade shifted his body sideways—an impromptu move that caused him to miss the initial step down and turn his left ankle on the garage’s concrete pad.

  Thanks to Cade’s half-pirouette, Duncan squirted through the doorway a fraction of a second after, his near two hundred pounds hitting the door full force near the middle hinge and sending it sweeping inward, quietly, on soot-lubed hinges.

  To Daymon, who was now skulking back down the aisle, watching Duncan following Cade through the door just as Taryn’s shriek died away was like viewing a rocket launch on television with the volume on mute. As he reacted, rushing toward danger as Cade and Duncan had, there was a loud clap and the door rebounded, knocking Duncan off axis as if a giant hand had come from nowhere and slapped him down.

  Recovering from the bone-jarring shiver that started a dull ache in his previously injured ankle, Cade released his grip on the carbine and drew his Gerber. And as he lunged for the black apparition draped over the struggling young woman, looking like a drunken superhero in flight Duncan passed in front of his eyes, nearly horizontal with the floor, arms flailing and hands clawing for something to arrest his fall.

  The dull ache now a shooting pain, Cade, canting sideways, focused on the picket of white teeth inching near Taryn’s nose and thrust his left forearm into the creature’s widening maw. Just as the pressure of the teeth clamping down registered in his brain, a string of curse words blasted from Taryn’s throat near his left ear. Then, as the three of them fell as one, he saw the immolated creature’s eyes, wide and lidless, sweep for him, right-to-left. Next, his forward momentum ripped the creature off of Taryn and carried them both away from the door to a cold and unforgiving impact with Portland cement.

  As they rolled around on the floor, the listless creature was working its fingers into Cade’s back and continued gnawing hungrily on his left arm. Cade craned around and noticed Duncan recovering from his fall and crabbing along the floor toward Daymon, whose silhouette was now filling up the open door. And as motes of carbonized skin and flesh knocked off the creature during the ongoing struggle filled the air near his face, Cade simultaneously dug the Gerber’s serrated edge into the Z’s spine from behind and pressed his forearm forward with all his strength. There was a crackling noise. Then he heard Duncan lamenting the fact that he was a dead man as simultaneously the Gerber severed muscle and windpipe and the head came away from the body with an awful, wet, tearing sound. Finally, with Duncan still going on about them not having any more antiserum on his right, and Taryn sitting on the floor to his left and wailing about how sorry she was for barging in ahead of them all, Cade rolled out from under the thing’s lifeless body and pried the jaws open with the Gerber. And though the head was no longer attached to the body, the eyes still scanned the room and the teeth chattered on, producing an unnerving clicking noise that rode the cold air inside the metal echo chamber. The noise continued on even as Cade got to his feet and placed the twenty-some-odd pounds of pure nightmare on the workbench, where the neck continued oozing black congealed blood. With the thing’s jaw thumping a morbid rhythm on the oily bench top, Cade met Duncan’s wide-eyed stare, drew back his tattered sleeve and showed off the magazines he had taped there in the morning before venturing out to Woodruff. “Looks like these things’ trial run paid off, huh?”

  Taking her hands away from her face, Taryn blurted, “Thank you, Lord.”

  After he finished crossing himself, Duncan whispered, “You are one lucky mo-fo, Grayson. And so am I … I was not looking forward to breaking the news of your demise to Raven and Brook.” Then, knees be damned, he crossed his legs, and clasped his hands limply in his lap.

  A flashlight beam lanced into the room and there was a murmuring of voices coming from the doorway as the others, reacting to Taryn’s scream, crowded around Daymon and started shooting questions Cade’s way.

  “Everything is under control,” Cade said. “Go on back outside.”

  As Lev and Jamie complied, Wilson remained rooted and looked a question at Taryn.

  “Cade’s right,” Taryn said. “It’s under control now. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Wilson opened his mouth as if to say something, then, seeing Taryn’s expression go serious, wisened up and ducked away from the door.

  Cade pulled his sleeve down and then helped the young woman to her feet. “Murphy must have been napping,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Taryn said, her eyes starting to go moist.

  “What’s done is done,” Cade said. “Just know that from here on out we’re all going to have to be extra careful entering and clearing buildings.” He stuck the Gerber’s black blade into the thing’s mouth. The tinkling sound produced by the teeth coming down on it was ten times worse in the enclosed space than them chattering together.

  “I’ll never get used to a severed head doing that shit,” Duncan said, brushing pea-sized briquettes of blackened detritus from his jacket and fatigue pants. The stuff was everywhere. There were smudges of black on the floor. On Cade. On Taryn. It was almost as if the zombie had shed its bark-like skin on everything it came in contact with.

  Cade pulled a small flashlight from a pocket and illuminated the head, then walked the cone of light over the floor and the rest of the crispy critter, revealing pink flesh showing through the black shell in places, mostly around its joints.

  “So Cade, tell me this,” called Duncan as he rose to his feet. “Why wasn’t this one in a state of suspended animation like the others?”

  Taryn poured some water from a bottle onto her hands. Then she splashed it on her neck and face. Finally, looking like she’d just spent a day in the coal mines, she leaned forward, hands on knees, and regarded the head on its level, nearly eye-to-eye. “Better yet,” she butted in, a sense of wonder to her tone. “Why didn’t it start making noise until I was inside? Was it waiting to ambush us?”

  Cade ran his dagger through the head’s eye socket, silencing the chattering teeth and stilling the one good roving eye. He pried a piece of sooty matter away from the scalp and rolled the head under the workbench out of sight—but not out of mind. He turned the specimen over in his hand. It was about the size of a credit card and had all of the properties of one of those dry cedar chips folks scattered around their hydrangeas and rhododendrons back home. He passed the chunk of dermis off to Duncan and knelt next to the prostrate corpse. With the dagger’s tip, he probed the creature’s skin, which had partially solidified, becoming like a cross between a rhino’s hide and suit of armor. It was brittle outside, and flaked off as he poked around the distended midsection. And as he inserted the blade a couple of inches deeper, he found the resistance more sponge-like than anything.

  Once Cade had finished his impromptu dissection, he made a face and said, “This thing’s skin is acting like natural insulation. And to answer Taryn’s question—” he looked at Duncan, then Taryn, “—it was lying in wait for us, no doubt about it. These things are still learning. The longer they stay alive ... dead, whatever. The more of this kind of behavior I think we’re likely to see.”

  “We better get busy culling them then,” Daymon said, the bars of light slipping around his frame, rippling in the turbid air as he shifted in the doorway. “Kindness wants to eat.”

  Taryn was up on her feet now and switched on a flashlight of her own. She paced the perimeter of the garage, walking the beam over the products—air cleaners, oil filters, serpentine belts and all other manner of car parts—stored there, only pausing when she got to the partially disassembled early model pickup. “Nice Fat Fender Ford,” she said to no one in particular. “Dad would have loved it.”

  Cade stowed the dinky mag-lite in a pocket. Then he took his carbine in hand and thumbed the button on the foregrip, bringing the tactical light online. He struck out on hi
s own, illuminating the floor and walls and shelves with the cone of white light.

  ***

  Duncan chatted with Daymon, offering up a half-hearted apology for busting his chops and promising he’d probably do it later but if not then certainly tomorrow.

  A couple of minutes after disappearing into the gloom, Cade and Taryn had both completed a clockwise sweep of the garage, her returning loaded down with two plastic boxes containing tire chains, one pinned tightly under each arm, and him with pockets bulging with the type of spray cans usually containing auto lubricants of some kind.

  “Mount up,” Cade said, unslinging his rifle. He watched Duncan and Daymon turn back into the store and crunch through the snowy aisles. Once they were out of earshot, he turned and stood in the doorway, barring Taryn from leaving the garage.

  She regarded him and spoke first. “I’m well aware of how stupid that was.”

  Cade said, “It’s OK to have a little fear. In fact, it’s healthy. Keeps us on our toes. That was partially my fault. This is all new to me. These things don’t act like any enemy I’ve ever seen ... and that they’re constantly pulling new tricks out of their asses doesn’t help.”

  She said nothing. Then, as if the realization of how close she’d come to being bit dawned on her, she began to shake.

  “It was a close call … sure. But look on the bright side, we’re both still breathing.” He reached for the door jamb and came back with her carbine. “Chalk it up as a freebie. A hard-earned learning experience.” He handed her the rifle and stepped aside.

  Taryn ducked by and said, “I’m done assuming. I’ll take the blame there. I let Daymon get under my skin and as a result I made an ass out of myself.” She sighed and shook her head. Fixed her eyes on his. “And for that I am truly sorry.”

  “I forgot about it as soon as the dust settled and I saw we wouldn’t be burying you. We don’t have any antiserum with us. And I don’t know when or if we will get anymore. So you’ve got to—”

  “Stay frosty,” she said, cutting him off. “And I’ll try and give Daymon a little slack. All of Heidi’s ups and downs are probably taking a toll on him.”

  Cade had no reply for that. He was no shrink. He figured he’d leave all of that stuff to sort itself out. God knew there’d be plenty of time for it once the snow stuck around for the long haul. “Let’s go,” he finally said, fearing this snow event to be fleeting and that the dead would be walking again, sooner rather than later. “Time is of the essence.” He followed Taryn through the door, both of them ducking under the panic bar. Once outside with snowflakes darting around his head, he looked to the others. “Mount up. According to Glenda our next stop is about a half a mile down 39 and then another half a mile north down a side road. Keep your eyes peeled for it.”

  Chapter 29

  Though it was a tolerable fifty-five degrees in the Graysons’ quarters, beads of sweat had formed on Brook’s forehead. She was sitting hunched over in a folding chair and clutching a rectangular olive drab ammunition canister in her right hand. The metal canister was partially filled with dirt and the metal handles had been wrapped with a few lengths of silver duct tape. She was in the middle of the second of three sets of fifteen and feeling a burn near her trapezius and deltoids, not so much from the muscles being overexerted, but from the thick slab of still-mending scar tissue being stretched to its limit.

  She counted: “Twelve, thirteen, fourteen,” grunting between each repetition. At fifteen she let the ammo can down easy and sat up straight in the chair, the beads now sheeting down her face as she breathed in deep and listened to the soft sounds of whatever DVD Raven and Sasha were watching now.

  Taking up the stress ball Cade had brought back from the rehab place, she worked it hard, squeezing the life from it until the fingers of her right hand ached and then kept going. Like the ammo can exercise, she did three sets of fifteen with the ball, afterward feeling as if she had milked a herd of cows with it.

  “Raven,” she called.

  One of the girls silenced the laptop.

  “Yes Momma?”

  “Can you get me a water, sweetie? And when you come back I’m going to need you to stretch me out.”

  “Yes Momma,” she said again.

  A moment later Raven emerged from the gloomy rear section of the container with a canteen in one hand and a cotton towel in the other. She handed her mom the canteen and folded the towel in on itself until she had a tight square of fabric.

  Before twisting the cap on the canteen, Brook pressed its flat side to her forehead, then cheeks, and finally rested it on the base of her neck for a moment. “Only good thing about this weather,” she finally said.

  “Cold water,” Raven answered back. Then, like the world’s smallest corner person tending to a tuckered-out boxer, she put the towel to use, dabbing the sweat from her mom’s face with delicate stabbing motions, starting with the underside of her chin and working up to the constellation of scars on her cheek. Finished with that, she squeezed a pearl-sized bead of the vitamin oil onto the damp washcloth-sized towel and began working it into the pink and purple scar on her mom’s back, wincing each time she encountered one of the deep indentions caused by the crawler’s incisors.

  “Can I get you anything?” asked Sasha. She was standing partly in shadow and gripping the bunk bed post like a subway rider expecting the train car to suddenly take a wild lurch.

  “Just keeping Raven occupied helps me more than you know,” answered Brook. “Wish money still had a meaning. I’d pay you handsomely by the hour.”

  Though it wasn’t evident to Brook or Raven, a wide smile spread on the redhead’s face and stayed there.

  “I figure you girls can help Tran cook dinner again. If you’re both up to it.” In her side vision Brook saw Raven nod enthusiastically. “That will also get you two out of dish detail. What do you think, Sash?”

  “Whatever you say, Mom—” Sasha caught herself the second the word she hadn’t uttered in a long time rolled off her tongue. She went silent and sat down hard on the bunk, her expression gone tight and cloaked in shadow.

  “It’s alright, sweetie. You can call me that if you want. Might as well ... these last few weeks you and Raven have become so close an outsider would peg you two as sisters.”

  “Right, Mom,” Raven said. “Me with my brown hair and eyes and perpetual suntan and her with red hair, greenish eyes, and totally opposite skin tone. I don’t see it. Not by a long stretch.”

  “I agree with Raven,” said Sasha. She rose from the bed and stepped around the end of the bunk and into the cone of light thrown from the hanging sixty-watt bulb. She fixed her gaze with Brook’s. Had trouble holding it because Raven was now vigorously rubbing the muscles running vertically up the woman’s right side. “You’re just trying to make me not feel embarrassed, Mrs. Grayson. My mom is still out there ... somewhere.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Brook said, nodding. “I won’t be mad if it slips again. In fact I’d be honored. I’m sure your mom is a very tough lady.”

  Was, thought Raven. She capped the bottle and set it on the floor by her feet. “I’ll share my mom with you until yours comes back,” she said.

  Sasha said nothing. Her chin dropped to her chest and tears rolled off her downcast face. They made little ticking patters striking the floor near her feet, and soon the silhouette cast there by her full head of hair was dotted with fallen tears.

  ***

  Southeast of the Eden Compound, Helen was standing in front of her kitchen sink, looking absently out the window there, slowly scrubbing Ray’s lunch plate with a Brillo pad. And as she made lazy counter-clockwise passes over the stuck-on bits of hash he had failed to lick clean, something just above her line of sight dead center in the backfield caught her attention. She froze instantly, every muscle seizing involuntarily and, without peering down, dipped the plate in the numbingly cold rinse water and snatched up a dishtowel. Still fixated on the unmoving lump sitting just at the edge of her vision
, she dried the plate and put it aside then wiped the watery suds off the backs of her hands.

  “Ray,” she called, the word, uttered like a halfhearted stage call, carrying no weight. Keeping her eyes locked on the gray smudge a few degrees above the window’s mid-point where the narrow excuse for a river made a westerly bend, she called his name again.

  “Yes, dear?” he called back.

  “I think there’s something out in the field.”

  “A deader?”

  From the dining room came the screech of a chair’s legs giving way, wood scraping wood. It was followed by a half-dozen plodding steps and Ray’s harried breathing.

  Helen looked over her shoulder just as her husband filled up the doorway. He looked tired to her. Stooped, more so than usual.

  “I don’t know what I saw,” she conceded. Then, something she should have done before calling Ray—which was usually her first inclination because she gathered it went a long way towards making him feel useful—she plucked her glasses from the sill, looped the diamond-cut leash over her head, and perched them properly on her nose. “Come on over and see what you think?”

  And he did. He shuffled around the chair pushed in against the small bistro table left of the doorway and came up behind her. Placing a hand lovingly on her shoulder, he asked her to point to what she had seen.

  With his naked eye, he followed the length of her arm to the tip of her finger and beyond. He took a deep breath and chuckled. “Oh, Helen. That’s that old bramble mound I was going to hit with Ortho and it kept slipping my mind. And then the thing happened.”