Neil thought for sure Mark would make some braggadocios comment, however, the younger man agreed that the house wasn’t suitable.
They moved on. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was dropping out of the sky when they found a place to encamp. It was a rectangle of a home hidden from the world by great moping willows. Compared to the elegant estates of south Atlanta, it was hardly more formal in its architecture than a doghouse and yet it appealed immediately.
The previous owners had gone to great lengths to preserve its integrity. The windows and doors were fortified, boarded over with inch-thick plywood and barred with steel to keep out the undead. Still, the hard work had not saved them.
The little group found the bodies of an elderly couple in an upstairs bedroom. They were wizened like old apples and not just from the length of their internment.
“I think they starved to death,” Neil said after inspecting the kitchen. Though there were a few spices, everything else had been eaten, up to and including a large bag of dog food. Of the dog there was no sign and Neil had the uncomfortable thought that it had been eaten as well.
Sadie looked pained at the idea of the pair dying of starvation and said, “But they have a pond just out back. I saw like three fish jump in the last minute.”
“Yeah, and did you see the woods all around?” Mark asked. He had grown quieter as the murk of evening settled in. “You might have seen three fish but I saw about fifty stiffs. They’re prowling all up in the woods.”
The night passed without incident, though it was a hard burden to hear the fish jump and splash in the pond throughout the evening hours. Neil dreamt of fish—of catching them, of cooking them, of eating them. The thought of fish filled his mind almost straight through the night. In the morning he stood at the back window, watching the fish do their thing as the pale dawn ate up the mists.
“I’m going to catch one,” he vowed. They had fishing poles, which was good, and lures, which wasn’t. At best Neil was a subpar fisherman and with lures he was worse than that. His only success had been with bait. The problem was that they didn’t have any—though he knew where to find some.
“Can you get a fire going, Sadie," he asked, "And Mark, if you’ll cover me?”
Mark looked at him skeptically. “You’re going out there?” The morning was so new that the zombies hadn’t yet retreated into the dim of the forests.
“Yes. Just for a little while. All you have to do is keep them off of me for a couple short minutes.”
They were some of the longest minutes of his life. With a plastic container in one hand, a trowel in the other, and Mark just behind him, Neil darted out the back door and ran to where a canoe sat with a goodly amount of brackish water floating in the bottom. With a grunt he upended the thing and then scrambled about after the insects retreating from the light.
He grabbed three black beetles, a centipede as long as his pinky, and two huge worms that stretched as he pulled—one snapped in half; he kept it anyway. Next he went to a flat rock, however, before he could flip it over an explosion broke the still air and echoed like rolling thunder.
“Jeeze!” Neil cried. A single zombie had come shuffling from around the house and now it lay on the ground with half its head gone.
“You wanted me to cover you,” Mark said with a shrug. "What did you expect?"
“To kill them quietly if you could,” Neil answered. As evidence by the swaying trees and the crashing footfalls from the nearby forest, the time for quiet was past. Neil flipped the rock, grabbed all the bugs he could and then ran for the house, holding his left ear against the drum-shattering explosions of Mark’s 50 caliber handgun, a Taurus Raging Bull 500.
“Did you see that fucker’s head come apart?” Mark asked giddily once they were inside. “It was awesome!”
“Yeah, it was great,” Neil said, poking beetles back into the bucket. “I hope this is enough.”
Sadie, who had been watching from the door instead of starting the fire, glanced into the bucket and asked, “Enough for what? You can’t go back out there, especially not to go fishing. I saw like a hundred of them. They’re all over the place.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s Mark you should worry about.”
Mark stopped in the middle of topping off the load in his hand-cannon. “If you think I’m going to go fishing with all those fuckers out there, you’re crazy.”
“No, I'm going to be the one fishing,” Neil said, checking his pole, making sure that the bobber was set a good two feet above the weighted hook. “I just need you to back the Rover down to the pond. I’m going to fish from on top of the roof. I’ll be fine. No zombie can climb up there, not with the big tires you got on her.”
“What about me?” Mark asked. “There were some big stiffs out there. The glass won’t hold.” Car windows were strong enough to repel the smaller weaker zombies, but against the larger ones, it was just a matter of time before they broke through. “Did you think of that, Smart-guy?”
“I did. You’ll drape yourself in a sheet…”
“What? That won’t fool them!”
Neil fished out one of the beetles. “They won’t even notice you. They’re going to be looking at me like the cherry on an ice-cream sundae. Just don’t move around a lot and stay hidden; you’ll be fine.”
The plan worked like a charm. The pond brimmed with so many stocked fish that Neil hauled in three bass and two good sized sunnies before he ran out of bait. Not that it was easy. Standing atop the Range Rover, exposed with throngs of zombies stretching out their arms to him made him feel like a rock-star in hell. The zombies even moaned and swayed to an unheard beat.
With his fish in a bucket, Neil tapped on the roof and Mark nearly sent him tumbling among his hungry fans by flooring the Rover. He just managed to hold on for the short trip around to the front of the house where they ran for the door before the stiffs could catch up.
The three of them ate till their stomachs were stretched and uncomfortable. "I wish I knew the first thing about how to smoke fish," Neil said, picking his teeth with a bass-bone. "I know Sarah likes fish a lot."
"It can't be that hard," Sadie said, but didn't offer any more thoughts on the subject. Her eyes were glassy from the big meal.
Despite the desire to nap, the three forced themselves up and, after a sprint to the Rover, they went on looking for the right homes to ransack. It was a long, dangerous day investigating them. The zombies were like ants to a picnic—every time they stopped, out they would come. Sometimes they came in ones or two, while at other times they seemed to form marching lines. Once the three sat trapped in an upstairs bathroom of a trashy redneck bi-level for two hours until the horde broke up.
And just like the day before Mark followed a similar pattern. In the morning he made rude jokes, mostly jibes at Neil; in the afternoon he grew restless and agitated and just as dark threatened he'd become quiet and somewhat withdrawn. The third day was much the same. They had only planned for a three day trip, however they were on such a bad streak that they had barely filled two boxes with canned goods and a third with other essentials: candles, spices, bottled water. They decided that a fourth day was in order despite knowing that Sarah would be worried sick.
In the old days it would've been only a couple hour trip back, now it was a whole other story. Not only were many of the roads and bridges impassible, they couldn't afford the gas to go back to the CDC; fuel was another essential that they were struggling to locate.
That fourth day started with another attempt at fishing, unfortunately Sadie insisted on getting a turn and through her inexperience the girl from Hoboken managed to waste all the bait and lose three hooks. Two strange looking and stranger tasting fish was all she had to show for two hours of sitting on top of the Rover.
For once Mark needled her instead of Neil. She accepted the jokes in an embarrassed silence while Neil glowered. He was somewhat used to being made fun of, but he'd never had a loved one made fun of before and it made him far more angry than he though
t it could have. It wasn't something he could laugh away or let roll off his back. Breakfast that morning was a hushed angry affair because of it.
Luckily success smoothed over any tensions as they happened upon a jackpot of a home. Jackpot being a relative term, they managed to fill half the rover: four boxes of canned goods, two scoped rifles with three hundred rounds of ammo, fourteen gallons of gas, and finally the greatest prize: two bags of flour and another of sugar.
"Bread," Sadie exalted holding up one of the bags of flour as if it was the Super Bowl trophy. "We can make bread!"
They stood around the flour for a few minutes and talked about all the different types of food they missed the most, until Neil got them going again. From then on Mark was different. He laughed the most, worked the hardest, and finally Neil saw why Sadie was attracted to him. Even the afternoon irritability wasn't as bad.
Two hours after lunch they were traveling down a sunken road when they spied another house that drew their attention.
It was little more than a cabin in the woods and yet it yielded another trove, though not nearly as exciting as the last. It was clearly a man cave as demonstrated by the cans of beans, and the cans of chili with beans, and the cans of franks and beans...and the porn. There were other essentials as well and everything, minus the porn, was stowed in boxes, piled on the baggage carrier atop the Range Rover, and lashed down.
Tired now, the three argued whether to go on, spend the night, or try to make it back to the CDC. It was after four at that point and Mark had grown sullen and wanted to stay since there weren't any zombies in evidence. Neil wanted to go back, but was quickly voted down by the other two.
"It'll be dark soon," Sadie complained. "We shouldn’t travel in the dark. I say we go on for a little longer. We're on a hot streak, let's not spoil it."
Her logic won out over Neil's pining for Sarah and Mark's desire to get under cover sooner than was needed. They bid farewell to the cabin and decided to go on along the sunken road to see where it led. Strangely it petered out after a mile or so. The road, dirt to begin with, turned into a rutted track and ever so slowly the ruts faded until the rover sat in deep heather.
"This doesn't seem to be going anywhere," Mark said in a voice slightly higher than normal. The forests edged in too close for his tastes.
"We can turn around," Sadie said, doing so without any debate. "There were a few houses back on the..." She stopped the Rover in mid-turn as something caught her eye. "I think I see where this leads."
She pointed to a barn not more than a half mile distant. It had been obscured by an arm of the forest. Even from a distance they could see that the roof was shabby and weathered, and that the red painted siding had faded to a rusty grey.
"Do we bother?" Neil asked, still wanting to go back home and looking for any excuse.
Sadie shrugged with only a single shoulder. "I say yes. There could be an even bigger stash in there. Who knows? They might even have more porn!"
Neil laughed at her joke, but Mark only squinted at the barn and then back the way they had come. With the trail slunk lower than the surrounding forests and overgrown with shadows it didn't look all that appealing. "I say we go on, too," he said. "Even if there's nothing, I bet that barn has a loft we could spend the night in."
With the decision settled, and the trail apparently consumed by nature, Sadie took the Rover across country, heading directly for the barn. It was slow going despite the SUV's four-wheel drive. The ground was pitted with strange depressions and when they weren't thumping into one, they were bouncing over mossy tree trunks that were practically invisible in the tall grass.
Eventually as they came within a few hundred yards of the barn the land evened out. Here it had been properly tilled and cultivated the year before, but oddly unharvested. There were still towering corn stalks—all yellowed and dry as bones. Rows upon rows of it. The ride became gentle, but slightly unnerving since visibility dropped to only a few feet in any direction.
Thankfully about fifty yards from the barn the old corn played out so that there was a wide circle surrounding the building where they could see all around. Sadie stopped the Rover on the edge—half in the corn, half out of it. "Here's where I get out," she said.
She wanted to show off some more. Neil knew better than to argue. Mark did not. "What? Why?"
"I want to stretch out my legs with a little run," she said, turning off the engine and sliding out of the Rover. "Besides it's a good way to flush out any zombies hiding around here. Cars confuse them sometimes, but a choice piece of meat like me will have them rushing out for dinner."
"That's what I'm worried about," Mark retorted.
"I'll be fine. There ain't a zombie alive that can catch me. Besides, I have my Tomb Raider special, just in case." She held up her ugly pink and black Glock.
With a wave she began to jog in the general direction of the barn and she seemed so confident that both men settled in to observe. Sadie was a joy to watch when she stretched out her slim legs in a wild sprint, however she didn't this time. Instead she only jogged or skipped, warming up, until she came abreast of the barn. Then she peeked in and immediately hopped back.
Slower now she took a second look. When she turned back to them it was with a look of defeat. She held up both hands with fingers splayed.
Neil interpreted, "There at least ten zombies in the barn. We'll have to find a better place to..."
He stopped as he saw the cornstalks part all along the rows behind Sadie. Jumping out of the Rover, he pointed and shouted, "Look out behind you!" She turned for only a split second and then urgently she pointed back at him.
Confused, Neil glanced at Mark and asked, "What the hell is she..." Just then a zombie stepped out of the corn right next to Mark's window and stared in with unblinking yellowed eyes. And now the corn all around Neil whispered with the coming of zombies—by the hundreds.
Through the yellow stalks, Neil could see them just feet away. He did the only prudent thing for a man to do, he let out a yelp and then hopped back into the Range Rover, shutting the door against grey arms that reached out for him.
"What are we going to do?" Mark asked, shying back as the zombie at his window began to thump the glass with a heavy fist.
"Drive!" Neil ordered from the back seat. "Get over and drive! We have to get to Sadie." The girl had not budged save to spin slowly as the corn gave up the dead. She was surrounded by what appeared to be hundreds of them. They were closing, but there was still time to save her.
Mark, his face contorted and no longer handsome in the least, slid over to the driver's seat and then fumbled around groping beneath the dashboard as though he was blind man. "The keys...they're gone! She has them. Sadie took them!"
Both men snapped their heads around to look at the girl in black; with so many zombies advancing on her she was barely visible.
For Neil Martin, time slowed nearly to a stop for the span of two long breaths. Air drew into his lungs, ever so slowly, and departed in the same manner as his mind went into overdrive as he analyzed the situation:
Question: Was there time to hot wire the car? Answer: No. Even if I knew how, it would take upwards of a minute to accomplish.
Question: How much time did Sadie have? Answer: assuming she shot the closest zombie to her at any one time, and did not miss, she would be overwhelmed in eighteen seconds plus or minus two seconds.
Question: Can she escape the encircling zombies by running or fighting her way out? Answer: No. There are far too many and she is not that capable with her Glock.
Question: What are my options? Answer: Only one. Kill as many of them as you can and then die by her side.
Question: Why can't I hide here in the Range Rover instead? Answer: That is not an option.
Question: Why not? Answer: It is not an option.
Question: Why isn't it an option? Answer: She chose to be your little girl and you chose to be her father. You love her and you won't watch her die and do nothing.
Question: But I'm afraid. Answer: Yes. Get out of the car.
Just like that, time snapped back into place and Neil knew all that he needed to know. "Come on!" he screamed to Mark. His fear for Sadie was a black hunk of ice in his chest that made the rest of his body numb. He grabbed his gun and slammed open the Rover's door, smashing it into a zombie that had been right there. The creature was knocked to the ground by the force of the blow, yet the tactile sensation of it did not register on Neil's brain.
The same was true with his Beretta. When it went off, seemingly by its own volition, it did not buck, while its report was muted. It seemed like a weak thing in his hands—like a gun from bad dream. Since the advent of the apocalypse he had many such dreams, the kind where his feet seemed to run in deep molasses, or his arms were so weak they were all but useless, or that his gun shot BBs or pellets and the zombies came on grinning, undeterred.
It was like that now, except the zombies did fall as he shot his way through them, only so many more sprang up to take their places that the world retained its nightmare quality all the way until he reached Sadie.
"Neil! Why?" she asked before shooting a closing zombie. It made a noise like a bullfrog croaking and then fell at her feet.
He had neither the time nor the breath to answer. His sprint, a mere forty yards winding through, and sometimes plowing over, an army of undead had tired him. Instead of answering, he turned a tight circle, shooting those beasts nearest and searching for the part of the deadly ring that was thinnest.
It was only then that he discovered that Mark hadn't joined him in his mad dash. It was a catastrophic let down; with his size and his skill with guns Mark might have made the difference. Neil couldn't spare a second to worry about that now. His notion that Sadie had eighteen seconds left before she was overwhelmed hadn't been correct. From the moment Neil got to her the pair was shooting nonstop, generally with great accuracy since the zombies were now within feet of them.
"This way!" Sadie cried, grabbing Neil's hand and turning him ninety degrees. She had caught sight of where the ranks of the zombies were only two deep instead of five or more. They shot their guns dry making a hole big enough for them to run through. A second later they were in the corn, sprinting past skeletal stalks with little to cover their frames but a few old brown leaves. They had escaped the initial wave, however their salvation was short lived. The corn was rife with the creatures and everywhere they turned grasping hands reached through the stalks for them.
The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors Page 12
