Dead Man's Party

by Nathan Robert Brown

  “OK, OK. Seriously though, where do we go, Isaac?”

  “Out of the city. Somewhere with less people—less zombies.”

  “Right. Well I was kinda looking for something a bit more specific than that,” Eddy said slowly.

  “Sorry. That’s about as far as I got,” Isaac said.

  Sam threw the couch cushion in her hand at Isaac. Isaac picked up the cushion and walked it back to the couch. He sat down at the end, away from Sam but still within kicking distance.

  “I don’t know where we should go, beyond out of the city,” Isaac said. “I just know we should be moving.”

  The three friends sat and drank coffee for a moment. Eddy tired of the quiet first. He turned on the TV and dropped a movie in the DVD player.

  “You are one disturbed little puppy,” Sam said as the movie started, “You know that?”

  “Think of it as an educational opportunity,” Eddy said, settling back into his chair. Sam launched another pillow his direction. “Love you too, Sam. And I still think this movie is hilarious, even if we live in ‘Zombieland’ for real now.”

  Isaac looked over to the window again part of the way through the movie and noticed the rain on the windows.

  Gives us time to prepare.

  They spent more than half the day watching movies, nearly content to ignore the end of the world for just one more day.

  “Boys,” Sam said, stretching, at the end of The Hangover, “I hate to kill a good movie spree on a class day, but if we’re leaving, we should be getting ready.”

  Isaac looked at his watch. “Can’t leave now. Too close to dark.” Eddy emphatically nodded in agreement.

  “I meant so we’d be ready to leave tomorrow.” Sam folded her arms and gave them her best “quit-your-bitching-and-get-moving” look.

  Eddy and Isaac ignored her for a moment. They always took it as a challenge to see how long they could ignore the weight of her look. Usually Eddy broke first and after less than a minute.

  “Alright, we’re up,” Isaac said, standing up after a lack-luster twenty-five seconds. “Tell us what to do.”

  Sam took charge of raiding the kitchen and Eddy’s closet. She divided what little they had among their three backpacks. Eddy ducked out of packing duty by taking his pistol from its hiding place and breaking it down for cleaning on the kitchen counter.

  “When’d you get a gun?” Isaac asked.

  “When I was like nine. Didn’t live in the best part of town, so —”

  “No, I meant on campus. I thought they were against the dorm rules and all?”

  “Screw that. I’ve owned a gun since junior high. I can’t sleep without a gun in the room.”

  “Isaac! Get in here and help me,” Sam yelled from the bedroom.

  “Better go, dude. She might throw something heavier than a pillow.”

  It didn’t take long to pack everything they’d carry. Total it amounted to two changes of clothes, a third of the canned goods from the kitchen, and a couple blankets each. Sam wasn’t at all happy because her changes of clothes came from Eddy’s closet, but they couldn’t risk going back down to her room, not after only barely escaping from her zombified roommate the other day.

  They knew they didn’t have a real plan and that playing it by ear was living dangerously, but sitting in the apartment was just waiting for the inevitable.

  ***

  Isaac woke up first again. They had planned to leave once it was fully light out. They couldn’t afford to leave any earlier than that because they had to leave via the roof, and jumping to the train tracks would be dangerous enough if they could see what they were doing. As a bonus, waiting for light gave them an opportunity to eat, have a little coffee, and get in one last hot shower each.

  Eddy looked at his friends and realized his stomach wasn’t the only one tied in knots. “Guys, I’ve always wanted to watch the sun come up from the roof.” He stood up and walked to the front door of the apartment. “What do you say?”

  Isaac looked at Sam, and they followed Eddy to the door. “You got the gun, you lead the way.”

  Eddy hung his head and sighed in mock resignation. He cracked the door open to look up and down the hall way. The lights in the hall glowed harsh white. Nothing moved. Eddy saw one body laying face down to his left, the opposite direction than they were going.

  “Lucky break. Looks clear,” Eddy said. He opened the door wide enough to step out and led the way with the pistol in front of him.

  It was about a hundred feet to the stairwell door. The hallway itself didn’t worry Isaac and Eddy. Open doors and the zombies that might be lurking in the other apartments worried them. Eddy stepped lightly down the hall to the next door down from theirs. He slid along the wall, keeping his eyes on the door frame until he saw the apartment door securely shut. Eddy looked back at Isaac and Sam. He had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

  Sam stood in the middle of the hall with a frying pan cranked up by her head like a baseball bat. “What are you laughing at?” she hissed. Eddy shook his head.

  He turned back to the front in time to see about six inches of door protruding into the hallway where someone knocked it from its hinges. Silently he cursed for relaxing because the first door had been solid.

  Eddy took a half step toward the open doorway and froze. A zombie just inside the door moaned, chilling the trio’s blood. Eddy shuffled back when he heard the zombie step on the door. It took two more rapid steps and fell on its face in the hall.

  Sam rushed forward and beat the female zombie’s head in with the frying pan. Wiping her face with a jacket sleeve, she stood there holding the badly dented and warped frying pan and cracked a nervous smile.

  Isaac grabbed Sam by the back of her jacket and pulled her toward him, hard. Eddy grabbed the zombie Sam hadn't noticed by the hair and pulled its head back. He calmly put the pistol to its temple and blew its brain out its right ear.

  Zombies moaned up and down the hall.

  “Go!” Sam and Isaac yelled at the same time. Eddy charged down the hall and threw himself at the stairwell door. It slowed him down just enough that he didn’t throw himself down two flights of stairs when the door banged opened. Sam and Isaac sprinted down the hall two steps behind Eddy.

  Two zombies staggered out of their apartments and tried to follow Sam and Isaac. Eddy shot one, missing its head but slowing it down, and slammed the stairwell door in the other’s face. The zombie beat on the door; popping it open about an inch before Eddy slammed his shoulder into the door and made sure it latched.

  “Sam, move up a few stairs. Isaac, be ready to sling this bastard over the rail if the door opens,” Eddy said. He waited a moment for his friends to move before he let his weight off the door. The zombie continued to beat on the door and moan, but the door latch held for the moment.

  “Let’s get go before he accidentally opens the door,” Sam suggested. She turned and trotted up the stairs.

  The top-floor patio wasn’t clear. A few zombies milled around close to the edge twenty feet away. Isaac put a finger over his lips and moved toward the three closest zombies. Eddy and Sam tried to protest, but Isaac already had his back to them. Eddy shook his head and readied his pistol.

  Isaac snuck all the way up on the inattentive zombies. The zombie closest to the edge noticed Isaac as he grabbed another zombie. Isaac heaved with all his might and threw the zombie over the edge of the five-story building. As soon as he let go of the first zombie, he kicked the second one in the small of the back. The zombie slammed against the railing and flipped into a head-long dive at the concrete below. Even five stories up, he heard the wet smacks as they splatted against the concrete and metal bike racks. The zombie that noticed Isaac tried to turn to grab him. Its foot missed the edge of the building. The misstep sent its leg into the gap between the decorative safety railing and the building. Isaac watched as the zombie's body and head bounced off the waist-high railing. He bashed the monster's head against the rails until it stopped mov
ing.

  Four more zombies on the next patio over noticed Isaac. They staggered toward him. When they reached the safety railing that normally kept people from trying to walk across the twenty feet of thin air that separated the patios, they tried to keep going and fell head first over the rail.

  Sam pointed out the obvious first. “Guys, we can’t go along the length of the building this way.”

  Isaac looked around for more zombies and didn’t see any for the moment. They were already outside the apartment, and they’d announced themselves to every zombie on the floor. The only way out was forward—well down, and that wasn’t too friendly.

  Eddy turned nervous circles, adjusting his grip on his pistol. Watching his fingers squeeze the grip and shift near the trigger put Sam on edge. Isaac didn’t look at his friends. He couldn’t help but think he’d just signed their death warrants by talking them into leaving the safety of the apartment. It was a stupid thought and he knew it, but at the same time, they were trapped.

  He sat down in one of the cloth and metal patio chairs. Eddy looked at him like a parrot considering the antics of its owner. Sam folded her arms and frowned.

  “Dude, you need a break already?” Eddy said, grinning, “Damn, man, just how out of shape are you?”

  Isaac looked up at his friend and smiled. Really though, he didn’t feel like smiling. He felt like crying because his idea really had gotten them into trouble. Granted, a certain amount of trouble was to be expected from any idea Isaac championed, but this one took the cake and ate it too.

  Isaac kept looking up at his friend, then over his shoulder. The edge of the roof dipped low around the edge of the patios. The metal roof made the ultra-modern dorm look a little like a Quonset from WWII, or so Isaac had thought the first time he saw the roof then promptly ceased paying attention to it. Seeing it now made him think.

  “Eddy, how tall are you?”

  “About 5-9. Why?”

  “Think you can pull Sam up?”

  Eddy looked at Sam. “Yeah, probably…” He looked over his shoulder where Isaac was looking. “You wanna get on the upper roof, don’t you.”

  “Yep. We can walk the length of the building that way—I think. And those things won’t be up there.”

  Eddy looked at the roof. “Just one question. How do I get up there to pull Sam and you up?”

  Isaac looked around the patio. The table might support their weight, but it didn’t give them enough height to climb onto the roof. Isaac didn’t trust the lawn chairs for more than sitting on. He looked at the safety railing and made a decision he figured he’d live to regret.

  “Eddy, you ready?”

  “Ready for what?” Eddy asked as Isaac walked over to stand under the overhang. Isaac squatted down and laced his fingers together to basket Eddy’s foot. Eddy put his foot in Isaac’s hands and stood up. He pushed off and grabbed the edge of the roof. Isaac stepped under Eddy so he could put his feet on Isaac’s shoulders and push himself up onto the roof.

  Eddy struggled and kicked his feet and finally rolled himself onto the corrugated aluminum roof. He lay on his belly and reached down to pull up Sam. Sam didn’t hesitate to jump up on Isaac’s shoulders to be pulled onto the roof by Eddy.

  Isaac had the hard part, there was no one to give him a boost to grab Eddy’s and Sam’s waiting hands. Instead he walked over to the tubular safety railing. He mounted the second bar and waited for his friends to make their way the few feet along the roof before he climbed onto the top of the railing.

  Sam and Eddy helped Isaac keep his balance as he climbed onto the railing. The railing boosted him high enough that they grabbed his elbows and lifted Isaac as he pushed off the railing. Isaac looked down as his friends pulled him up. His heart skipped a beat when he thought he felt Sam’s hand slipping and struggling to maintain a good hold with sweaty hands. Down between his feet he would have sworn the ground rushed up to grab him.

  Sam and Eddy pulled Isaac onto the roof without slipping or coming close to dropping him. It still took him a few minutes to calm down enough to try walking on the slippery metal roof.

  They walked south along the flatter ridge of the roof. Isaac quickly returned to his normal self, following his scare getting onto the roof. They stood at the far end of their roof, looking at an impossible distance to the next closest building, Eddy looked over his shoulder at Isaac.

  “I think we made a wrong turn,” he said.

  “Nope,” Isaac said, walking to the east edge of the roof. He crossed his arms and looked down at the stalled Green Line train almost two stories below. Sam and Eddy stepped over to the edge by Isaac and followed his gaze.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Sam said. “You better be kidding.”

  Isaac looked at the top of the train, cocking his head slightly to the right as he tried to gauge the length of the jump.

  “I think he’s serious,” Eddy said, turning from the train to look at Sam.

  Sam slapped Isaac’s arm. “Isaac, you’ve had some crazy ideas before, but this is suicide.”

  Isaac took three steps back from the ledge. “Sometimes in life all you have is a bullet and a prayer. Don’t miss.” He covered the four steps to the edge of the roof at almost a full run and threw himself toward the train below. Honestly, as soon as his feet left the metal roof of his dorm, Isaac wasn’t sure he would make it. The train was a good fifteen feet from the building by the look of it, and he’d never attempted a running jump like this before, where he would die one way or another if he missed.

  He didn’t fall for very long, but you’d never convince him of that. Isaac had enough time to realize jumping to the train was far and away the stupidest plan he’d ever let dance through his head. Then it felt like most of his bones wanted to dance through his head. His feet slammed into the aluminum roof of the train car, followed by his shins, knees, hands, arms and chest. The shock of landing on the train translated up his spine, which to Isaac felt like his spine was crushed together like a spring and then to dust.

  “Ow.” The one-syllable groan hurt almost as much as the rest of him. Isaac lay on the metal trying not to even think of moving. All kinds of aches and hurts vied for his brain’s attention. Eventually his pain receptors overloaded and ignored all incoming messages. Isaac tried to flex his fingers. All of them worked. He considered this a good thing even though it caused a fresh wave of pain slightly duller than the last. Gently he worked his way down his body hoping nothing was broken. Everything moved like it should, just with a fair amount of pain.

  Isaac sat up slowly, that way his friends could see he’d survived his stupidity. He didn’t say so until later, but he was fairly certain that he only survived his stupidity by blind, dumb luck and not much else.

  “Isaac! Answer us, damn it! Are you ok?!”

  Isaac looked up. It suddenly looked a whole lot further up than he’d thought standing where Sam and Eddy were. “Ow,” he said again. “Yeah. I’m ok. Watch that first step.”

  “No shit, Sherlock!” Sam was somewhere between relived and furious. Isaac knew he’d find out which soon enough.

  Eddy looked at Sam. “Well, at least we know it can be done safely—ish.”

  Sam shook her head, a single curl swayed with the motion. Her expression turned to terror as Eddy backed up four steps.

  “It’s time to nut up or shut up,” Eddy said. He ran at the edge and jumped hard. He landed hard in a crouch, letting his weight and momentum carry his head and chest forward while he let his arms and legs bend to help absorb some of the impact. It still hurt.

  Sam looked at her two crazy friends on the train below. They weren’t calling to her to jump, yet, but they would soon. “I hate you both,” she yelled, backing away from the edge of the roof.

  She took a deep breath and counted to four. She wasn’t about to let her boys show her up—she hadn’t let them show her up since junior year, and she wasn’t about to start now that the world was ending.

  Sam closed her eyes and breathed
out. She took a deep breath and ran hard toward the edge of the roof and jumped.

  Chapter 13

  City Walls

  Private Eric Jamison stood on the perimeter wall of the throat. Four days ago the wall didn't exist across the head of the neighborhood peninsula; instead neatly manicured medians had flanked a small neighborhood road and farther to the East lay a thickly wooded marsh. Marines and the survivors with them cleared a large, continuous killing field from the entrance of the neighborhood as far back as the intersection with Sunset Cray Rd. They constructed the wall by turning cars on their sides two deep and pushed as close together and interlocked as well as they could without a fork lift. A commandeered bus provided a working gate. During the same raid that yielded the bus, the Marines picked up a bunch of plywood from a hardware store. The plywood, nearly paid for in blood, created a flat surface on the top of the wall, and it eliminated the need to watch one's step to avoid stepping through a window. Cover remained an issue for those assigned to stand watch on the wall, but given time and raids, that would eventually be fixed.

  For now, Erik and the others were obvious silhouettes atop the wall of cars. The advantages though were clear lines of sight for a good five hundred meters, and the undead couldn't easily reach the top or climb it.

  After the horde attack at the bridge, everyone expected the undead would mass at their feeble stronghold and topple it as soon as they started clearing the neighborhood. Yet surprisingly few zombies had approached the throat. Last night, almost two weeks after they blew the bridge, a group of nearly a hundred of the mutilated horrors had entered the killing field. The guards on duty sounded the alarm. Within moments of the first round being fired, second and third platoons had joined fourth platoon on the wall. Flares thrown into the field and the half moon made it easy to sight in. It was over within a matter of moments. Blood-red rays of dawn revealed the mass of bodies strung out over more than two hundred meters of the open field.

  Eric wondered how many houses were left to clean up while he watched over the crew that was moving all of the bodies to a central burn pile. Behind him at the pit and in front of him in the killing field, smoke billowed up like a neon sign that blazed “Come Eat Us” (of course the fine print said “If you wanna die again”). It was an unfortunate necessity to burn the bodies for health and welfare. At least the landing ship dropped plenty of ammo before it moved to stand-off distance, and it still had a little more if things got really ugly.