Deadies: Book 1, 2 & 3

by Krystell Lake

Joe led me to the furthest booths from the door. There was the blonde woman on a pallet on the floor. She was asleep. She looked peaceful, not dead like the last time I had laid eyes on her. Her skin was still red from the sun exposure but she looked ten times better than before.

  “So you still don’t know her name?”

  “Nah, I call her Blondie, she kind of looks like Deborah Harry.” Joe knelt down and covered Blondie’s exposed shoulder with the wool blanket. She didn’t look like Deborah Harry to me but what do I know. “Sometimes she wakes and she mumbles the word Bo or Bolt. I don’t know what that means.”

  “A name maybe.” I shrugged.

  “Maybe, have a seat. I’ll go get you the holster and handcuffs.”

  I nodded as Joe swept pass me and went into the back where the kitchen was. The sliding doors swung back and forth for a while after he entered them and disappeared. I took a seat in a chair away from Blondie. I didn’t feel comfortable around her and I didn’t want her in my line of sight. I didn’t have any reason to feel this way but she kind of creeped me out. I had that all too clear mental imagine of her posted up on the telephone pole. She kind of looked like a dead freak. I’m trying unsuccessfully to push those images as far away as possible. I could say that if you’ve seen one you seen them all but that’s not true. If you’ve seen one and survived, you only pray that you’ll never see another.

  Joe returned shortly with two plates of food for me and two water bottles tucked under his armpit. I eat in silence at a table by myself. Naveen had wrapped a plate for Jesse just as Joe presented me with the holster and handcuffs. I took all he had to offer and I bravely went back over to the shoe store and mentally crossed my fingers. I didn’t know if I wanted Jesse to still be human or if I wanted her to be a freak. Waiting was nerve wrecking but to see her as the living dead would probably kill me inside, not one option was better than the other.

  Reluctantly I left Panera Bread and made my way back to Aldo. I slowly walked to the back office afraid of what I may see. Jesse was there tied to the chair. Her eyes were alert and laid hawking upon me. She was still Jesse. She wasn’t a monster. I was relieved. “Hey.” I said as a random word instead of a greeting.

  “Hey.” Her eyes drifted to the plate in my hand. “What you got there?”

  “I plate of food. Naveen made it for you.” I sat the plate down on the desk.

  “I’m starving and I have to go pee.”

  “Shit, I’m sorry.” I rushed over to her and rigorously started to untie the cords that were tightly wrapped around her wrists. As soon as she was free she sprinted pass me and bolted toward the bathroom that was down the hall.

  I waited and after a few minutes she returned. She went straight for the plate.

  “You look better.” I lied; she looked pretty much the same, just tired. Even in this state she was still exceptionally beautiful.

  “I feel better.” Jesse removed the plastic silverware from the plastic wrapping and started to dig in. “Did you eat?” She mumbled with her mouth full of bread.

  “Yeah, with Joe.”

  “You were with Joe?”

  “Yeah.” I remembered the cold bottle of water in my back pocket. I pulled it out and handed it over to Jesse.

  “Thanks.” She opened it.

  “We found another person in the mall hiding out.”

  Jesse stopped chewing to gaze my reaction. “Really, what you do?”

  “Nothing, we left her alone. It was a girl. She didn’t want to come with us so we didn’t force her.”

  “She was alone?”

  “Far as we could tell. She didn’t really seem too scared in this huge mall alone.”

  There was silence while Jesse wolfed down the plate of food. I wish I would have had food ready for her when she woke. It slipped my mind. There was no way for me to know that she wouldn’t wake up a freak so I guess her human needs completely escaped my thoughts altogether.

  Time moved slowly but it was filled with off and on sessions of sleep. I slept, she slept and the silence lingered as we both waited for the inevitable change. Soon we wouldn’t be able to communicate and one would think this would make us talk to each other, get our last thoughts and feelings out before it was too late. Instead we both choose to be silent. We choose to sleep instead of saying our final goodbyes.

  CHAPTER 17

  The days were like a long countdown to the day of doom but that day of doom would never come. It had been six days since Jesse was bitten by a freak. I had never heard or saw an incident where it took this long for an infected person to turn. This was mindboggling for me. I was no zombie infection specialist but this was not the norm.

  Like clockwork I was awakened by the shaking of the gate. My eyes shot open. Jesse was on the floor handcuffed to the drain pipe yet somehow she looked peaceful. I walked over and looked down at her sleeping body. She was still herself. She was still beautiful. She lives another day without waking up a freak.

  I still had my gun in my hand. I placed my Glock in the small of my back and left Jesse alone in the office. I went into the showroom of the shoe store and there Joe was, standing behind the closed gate looking fresh and overly alert.

  “Damn dude, its noon. You guys were asleep, again.” Ridicule mixed with a pinch of annoyance came out in Joe’s timbre.

  “Yeah, Jesse’s still asleep.” I raised the gate just far enough so he could duck underneath.

  “Hey come out. Go for a walk with me.” He causally asked.

  “Okay yeah.” I ducked underneath the gate and lowered it back down. I guess I could have brushed my teeth and washed my face but hygiene was not on my mind at this time. I spotted a tub with clothes neatly folded on the outside of my gate. “What’s this?”

  “Your new clean clothes, I have the job of escorting Kait around the mall to shop for clothes for everyone in our dysfunctional family.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s stupid but I can’t let her go out into the mall alone. This clothes crap was her idea. I could wear the same shirt for two weeks straight. Wear it, don’t wear it. It’s up to you. Let’s go for a walk.”

  I followed Joe as we ventured out into the mall. It was eerily quiet. “Where we headed?”

  “The food court, there’s a little store down there, they have cigarettes. You quit but I didn’t.”

  “I might start back.” I was mainly concerned with finding rolling papers or some Philly Blunts for the weed Malik gave me.

  “Well you look like shit so I don’t think it will make a difference.” He heckled.

  “Thanks.” I forced a smile on my face. I was carrying so much guilt on my shoulders it was hard for me to be myself, even around Joe.

  We walked in silence for a while until we reached the stairs that lead to the food court. It was on a basement sub-level. We went down the steps and the small convenience store was on the right pass the restrooms. There was a CD and DVD store on the left.

  “I got to go hit the head.” I guess I should have done that along with brushing my teeth and washing my face.

  “I’ll be in here.” Joe pointed to the small store.

  I walked off to the restrooms and I looked at the signs. I went into the men’s room but I guess that really doesn’t matter. I should have gone into the closest one, I guess. This all feels surreal. Walking through the mall for a pack of smokes, my girlfriend being bitten by a survivor turned freak and a long laundry list of other shit that has happen.

  When I got to the small convenience store Joe was in the freezer section gulping down a plastic bottle of Mountain Dew. Joe had a handheld blue plastic shopping basket in his hand.

  I approached him just as he finished the last sip. He let out a large hulking belch that rivaled the ones my brother used to belt in my face when we were kids.

  I found the cigars behind the counter and grabbed five packs of the Philly Blunts. Joe took notice with a raised eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  I braced myself for the conversat
ion I didn’t want to have. “Let’s go sit and talk.”

  “Damn you got something you want to get off your chest?”

  “Yeah.”

  Joe followed me into the area of the enormous food court with all the widespread tables and chairs. There was a large colorful merry-go-round in the center of the food court, a vividly eerie reminder that children used to ride it, children that were playful, happy and alive. Children that are now dead. I grabbed a chair and took a seat at a table near the white metal gate that separated the merry-go-round from the tables and chairs.

  Joe sat down in from of me placing his blue shopping basket in between us. “Move your mouth and spit it out.”

  For some reason I couldn’t speak. How do I phrase this unbelievable bullshit?

  Joe opened the cartoon of cigarettes from his basket and pulled out a single pack. He opened the pack and dangled a cigarette in his mouth. “I know you stopped smoking but I think you can jump off the wagon this one time.” Joe offered me a cigarette and I gratefully took it. He removed a lighter from his pocket and lit me up first then he lit his.

  The first drag was better than my last, if I remember correctly. Joe grinned as my eyes sucked in the bliss of the cancer stick.

  Joe exhaled. “So are you going to spit it out or are you waiting for me to grow a second cock.”

  Here goes. “Six days ago Jesse was bit by a freak.” There I said it. Joe’s facial expression stayed the same. He just continued to smoke. I guess he wasn’t shocked by my news. Maybe more information would jar him into an alarmed status. “She was bit on her shoulder by Ray. He’s one of them now. He was turned. He’s a freak.” I’m not sure why I rephrased the same sentence multiple times.

  “Yeah I know. I found his body with a bullet in him three days ago.” Joe said it like he wasn’t surprised at all. “I figured out you shot him with your Glock. I took Ray’s body and got rid of it. I guess we should have shot Ray when the freaks got him.”

  I took another puff and closed my eyes. I had more to tell. I wanted to choke on the smoke but instead I let it go.

  “I haven’t seen Jesse, so is she dead?” Joe raised a single eyebrow and he leaned in eagerly waiting for my response.

  “She’s not dead. I got the cuffs from you to restrain her. I almost put a bullet in her before she turned but I couldn’t do it. I tried but I just couldn’t do it. I waited for her to turn and the days kept passing and passing and she never turned. She’s still human. I’m not crazy. It’s been six days. She never turned and the bite mark has completely disappeared.” The weight of the world was lifted form my shoulders when I made my confession to Joe. Holding this all in was too much. Joe is my sounding board, my Catholic priest. I didn’t expect a hug or Hail Mary’s from Joe but I expected some input from him. Sometimes he was too cool and too quiet. I waited and waited and we were almost finished with our cigarettes when…

  “So she didn’t turn.”

  “No she didn’t. I said that shit already.” I was a little annoyed but I held it inside. “I left her just now and she was fine. Do you think she’s immune or something?”

  “Well I’m no doctor but I guess it’s possible. I mean some people fight infections without medication so I don’t know. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well if she is immune it’s a good thing you didn’t shot her in the head.”

  Joe’s words ripped through me and tore at the open wound in my soul. If I had killed her and then later found out that the possibility existed that she may have never turned. I couldn’t live with that. Killing freaks is easy. They are the furthest thing from living breathing humans as possible.

  The silence between Jesse and I hasn’t changed the way I feel about her. I love her. If she is immune, this is a blessing and I will never doubt the existence of God. It has been so hard for me to believe in him when there is an avalanche of death at every turn.

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “You know goddamn well I don’t have an answer for that. People are starting to wonder what’s up with her mystery illness so you better think of something quick.”

  “I will…think of something.” I stared of into the twilight zone. I needed answers Joe couldn’t give me. “Are you meeting with Tailyn today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you haven’t convinced her to join our group yet?”

  “Not yet, she’s stubborn. I don’t give a shit if she joins us our not. I’m just keeping an eye on her.”

  “Keep your eyes on her and your hands off her.”

  “Just like you did with Jesse.” There was a slight glint in Joe’s eyes. There was something he wasn’t telling me. He had secrets.

  “So you talked to her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What you find out?”

  “She was banging the mall security guard. That’s how she got the key. She palmed it and made a copy just so she could get in here and steal merchandise.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Well yeah after I gave her a few beers.” Joe chuckled as he fondly recalled. “She thought this would be a safe place so she remembered she had the key and she came here alone.” Joe paused as if he was thinking what to disclose next. “She’s Chinese and Black. I asked.” Joe raised an eyebrow as he removed a fresh cigarette from the pack.

  “How old is she?” I only asked because of what Malik had told me about Kait.

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged and looked away.

  I don’t believe he doesn’t know her age. Joe has always been pretty thorough in his interrogations. “Maybe she’ll come around if you keep talking to her. It’s safer with us than alone.”

  Joe shrugged it off and savored his second cigarette. There was silence between us that brought me back to the silence between Jesse and I. He finished with his nicotine fix exactly at the time I finished with mine. We put the cigarette butts out on the tabletop.

  Joe looked me in my eyes and gave me his staid face. “Look I don’t know what you should do about Vicki. She’s handcuffed so she can’t hurt anybody. I’ll tell everyone that I saw her and she’s sick as shit. Give it a day. Sleep on it and then figure out what you’re going to do.”

  That was his advice and it was the only advice being offered so I gladly took it into consideration. We both headed back to our cul-de-sac camp.

  The cigarette I had with Joe fueled my craving to get high. It was all I thought about when we left the food court. Whatever it took to give me a break from this fucked up reality, I welcomed. Joe went his way and I went mine. I was back where I started, the shoe store.

  I walked into the office and Jesse was sitting up, more alert then I had seen in days. There was something in her eyes, worry maybe. “What’s wrong?” I asked afraid to hear her answer.

  “Nothing is wrong.” Jesse glanced down at her cuffed hand. There was something on her mind and now I was obliged with the task of figuring it out.

  “I know you. I know that face. Tell me what it is?” I pressed.

  “I’m not dead yet. I really miss us. I miss you.” Despair covered her face like a mask.

  “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “No, you’re over there and I’m over here. I wish that we could be close.”

  “What, you think I don’t want to hold you? You think that I’m staying away from you to be an ass?”

  “No Nick that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “I want to hold you in my arms. But if I do I may never let you go. I’m not that strong.”

  “You’re the strongest person I know.”

  I chuckled. “I’m a man. Everyone knows that men are weaker than women. Women pretend to be weak and men pretend to be strong.”

  “Nick you underestimate yourself. You are strong.”

  “It’s all smoke and mirrors, a big fat lie.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “My mother told me that no matter whom you lie to,
never lie to yourself and never under any circumstance lie to God. You look at me and think I’m strong. I’m not. I was seventeen when my mother died. A week after she died I started doing hardcore drugs. I got hooked on crystal. I went to rehab three times. I put my father through hell. He had just loss my mother and now he was worried he was going to lose me to a drug overdose. I’m not strong, far from it.”

  “I didn’t know that seventeen year old boy. I know the man I see right here right now before me. You have proven yourself to me and this entire group. You have led us to safety. You have saved me when I thought I wouldn’t live to see another day.”

  “Look at you now. I let you get infected.”

  “This is not your fault. Shit happens. This pity party you’re throwing for yourself is disgusting. You are a leader so lead. Get your head out of your ass and accept your rightful position.”

  I was confused yet invigorated by her words. Jesse wasn’t just a cheerleader. She was the coach. In a different world she could have been my wife, supportive, loving, and passionate about her convictions. She was ideal, the kind of wife that had your back, the kind that picked you up when you were down instead of kicking you in the teeth. With my bare hands I would kill anyone that hurt her.

  I walked over and knelt down in front of her. “Why do you believe in me?”

  “I love you. Is there any better reason than that?”

  I watched her lips as the words escaped. I leaned into her lips and tasted what I had been missing since she was bitten by a freak. The tip of my tongue instinctually found its way into her mouth by slowly parting her lips. These were not the only lips I wanted to part. The thought made my cock stand up and beat the chain links of my shorts zipper. I would have her right here right now. It had been so long since I felt the warmth and the wetness of her.

  I reached underneath the blanket that covered her legs. I ran my hand from her knee up the inside of her thigh until I struck gold. She was wet, dripping. I had to get inside, all things be damned. I tossed the blanket to the side and pulled her shorts down her long legs in one swift motion.

  “Nick, what, what?” Jesse tried to talk as I gnawed her neck. Her voice was reduced to moans.