by Mark Tufo
“They’re moving away from the fire!” Rollie shouted excitedly. It was true, a few of the zombies had caught fire and were attempting to get away from themselves, lighting the others as they did so.
“This might work,” I said in hushed tones to Marcus. He had a firm set to his jaw. “What’s the matter?”
“We’re sinking,” he replied. He was right. I was watching as Rollie’s car slowly dipped down. The hands that were once having a hard time scraping against the bottom were now reaching in and trying to tear at anything they could get ahold of. A ribbon of fire ejected from the side of the center column. Didn’t need Marcus to tell me that was the last of the hydraulics causing that. It was true the zombies were leaving our immediate area and quickly, but was it going to be quick enough?
“Denise, Derek, we have to make a run for it!” Rollie shouted, trying to get the kids up and ready. Derek looked around wildly, but Denise was having none of it. Pulling away from him, she tried her best to hide in the footrest portion of the car. He was straining as he pulled up on her hoodie.
“Leave me alone!” she wailed.
“I can’t leave you here!”
“No!” She was like a wild cat about to be dipped into a flea bath, she was all teeth and fingernails. She clawed at him wildly, drawing blood from the side of his face as she dug deep.
“Dad!” Derek screamed, he was very much in danger of being dragged out. Rollie turned away from his niece and to the zombie tearing at his son’s clothes. He kicked and punched at anything and everything that came within range. Once he’d created a small opening, he picked up his son and placed him on his shoulders.
“Hold on tight!” he needlessly told the boy. “Denise, we’re running for it. It’s now or never.” He reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair; her eyes had a feral quality to them as she reluctantly stood. “Run or die,” he told her just as the car touched down on the ground. He stepped out.
“Don’t leave me here!” she begged.
“Run!” I screamed at her. She looked over, that seemed to snap her free from whatever leg-lock she had. She got out. The trio was running, moving around pockets of the undead, barely avoiding their outstretched arms. Between the fire and the zombies being drawn to the moving meal, we had a relatively open avenue of escape.
“You ready?” Marcus asked me.
I looked at the zombies, the fleeing family, and then back to him. I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t out of shape, exactly. I didn’t use the courtesy electric cars at the shopping centers, but really, when was the last time I had run? Truly run for my life? The answer was easy, it was never. I was athletic in high school, ran track, and then in college I had stayed active, but then I’d met and fallen in love with Marcus. We got married and pursued our careers and then when life offered me the opportunity to breed dogs I’d gladly jumped at the idea. The puppies had always kept me on my toes, and there were more than a few times where I’d had to make a dash for them to prevent them from going somewhere or chewing something they weren’t supposed to. But a full-on sprint for who knows how long? Was I up for it?
I gave him a “Yes,” but it was weak and did not carry much confidence behind it. We had two zombies immediately in our way, after that we had a decent path as they ambled along.
“We’re heading for the Pigs in a Blanket booth first. We’ll catch our breath there and figure out our next move.”
I wanted to bless Marcus’s heart. The booth was a hundred yards away; he could run that in his sleep and not be affected. He played racquetball with his buddies, two, sometimes three times a week; he was in better shape now than when I had met him. I smiled; Marcus had been a gamer back then who rarely left his apartment except for work, but that had all changed. Suffice it to say, this stop for us to catch our wind was really for me.
I gave him a quick kiss. “Just in case I can’t later.”
“Don’t even think it. We have puppies we need to get back to.”
We didn’t wait for the car to hit the ground. We jumped when we were a foot away. Marcus stiff-armed the closest zombies and dipped low to shoulder the next one and then we were running. I don’t remember moving that much; I was terrified and Marcus was half dragging me. By the time we made it to the booth, I was sucking for air and my stomach wanted to heave up everything I had ever eaten in my entire life.
“How are you doing?” Marcus wasn’t looking at me, but rather around the corner to where we were headed next. I couldn’t catch my breath enough to answer. He turned to look. “Listen, Laura-Loo,” he used his pet name for me. “We have a couple more sprints ahead of us. Going to need you to dig deep. The next one is just a little bit longer than this, okay?”
I nodded but I was ill just thinking on it. “Couple secs.” I held up my hand.
“Nope…now.” Then he was dragging me. A hand slapped by my face and smacked into the booth. I looked over my shoulder to see a bevy of zombies take up right where we had been. We were halfway to the Southern Fried Steak booth when I felt my hamstring seize up. I’d run enough laps around a track to know what was coming next.
“Cha…charley horse!” I was hopping on my good leg.
“Gotta keep going!” Marcus said and I had to. The zombies nearby had seen our less than stellar escape attempt and were now moving toward us with intent. Marcus had slowed as much as he dared and I thanked him for that. If we made it out of this, I was going to finally go with him when he invited me to play at the club. He always asked; I always politely declined, citing too much to do at home. Not anymore.
“Catch your breath quick, Loo, we don’t have a bunch of time. One last push! We’re heading that way.” He pointed to the beach and the surf beyond.
“I…I can’t.” I was disgusted with myself before my words could even fill his ears.
“Don’t give me that crap! I’m not going home to take care of all those dogs by myself. You’ve got five seconds, then we go.”
He gave me the deadline, but had no sooner said it when he was once again yanking on my hand. I was flat out crying halfway across the beach, my left leg had locked up, and I was afraid to bend it, worried that the muscle would contract and pull it into a shape I would not be able to unravel from.
“I hate you right now!” Half of that was for the leg betraying me and the other half for my husband dragging me hurriedly along like old luggage through an airport terminal as he fought to make a flight.
“Better hold on to that thought…wait until I bring you into the water,” he replied.
The zombies weren’t hot on our heels, but they were close. Stopping wasn’t an option.
“These are brand new shoes!” I protested as Marcus was the first in.
“We’ll get you another pair! Come on!” I ripped my hand free; he’d gone another couple of steps before turning to look at me. “Laura?” He had a bewildered look on his face as I shook my head.
“This can’t be happening,” I said once or fifty times–hard to tell when you feel like you might be losing your mind. Marcus splashed through the few inches of water he was in and reached out to grab me; I quickly pulled my arm away and backed up.
“Laura, forget the shoes.”
“It’s not about the shoes!” I screamed. He came onto the shore and tenderly placed his arm around my shoulders. “We just watched people get eaten, Marcus.”
“I know, I know.” We were looking out over the water, I felt him shift so he could peer behind us. “It’s a terrible thing and I’m going to have nightmares about it for maybe the rest of my life, but I’d like that to be another forty or fifty years.” He did not force me into the water, but I could feel an involuntary squeeze on my arm as he saw what was coming. When he realized I was taking much too long, he hit me with the hardest and lowest blow he could. “If we stay here, who is going to take care of the dogs?”
“I should have married Jerry Brockenstein.”
“What? That guy who owned the bakery over on Seventh? He died four years ago
.”
“Exactly,” I answered as we walked into the surf. The icy water entered my new shoes like they were leather daiquiri glasses. I had not been expecting it to be quite so bracing.
“Gotta go further.” He was still looking over his shoulder.
“How close are they?” I was wincing as the water clawed up my calves.
“Just keep concentrating on moving forward.”
“Deeper? Really?” I was genuinely mad at myself for sounding so pathetic. The water had soaked through the material around my legs, making it cling like original Saran Wrap–not that stuff they have now that barely even sticks to itself. “Oh, sure, it was difficult to use,” I said aloud through chattering teeth. “I mean, it practically stuck to air! It was n…nearly impossible to s…seal a container! By the time you ripped it off the roll and br…brought it to the bowl, it was already hope…hopelessly bound to itself!”
“Keep moving!” Marcus shouted.
“B…but that’s no longer the case! N…now you gotta…I find myself using rubber b…bands to hold it in place! I’m not even…sure why I even continue to buy the product! It’s almost like…as if I can’t believe how b…bad it is and I’m stuck! I’m stuck, Marcus! I can’t move past my old memory of it…of how good it used to be! Maybe…maybe this is why some of my friends stay with their asshole husbands. They remember the…the man he used to be and not the one that fucked his b…bitch secretary.”
I just kept chattering on, thinking about anything except the stabbing cold of the arctic daggers. Thankfully, the bottom half of my legs were numb, though that didn’t help my privates as they journeyed into the icy hell. When I looked to Marcus, his lips were that pretty blue color of my favorite popsicles.
“You all right?” he asked.
“This is where not playing racquetball works to my advantage,” I told him. He looked confused. “Extra layer of fat.” I laughed shakily, though I was feeling anything but mirthful. It did get a smile out of him, which made it worthwhile. “They still following us?”
He nodded, I think afraid to speak for fear that his shivering might travel up to a chattering of his teeth and he would start to break them from the force of the toothy collisions.
“How much d…deeper?”
“I…I think chest level should do it. They’re…they’re losing their footing. Doesn’t look like they have much in the way of co…coordination. Won’t…won’t be able to swim.” He had to gulp to get those last words out.
“Thank you,” I told him. I took his face in my hand and turned it so he was looking at me.
“For what?”
“For getting me out of there. I don’t think I could have done it on my own.” Now it was my turn to help. He looked way more miserable than I had ever seen him, except for maybe two years ago when he caught the flu. You would have thought it was the Ebola virus by the way he was carrying on. We got through that, we’d get through this. “Come on.” Now it was me grabbing his arm and yanking him along. Marcus was right; once the zombies began to float, they were at the mercy of the current. It wasn’t a rip-tide, unfortunately; they weren’t quickly whipped out into deep water to bob around like discarded pop bottles, but they were moving away from us, and that was just fine with me. We were walking parallel to the beach; zombies kept pouring into the ocean as we walked. They were not learning the lesson that we could not be caught this way. The downside was that we would not be able to stay in the water for all that much longer. Soon we would need to leave its chilly but safe embrace. Marcus was beginning to walk with a wooden gait.
“Muscles aren’t…working right.” His face was beginning to take on the same hue as his lips.
“There’s a pier up ahead. Maybe we can lose them there.” He trudged after me. Now I was frightened, but not for me anymore. Marcus was slowing down and while the pier was a good idea, even from here, I could see those things shuffling along up top. It would not be an escape route we could use. We made it underneath, the waves lapped lazily up against the wooden supports we hid behind, but each one crept up a little higher on our bodies as the tide rolled in. We were effectively protected from the zombies, but as of yet had no clear way to escape the sea.
“You remember that ta..time I met your parents?” Marcus had his eyes closed and was leaning his head back against a column.
“How could I not? I knew right there that I was going to marry you.”
“What?” He pulled his head up and was looking at me.
“They hated you so much I knew it was the best way to get back at them.”
“That’s a strange way to fall in love with someone,” he replied.
“I think my father disliked you so much because you were so much like him.”
“I really didn’t think this day could get much weirder. So, to be clear, you married me because I reminded you of your father?”
“Only in the best way. My dad was a good, loving father and husband. Worked hard his entire life to provide for us all. Why wouldn’t I want all of that in my man?”
Even as cold as he was, Marcus’s chest puffed out in pride. “Did you know he offered me three grand to never see you again?”
“What?” My eyes grew wide. “You never said anything.” I wanted to shout, but was cautious of any eavesdroppers.
“I was holding out for four grand. We got as high as thirty-five hundred before you came out to see what was taking so long on the grill.”
“I remember…you looked so angry.”
“I was so close! I was going to buy Jimmy DiCarlo’s Mustang if I got that money. Of course, I was mad.”
“I saved you, then. If you remember correctly, his engine blew two months later; turned out the transmission was also filled with sawdust to keep it from slipping on test drives.”
“Right, right.” His teeth were chattering hard now. I hugged him tightly, not sure if it helped; all it did was press our wet clothing against our skin.
“We’re going to get out of here.” I moved some of the wet hair from his face. “You believe me?” I asked when he didn’t reply.
“I wish I had that car right now. I’d drive us out of here. Or at least turn the heat on.”
“It’s going to be dark soon.”
“Bet…better be soon,” he struggled to get out.
We kept moving from column to column to keep up with the water; that meant the shore continually moved away from us as if it wanted to keep us trapped. We could hear them above us, walking around, not doing anything. Occasionally one would fall over the railing and into the water; more than once we had been spotted, but the sea was a friend to no one.
“Good thing they can’t yell,” Marcus said as we watched an old man in fishing gear go bobbing along much like his tackle.
“What do you think?” I asked just as it became difficult to see.
“I think I feel like my legs have completely frozen and I’m going to look like the human equivalent of a popsicle with the stick shoved up my…”
“Marcus.”
“Fine, I’ll be fine.”
We moved slowly. I’d hoped for relief from the frigid waters, but now that we were finally climbing out, we were now exposed to a strong salty breeze and dipping nighttime temperatures.
“Ah….” Marcus placed a hand in front of his mouth as he fell in the shallows, his muscles had contracted to the point where he could not stand. I could see shadowy figures on the beach, but as of yet, none were looking our way. The city was mostly dark, though there were a few spots still lit up, and even more was on fire. Sirens had long ago stopped as had most of the gunfire. Helicopters flew overhead at regular intervals; I imagined they were still evacuating those lucky few that happened to have the ways and means.
“Where is the military?” I asked, helping Marcus to unfurl his muscles.
“Question for another day. We need to find some shelter, get warm and dry.” He stood on wobbly legs.
“I think the beach ahead is open; can you do it?” I asked.
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“If I can’t, will you go on without me?”
“Not a chance,” I told him.
“Then yes, I can.”
The zombies moved with a shuffling gait that looked painful and awkward but they were still making better time than us. Marcus was trying his best, God love him, but he was dragging his left leg, leaving a runnel in the sand. We hadn’t been noticed, but they were all over the place, just moving along. It was difficult to discern what they were up to, if anything. Maybe they were just trying to go on with a semblance of their past life, or hoping to eventually run into some food. We were halfway up the beach when a little boy no older than six spotted us. I’d been looking at adult height, never expecting, or more likely hoping that children hadn’t been sucked down into this nightmare as well. I had put my knee into the back of his head; sent him sprawling face first into the sand. Instead of crying and running to his mother, he pushed up and got back up on his feet.
What was ominous was how silent he was doing it all. I thought at first, he had a knife in his outstretched hand, but it turned out to be a plastic shovel. He hissed and advanced. I looked in horror at that little mouth filled with gritty sand and the murderous intent in his eyes. The hunger that compelled him forward. Marcus was missing the entire scene, too locked up in his misery as he desperately tried to get his shivering muscles to fire right.
“We’ve been seen.”
“Shit.” He looked over at his shoulder at the young child who was gaining on us. He turned to face the threat and fell over his own feet when his left leg would not pivot and he got them tangled.
It seemed absurd that we should be in danger of death by a six-year-old, but that was exactly what was going on. We didn’t know it then, but just one bite would have been the end. Marcus was kicking out with his right leg, missing most times, but connecting on more than one occasion. The boy would fall back into the sand noiselessly, get back up, and resume the deadly dance. I was caught in indecision for a moment, whether to help my husband to stand, or to drag the boy further away. Marcus kicked out with his left leg, it was a weak thrust and the boy was able to wrap his arms around his calf. His mouth immediately bit down onto the top of Marcus’s sneaker.
