Her arms shook as she forced her hand with the knife up to the zombie’s head. The thing inched forward, its teeth getting closer to Gretchen’s supple shoulder with every bite. It leaned forward as Gretchen pushed away, her weapon unable to make its way upward to save her life.
The scraggly, female zombie’s head cocked quickly to the side as it went for Gretchen’s jugular.
It was a split second when Gretchen’s hand was freed to make its final move. She drove the blade into its temple with a sickening crunch just as its teeth were about to clamp around her throat. The grip on her loosened as its body slackened to the ground with a soft thud.
Gretchen heaved deep breaths, completely unaware of the tears that spilled down her cheeks. All around her she heard the rustle of uneven footsteps scraping along the grass, dirt, and dead leaves. She slowly raised the shaking flashlight in her hand. Everywhere, dead bodies were shuffling between the trees. They turned to her when her light passed over them. They moved as a herd, their course changed.
“Oh, God,” Gretchen whimpered. Her knees were ready to buckle from fear, but she had to push forward and get back to the group. She had to warn them. She couldn’t let them die the way she allowed Charlie die.
Gretchen’s body propelled forward on legs she had no control over. Her arms pumped hard as she ran back to the camp. The deep moans grew faint as the distance grew wider, but she knew it wouldn’t last long. Those things moved relentlessly with no need to stop until they had flesh between their teeth.
Gretchen approached the camp loudly with pounding footsteps. She attempted to dodge the trees and bushes in the pitch black of night. A few times she tripped over a root and caught herself against a rough tree trunk. Each time she stumbled forward with her eyes trained ahead on the dimly glowing fire of the camp, with its unsuspecting bodies gathered around as they slept.
Lonnie went from dead asleep to alert in mere seconds from the sounds of someone running nearby. He shot up to his feet and aimed his gun into the woods with one eye closed as the others stood behind him.
Gretchen ran into the exact spot where Lonnie had his gun pointed. She dug her heels into the ground to bring herself to a skidding halt, her arms raised in the air. “Whoa, don’t shoot! They’re coming! A bunch of them! Maybe hundreds! They’re headed right for us!” she yelled. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Her hands and knees shook.
She didn’t have to say who the “they” was. Lonnie swept from left to right with his weapon as he searched for the corpses, but he couldn’t see anything past the orange ring of the fire. He only heard the faints sounds of moaning, growling, and endless shuffling.
“Grab your shit! Let’s go!” he said before he took off in the opposite direction. He didn’t wait for the others and he didn’t turn around to make sure they were behind him.
Gretchen only had her purse to grab, which she’d pulled out of the car after the accident. She slung it over her shoulder and across her body. It slapped against her thigh as she jogged after Lonnie and Rowan at a pace which Gale, Mitchell, and Carolyn could keep up with.
Lee brought up the rear even though he could’ve caught up to and surpassed Lonnie and Rowan with his long, muscular legs. There wasn’t anything he needed to collect to take with him. What little medical supplies he had bounced in the cargo pockets of his tan shorts as he jogged. And yet, he remained behind the rest.
XIV.
The group followed the faint pattering of Lonnie and Rowan’s footsteps up ahead. Luckily, neither could keep quiet as they breathed heavily, swore loudly, and let out whimpering cries of exhaustion. It wasn’t hard for the others to keep track of where they ran, though with each passing minute the sounds grew dimmer in their ears.
Gretchen and Mitchell had their flashlights out, but couldn’t hold them still to see as they ran. Bursts of light streaked the ground and the tree tops as their arms pumped with desperate effort. The slow, clumsy bodies that walked through the trees lit up quickly and disappeared again, like a disco for the undead.
Mitchell Barnes hobbled as he tried to keep his weight off his wounded foot. He kept turning his head to see how close the ever moving herd was to him. Each time the details of their putrid bodies were more distinguishable through the darkness, but it seemed impossible. They didn’t move that fast. How could they catch up? Mitchell’s head spun and his legs wobbled. He was going to faint. He could feel it. His foot throbbed with every step.
The din of the dead was all around. The bloodied corpses moved with slow, shuffling feet that scraped along the ground coverings. Gretchen wanted to fall into a crumpled heap and cover her ears. She imagined what it would be like if she did and let the dead overcome her—their hands digging into her, the indescribable pain as their fingers wrapped around her intestines and ripped them out with a quick jerk, the world fading away as she died in agony. She had to keep going.
Gretchen linked her hand in Gale’s and forced the older woman to pick up her pace. She wasn’t going to let them go down without a fight. She wasn’t going to give up. Hungry moans seemed to come at her from behind every tree. How would they ever make it out alive when they were surrounded? She looked over her shoulder and saw that Mitchell had fallen behind.
Lee stopped and bent down in Mitchell’s path. With the encasing darkness, blinded by fear, Mitchell ran right into Lee and tumbled head first over him. He scrambled back up to his feet.
Lee Hickey fell forward and caught himself on his large hands. He reached out to Mitchell so he couldn’t run off in a panic.
Mitchell jerked away at the touch of a hand on his leg.
“Get on,” Lee said.
“What?” Mitchell asked as his eyes adjusted to the blackness around them to see Lee squatted on the ground.
“Get on!”
Mitchell didn’t waste any time as he jumped onto Lee’s back and held tightly around his neck. His shotgun, still clenched in his hand, hit Lee repeatedly in the chest as he bounded forward to catch them up to Gale, Gretchen, and Carolyn.
A slew of curses echoed out as Lee tried to regain his footing after he stumbled over a tree root that stuck up out of the ground.
“Oh, shit! They’re coming!” Mitchell yelled.
A tall male in soiled khakis and a ripped polo shirt reached out as he closed the distance between the two living men. The skin around his jaw had been peeled away from ceaseless consumption to reveal two rows of tall, red teeth.
“Come on!” Mitchell yelled as Lee raised himself up. “Let’s go!”
Cold, hard fingers grazed the back of Mitchell’s neck as Lee took off again. The grasping, ravenous corpse fell forward from the momentum of trying to grab onto Mitchell’s warm flesh. Once the spongey body hit the ground with a revolting splat, it pulled itself forward with weak muscles, like an infant learning to crawl for the first time. Several others tripped over the body as they continued onward after the group. The pile squirmed and writhed as it tried to stand up again as a whole.
“Where are we going?” Gretchen called to Lonnie once she’d caught up to the two men with Gale and Carolyn at her side.
“Anywhere these fucking things aren’t!”
Lonnie had no plan, no direction, no clue where to go. All he knew was that if he wanted to live he had to keep his legs moving, and he had to keep them moving faster than the people behind him.
XV.
Zack Kran grabbed Marianne Dunbar’s feet while Liam Scott hooked his hands under her arms. They lifted her up and carried her out of her darkened apartment and through the open hallway to the back of the building. The sun shone brightly in the center of the sky and Liam had to squint his eyes as he took small steps backwards. Hers was the last body to be taken outside that day.
They walked along the tan wooden fence that surrounded the perimeter toward a small chain-link fence that encased what was formerly knowns as the “Bark Park”. A pile of dead bodies lay on the green grass where dogs used to run and play.
“Wait,” Sally Sherman said in a shaky voice as her husband opened the gate for them to bring her mother through.
“Sal, we have to—” he started to say, but she him off.
“I know,” she said. “Just…over there.” She pointed to a corner away from the already rotting bodies stacked in the middle. “She should be separate from…those things…” Lilly shifted endlessly in Sally’s arms as she tried to turn to look up at the expansive tree. The leaves and branches waved in the hot breeze.
Christine rested a hand on Sally’s shoulder and guided her back to the picnic table in the shade off to the side. They sat with their backs to the guys, who shifted the bodies around and shut the gate behind them.
Liam walked over and stood in front of the two women and baby. His face was lax with emotional fatigue and there was a sickly green tinge to his pallor. “We’re ready.” He held out a hand for Christine.
She linked her fingers through his as they walked back to the fence. They stood outside to focus on the bodies of everyone they knew in the building and some they had never met.
“I just want to say,” Sally said and then stopped to take a deep breath. “I want to say that I loved my mom very much. Even though she could be stubborn and hard to deal with at times, she was always there for me when I needed her…I just wish I could have been there…when she…needed me.” She broke down and handed the baby off to Ralph to hide her face in her hands.
Christine extended an arm and wrapped it around Sally’s shoulders so her new friend could cry into her neck. Liam gave her free hand a squeeze.
Everyone waited in silence for Ralph to say his last words. He held Lilly in his arms so she faced over his shoulder, away from the mound of bodies. She bounced and wiggled to get down. Ralph remained silent and nodded his head so lightly that it could have been the pounding of his heart that made it move.
All those times his mother-in-law had made him sit with her in the mornings and sip tea as she talked endlessly about God knows what, he thought he was being tortured. Now that he’d never drink tea with her again, he realized he’d grown to like it somehow. And now that she was gone, he’d miss it forever.
“I’ll never drink tea again,” he said with a weak laugh.
Zack and Jerry chuckled quietly, as the others let the corners of their mouths twitch upward with benign smiles.
Ralph sniffed and took a few steps away from the fence to stand next to his wife, who turned from Christine to bury her face in his chest. She sobbed harder at the soft touch of her daughter’s hand as it patted the top of her head.
“May they rest in peace,” Zack said. He backed away from the small, enclosed park as the summer breeze picked up again and the stench from the bodies washed over him. The smell of rotting, baking flesh overwhelmed his nostrils. He lifted the collar of his shirt over his nose.
Lilly let out a shrieking wail as she flung her body back against her dad’s arms, which held her close to him.
On the other side of the fence, several hands reached their fingertips over the top. One gripped down on the wood and tried to pull. There was a loud creak as it bent slightly from the force. It had been going on for days. Each morning there were a few more fingertips grasping for what was on the other side.
“It’s not safe out here,” Luke Benson said as he shook his head back and forth. He started to walk off back to the apartment building. “We shouldn’t be out here.”
Zack jogged after him and blocked his way. “Show some respect.” He gestured his arm to the dogpile of unmoving corpses. “That was her mother. The fences will hold. They can’t get in. Man up for once in your life.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Luke asked. Even though he felt a twinge of guilt, he still had the urge to stand his ground, but Zack towered over his short frame and made him feel two feet tall.
“It means you’re a pussy. You run when you should be fighting. Don’t think for one second I didn’t see you cowering in the hall while the rest of us were in there doing what we had to do to keep this place safe for everyone else!”
“You don’t even know me!” Luke yelled as the anger rose inside him.
“I know you.”
“Oh yeah? Whaddaya know about me?”
“I know you’re living here while some other guy raises your daughter and sleeps with your wife.”
There was a collective gasp as the others watched from the shade of the Crabapple tree.
Luke closed the gap between them. His round face turned up to gawk Zack’s. His dark eyes glared with an intensity he could never match physically.
They cussed at each other irrationally, their voices rising hirer with each swear.
“Shut up! Both of you!” Sally yelled as her face streaked with tears. She had nothing to follow up with. She only wanted a bit of silence to mourn her mother for a few minutes longer.
The echoes of her voice faded out and deflated the tension. Zack and Luke both turned to her. Her face was scrunched into an ugly mess of tears. Zack sneered at Luke, clucked his tongue, and stalked off to stand next to Liam and Christine.