Christine hadn’t left his side for a minute, worried that if she did he would slip away and died alone. She didn’t want to let that happen. She needed him to know she was with him to the very end, just as they’d promised when she said yes in the university library, when he got down on one knee and handed her a small diamond ring. They were as good as married in her mind and she wouldn’t abandon her husband.
As he tried to sleep throughout the night she drifted in and out of consciousness, distracted by thoughts about what to do when Liam was gone. It seemed almost heartless to think about herself while he lie there helpless, but she couldn’t stop. No matter what she tried to focus her mind on to fall asleep, it always wandered back to how she would end his suffering. It was rapidly approaching and she had to be ready for it.
Though she’d told Liam she would stop him before he turned, she was tempted to let it happen. If he became one of them and bit her, then she would be one of them too. They would both be dead and unaware of everything, but they’d be together again. The thought enticed her as she sat in the darkness on the edge of the bed.
By the time he woke up, she’d made her decision. She was going to do it. All she had to do was ease him into death and let him take her with him. She wasn’t fit to survive without him. There was no point in trying. She didn’t want to spend her last days in lonely misery without the man she loved.
“Christine,” he called out for her in a coarse, weak voice.
“I’m here.” She scooted closer to him and took his sweaty, cold hand in hers.
He coughed and rolled over to his side so his mouth was covered by the pillow. His chest wheezed and rattled. When he was done he faced upright again. The wheezing continued. All the color had drained from his face. He could barely open his heavy-lidded eyes as they watered continually. His lips were white and cracked. Christine looked over and saw droplets of blood splattered on the pillowcase.
“I want you…to tie me…to the bed,” he said.
She looked at him with her eyebrows scrunched together and her lips pursed.
“Just in case…anything…goes…wrong…when you…”
Sticking to her promise not to argue with him as he wasted away in front of her, she forced a thin smile and nodded her head. Her blue eyes softened as they looked into his, which were no longer the brilliant, lively green and brown she’d looked into lovingly over the last few years. They’d turned a light, grayish color as they started to glaze over white.
She went to the closet and dug out several fashionable scarves in various colors and patterns. Once she’d sat him up, she tied a scarf around each of his wrists and then tied the other end to one of the bars on the wrought iron headboard. He tugged weakly at them to make sure they’d hold. His chin fell to his chest as he took labored breaths from the exertion.
“It’ll have…to do.” When he coughed again blood splattered onto Christine’s jeans and tan long-sleeved shirt.
It caught her off guard and she flinched. She looked down at herself and took a steadying breath. When she looked back at him, she smiled softly.
His eyes were wide in horror. “I’m sorry…I didn’t…oh, God. I’m sorry—”
“It’s OK,” she said and grabbed one of his tied up hands in both of hers.
He leaned all the way back and looked up as he tried to breathe normally. Each intake felt like knives in his lungs. Blood started to fill them slowly. He gasped for air like a fish out of water, unable to take enough in. His eyelids drooped as his head started to spin. It couldn’t be the end already. There was so much left he wanted to do, so much he wanted to say to Christine.
She started to cry as she squeezed his hand tighter in hers. “You can’t die, Liam,” she said softly. “You were going to save everyone.” She eyed the old journal on his nightstand.
As he coughed, she heard wet gurgles bubble up in his throat. His body made small, jerking movements as he choked on the blood. She stood up and covered her mouth with her hands. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her muffled cries pierced the air as she watched him suffer violently on the bed. She ran back over to him and squeezed his hand in hers again as she knelt down beside the bed.
“I love you,” she cried over and over again.
The gurgling became less frequent and his movements slowed until they stopped all together. Blood dripped from the side of his mouth as it hung open. His white, hazy eyes still bulged from his head. All of his limbs were spread out to lay awkwardly, tangled in the sheets.
Christine lowered her head to his chest and gave in to the rush of sadness. Her body ached with grief and exhaustion. They’d promised themselves to each other forever. The fact that he was gone stabbed at her and ripped her heart open. Why did he have to get bitten? It should have been her. She buried her head into his sweater. She was weak. Liam was stronger than her, smarter than her. He could have stopped it if he’d lived.
The covers on the bed shook as Liam’s foot moved again. Christine opened her eyes and raised her head slowly. She wiped the tears from her cheek.
His white eyes were wide open. Large red vessels ran through them. He opened and closed his mouth, like an infant taking its first breath. Blood covered his lips and chin. He growled when his eyes settled on her and snapped his teeth. She sat upright on her knees and stared at the monster in front of her.
It was now or never
, she thought. She moved her arm closer as the click of his teeth filled her ears.
XX.
Zack and the group that followed him had finally made their way to the Dune Ridge apartment complex. They walked stealthily through the grounds once they climbed over the front gate.
“It’s all the way in the back,” he whispered. “Watch it!”
Two of the dead slowly sauntered out from one of the open hallways. They goes guttural moans and redirected themselves to the fresh meat standing ten yards away.
“Oo, can I?” Olivia asked as she smacked her bat against her hand. There was a faded signature scrawled across the middle portion.
“We both will,” Zack said.
She was just a child. He couldn’t let her do it alone. If Dan had volunteered, then maybe he would have let him and even given him a good push toward the putrid flesh bags. But it wouldn’t be right with a young girl, like Olivia.
They charged the two rotting male corpses together. With one swing of the bat, the larger of the two was down on the ground. The side of its head was caved in and leaked brain matter and blood onto the slush-covered pavement.
“Yes!” she cheered herself on.
Zack drove his sword between the eyes of the second one and drew it out quickly. It fell to the ground with a thud. Silence followed as they started forward again, closely knit together with their weapons raised.
They came up to where the fence had been trampled down the night before. Several corpses lay on the ground with their heads smashed to mush, their arms and legs broken and bent in different directions. Zack followed the trail of mangled bodies to where they’d been headed and stopped at a section of the pavement that was stained with a ring of dark blood. There were pieces of flesh and carnage scattered, but no body.
Zack’s stomach sank. He knew what a fresh kill looked like. He’d seen those things take down a guy in the woods not too long ago on one of his searches for…
Anita’s face popped into his head. He gave a quick shake until it dissipated.
“Not now,” he told himself.
“What?” Olivia asked from behind him.
“Nothing. It’s that one right there.” He pointed to building six.
“And there’s three of them you said?” Rowan asked from the back of the group.
“Should be.”
More dead loitered around the parking lot, barely moving their feet as they swayed back and forth. But when they spotted the group, they snapped out of their catatonic state and closed in from all sides. Their frenzied moans called more out of hiding as others limped and staggered out of the buildings.
“Everyone, get ready,” Zack ordered. “Form a circle and be quick. And don’t shoot. It’ll only draw more out. Hit them in the temple with your gun if you have to.” He took a deep breath as the gap between him and the two dead shambling forward grew smaller.
Olivia jumped up and down. She tossed her elbows out to make sure there was enough room between her and Lee on her right and Gretchen on her left.
Rowan looked over at Zack, who stood readily next to him, and tried to emulate his poised stance. He turned his gun backwards so he would be able to thrust it into the first head that came close to him.
Three more putrid corpses, two bulky males and one petite female, picked up their pace the closer they got, grabbing at the air for momentum to pull them forward quicker.
Gale tried to ignore everyone else around her as she zeroed in on the two males closest to her. She played out in her mind how she was going to take them down with her knife.
The gaps had been closed and the zombies were practically on top of the group. “Now!” Zack yelled. Everyone lunged forward and away from each other.
Gretchen cringed as the sounds of multiple skulls being smashed in hit her ears. She drove her Bowie knife into the ear of the decaying female that reached out for her neck. It fell to the ground at her feet, creating a small obstacle for the others.
The largest of the corpses that headed her way tripped over the body on the ground and lunged forward, grasping one of Gretchen’s arms in its hands. It pulled closer to its mouth, already working its jaw into a frantic chewing motion.
Zack brought his sword down on the back of the thing’s neck and then quickly turned again to his own target in a matter of seconds. Its neck was severed so deeply that the head hung forward against its chest, its red teeth still snapping. Gretchen gave it a quick shove to the ground and then squatted down over it. She drove her knife through the temple.
Within minutes the relentless undead were nothing more than a pile of disfigured bodies in the parking lot. The group stepped over them carefully and continued toward building six. In the far off distance, more glazed eyes turned from the sound of pattering feet.
Zack stopped at Jerry’s place and turned the doorknob to see if it was unlocked. It was and that made his stomach twist into knots and then sink down into a bottomless black pit inside him. The one bedroom apartment was silent and dark. He called out, but no one answered. Jerry wasn’t out on his patio either. He closed the door and banged on it with both his fists. They hung in the air as the image of the large bloodstain he’d seen flashed in his mind.
“Come on,” he said as he ran for the stairs. “I need to check on my friends.”
He ran up, taking two steps at a time as his arms pumped vigorously. He stopped in front of apartment 624. His hand was on the doorknob, but he stopped. He held his breath as he turned it. When the door opened his stomach gave a lurch. He swallowed the lump in his dry throat and stuck one foot out into the apartment.
There was no one in the kitchen or the living room. Zack moved further in and craned his neck to look around and make sure there wasn’t anything, or anyone, hidden in the corners of the rooms. Everything was silent.
“Sit here,” he whispered to the others as he pointed to the couch.
With his sword clutched in his hand, he crept over to the bedroom door. He took a quick peek inside the darkened bathroom adjacent to it. He pulled back the shower curtain. The tub was also empty. He stood in front of the closed bedroom door and took a deep breath in through his nose and let the air exhale out through his mouth.
The group of wanderers watched him from a few feet away. Gretchen held her breath as he reached for the knob. He turned it and rushed inside, disappearing behind the doorframe. And then there was silence.
XXI.
Christine Moore sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped together and her head turned down. She looked up when the door opened, but that was the only movement she made. Tears streaked her cheeks and neck.
“Zack?” she said softly as her eyes opened wide.
His gaze drifted to Liam, who was tied to the bed with his head slumped over. Blood oozed from where he’d been stabbed. Zack’s eyes clouded over. He squeezed his eyes shut and let the tears run down his face. He was too late.
Zack ran to Christine and threw his arms around her as he knelt down at her feet. He cried into her lap as she let her arm drape loosely around the back of his neck.
In the next room, the others listened in. “I’m going to see what’s going on,” Gretchen said as she stood up.
“Just let him be,” Dan said. “Obviously something bad happened.”
“Yeah, if he needed help he would have hollered,” Olivia said as she ran a cloth from her back pocket over her bat to clean it.
“I don’t care,” Gretchen said. “I’m going to make sure he’s OK.” She walked over to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway as her hand rested on the frame.