Zack’s body felt electric. His hands shook as he white knuckled the hilt of his sword. The look on the two faces that stared at him didn’t match his own smile. He let out a howling laugh that turned into a whooping yell of victory.
“Holy shit!” he roared. “Holy fucking shit!”
Luke disappeared into the hallway again. Hunched over with his hands on the railing by the stairs, he dry-heaved until it felt like he’d done two hundred sit-ups. No one came to check on him.
Zack continued to laugh in a frenzy as he tried to get a rise out of Liam. His laughter tapered off with several small coughs when Liam looked up from the blood-spattered ground with heavy eyes, the third floor left in silence. Zack wiped his sword off on a cloth from his bag and gave an accomplished nod, the excitement of the first kill already dying down.
Liam tried to remember the last time he saw Debbie Hansen. At first he thought it was at Christine’s birthday party, but then he remembered he saw her walking to her car in her waitress uniform the morning he went to meet Dr. Hyde at the university…the day it all started.
Although, he couldn’t know for sure that everything had started with his boss, it had for him. He was sure the flu was to blame and the first case of that had been in New York City a couple of weeks ago. It could have started somewhere else in the country, in the world even, and spread so quickly that he only heard about it after the incident with Dr. Hyde and Ronnie.
That one quick thought of Ronald Conrad brought all his regrets rushing back. He should have stopped them. He should have laid his friend to rest.
“Whose place do we have to check on the second floor?” Zack asked, all business and ready to get to it. “’Cause we know mine is clean and yours is clean.” He looked to Liam.
“Uh,” Liam stammered, trying to remember anyone else besides his undead colleague and friend. “There’s the Ramirens and Ralph Sherman and his family.” His voice was slow and distant.
“OK, then,” Zack said as he clapped his hands together once. “Let’s get on with it!”
Luke walked with Liam and Zack to the edge of the stairs and then stopped. He didn’t want to go any further. All he had wanted was to know what happened to Carolyn, and now that she was missing all he wanted to do was curl up in his warm, cozy bed and try to forget what he’d just seen. But Zack wouldn’t allow it.
He turned to where Luke was frozen and called out for him to follow. Luke walked a few paces behind the two blood-stained men as he contemplated running back home the second they busted open the next door. It wasn’t like he was helping them anyway.
There was no surprise in the Ramirens’ apartment. Liam knew what their fate had been days ago. Mr. and Mrs. Ramiren shuffled around the house, parts of their faces torn away, complete chunks missing in a hallowed out, bloody mess. Little Ahmed hissed and growled as he snapped his teeth, untouched except for a single bite on his left arm.
Liam felt a sting in his eyes and a dryness in his throat. They’d suffered horrific, slow, painful deaths. Three quick shots of his arrows and the family was on the ground and finally at peace. Liam took a deep breath through his nose as he gripped his longbow in one hand. Another apartment cleared.
The door to the Shermans’ apartment opened slowly. Ralph walked out and locked the door with his key behind him.
“Oh, hey guys,” he said and then stopped once he looked up at Liam, Zack, and Luke. He took a moment to digest the sight of the three men, armed with a sword, a bow, and a golf club, wet blood staining the clothes of two of them. Ralph’s eyes lingered on Zack and all his make-shift riot gear. “What’s going on?” he asked with a shaky laugh.
“We’re clearing out the apartments, y’know, so it’s safe for everyone left,” Zack said while he smacked the side of his sword against the palm of his hand like some grand punisher.
Ralph nodded slowly with wide eyes. “O…K…” he said in a reassuring voice, like he would use if he were talking to a child. “I’m just going to get my mother-in-law from downstairs.”
“Is everyone all right in your place?” Liam asked as he lowered his bow to hold it behind his legs in hopes of easing the concerned look on Ralph’s face. The last thing they needed to deal with on top of everything else was a panic.
“All right?”
“Yeah. All right.” Zack answered with bite. “Everyone alive and well in there? No one’s been bit or scratched or turned into a flesh-eating zombie or nothing like that?” He wanted to get back to clearing the apartments out. It was almost impossible for him to stand still with the adrenaline that coursed through his body, so he swayed on his feet while his finger felt ran along the edge of his sword’s blade.
“Oh, yeah. Everyone’s good.”
Liam gave a constrained smile and the group of three walked on towards the stairs.
Ralph shook his head and laughed to himself, but didn’t move to go downstairs. He pictured walking into his mother-in-law’s apartment to find her dead, or worse…dead and hungry. His eyes shifted down both ends of the airy hallway and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He had an undeniable feeling that someone was watching him, but as far as he could tell he was alone.
“Hey, guys, wait up!” he called and jogged down the stairs to the first floor. He ran right into Luke’s short, solid frame.
Luke gyrated awkwardly with his golf club raised halfway.
“Shh,” Liam hushed as he stretched out his lanky arms to prevent anyone from stepping down. All four looked at each other, brows furrowed and dripping wet with sweat.
“Jerry?” Liam called out.
He was met with an eerie silence after the echo of his voice dispersed. A breeze rushed through the hallway and broke up the thickness in the air.
“Yup,” a rough voice answered.
Liam lowered his arms and gave a feeble smile. “All right, Jer?” he called out as he hopped off the bottom step.
“Can’t complain,” Jerry Middleton said from his patio, where he sat in a plastic chair with a loaded Remington 870 Express Pistol Grip lying in his lap.
“We’re going to be entering the apartments to see if anyone is infected, so if you hear anything odd, it’s just us.” Liam hoped he sounded reassuring, because inside he felt like he was on the verge of having a panic attack. He struggled to keep his voice steady.
Once again there was silence.
The group of four men looked at one another. Zack shrugged his shoulders and then turned to face a door with the number 614 on it.
Jerry emerged from his apartment and gave a nod to each of them. Liam gave a weak, distracted smiles in return. Luke reserved all his concentration for keeping the contents of his stomach down, so he only raised his hand as he took heavy breaths. Jerry hiked up his baggy sweatpants, his white tank top tucked in tight.
Jerry shifted his shotgun from one hand to the other. “Well, my place is clear,” he said. There was no emotion on his aged, wrinkled face.
“And we know the Goldsteins aren’t in theirs,” Ralph Sherman said as he eyed Jerry. He waited for any sign that Jerry was either proud or ashamed of gunning the couple down, but the old man’s face was stone cold and still.
“Do you want to check in on your mum first?” Liam asked Ralph, but Ralph shook his head, his eyes still locked on Jerry.
“Let’s do hers last.” He wanted to put off facing whatever was behind her door for as long as he could. If she was dead, Sally would never forgive him. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to forgive himself either.
“That just leaves our fraternity brethren.” Zack pointed his crowbar at apartment 614.
“Wait. Does anyone know their names?” Liam asked, finally removing his bow from behind his legs.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Nope.”
“What does it matter?”
Silence from Jerry.
“It’s just,” Liam started. “I can’t just…” He couldn’t finish his thought.
Zack looked at Liam with wild, crazy eyes that said he was ready to kill again. Luke stared as fear overtook his round, dark eyes. Ralph stood with his hands in the pocket of his plaid pajama bottoms to conceal the fact that they were shaking. Jerry couldn’t be read.
“Ralph needs a weapon,” Liam finally pulled himself together to say.
“Oh, shit, right.” Zack handed Ralph the crowbar. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Ralph took the long metal tool in his hands and examined it. The hooked end looked menacing, like its one purpose in life was to bury itself deep into a skull. He placed it in the door jam and applied a small amount of pressure to it.
Was everyone expecting him to be the one to kill the two college boys? Sweat ran down his face and into his eyes. They were only two years younger than Ralph. He knew because they’d once asked him to buy them beer and when he said no they asked him what was the difference if they waited another six months or not? Ralph had tossed each of them a beer from his fridge and told them to find someone else if they wanted more.
“Just do it already,” Zack exhaled.
“We’re right here,” Liam said. “Just open and step out of the way.”
Ralph nodded. Open and step out of the way. Got it. He could do that. The feeling of the door popping opening from his own force was foreign and a little thrilling. A quick smile took over his face, but it didn’t have a chance to stay for long.
XV.
Fifteen disparate, changed faces—fifteen college students with various majors and diverse backgrounds from all over the country gawked at the five men with glazed over, yellowing eyes and gnashed red teeth. A few turned away to devour the bloodied entrails that splayed out from the mangled corpse on the floor, but the majority staggered to rise to their feet as they trained their bloodshot eyes on the sacks of fresh meat at the door.
“Holy Christ,” Luke whispered from the back of the group.
They were the last words spoken before the men charged into the two bedroom apartment.
Zack Kran was like an apocalyptic warrior as he charged ahead of the rest to start the harrowing battle against the risen dead. He wielded his sword like a trained knight. Each slice happened in slow motion, as if time itself wanted him to savor the victory of another zombie back in its rightful place. He imagined himself as the son of a Greek God, his monumental skills inborn. He would never admit, even to himself, that he acquired them from hours of practice in front of the full length mirror in the back of his comic book store when it was empty of customers.
A few paces behind, Liam Scott shut down his mind and let his instincts take over. It was the only way he knew how to get out of the zombie infested apartment alive. And he had to make it back to Christine. Their apartment was directly above. She had no idea the degree of horror that lie below her feet. Her porcelain face, with its cute dimples that pinched at the corners of her mouth when she gave a little, coy smile, blazed in Liam’s mind as he pulled an arrow from the head of a fallen corpse and turned around on his knee to pierce the skull of another before it could grasp his t-shirt to drag him into its red-stained mouth.
Liam shot one arrow after another as he moved with the precision he’d perfected with over two decades of training. The lightness of his weapon was an unnatural contrast to the heavy bodies that collapsed to the floor moments after his arrow penetrated their skulls to hit their brains.
Next to Liam, Ralph Sherman swung the thin crowbar like a bat. It struck a young female with one arm and a shredded leg in the temple. There was a moment of exhilaration as the sound of her skull crunched from the sharp blow of his own sheer force. As the weight of the body dropped, it pulled the crowbar from Ralph’s fingers. His stomach dove with it. He reached down to yank the weapon loose, but it barely moved. Suppressing the urge to panic, he placed his slipper covered foot on the female’s head and applied all one hundred and forty-two pounds of his weight.
The head felt porous and spongey, giving slightly with each small bounce of his foot. He gripped the crowbar and yanked it back, the way he used to when he started up the lawn mower when he was a teenager. It didn’t work, just like it hadn’t then. The crowbar’s hook was still lodged in the skull. Ralph readjusted his grip on the bar and jiggled it back and forth to loosen it. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see the ravage eyes of a large male in a football jersey as it opened its mouth inches from Ralph’s face.
There was a loud bang and the enclosing zombie’s head exploded, a spray of thick blood camouflaged Ralph’s face and chest. Broken teeth and skull bone shot out like shrapnel. Ralph exhaled as he doubled over from simultaneous shock, disgust, and relief.
His soft brown eyes met Jerry Middleton’s for a brief moment. He hoped they conveyed how thankful he was to him for saving his life. If that college frat boy turned monstrous cannibal had gotten ahold of him it would have been all over for Sally and Lilly. They couldn’t survive without him. The thought made his heart want to race right out of his chest.
The sound of Jerry’s pistol grip shotgun boomed again and again as it obliterated four standing targets. He stood in the center of the apartment to get a view of the entire living room and kitchen. There was no way one of those things was going to get past him to infect any of the survivors in the building. Over his dead body would he allow it.