900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (14 page)

“We’re coming up stairs, and we’re armed.  We don’t want to hurt anybody!” Kyle called out as we ascended.

No answer. Just the methodical ticking of the clock.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.

When we got to the top step, Michael flipped on the light.  I handed the shotgun to Kyle.

“You’re probably better with this thing than I
am,” I said, while pulling out the pistol that he had given me earlier.

Glancing back down the stairs, I saw Sophia standing there, my stomach lurching as I spun around.  She had a crazed look of hatred in her eyes.

“Don’t go in there.  This is my house!  You need to leave
now!
” she screamed.

“Shut up, you crazy bitch,” Michael said shaking his head in bewilderment.

Betrayal emerged in her expression, and she disappeared once again down the hallway.  I heard a door slam shut, and then silence.

We looked at the door located above the bathroom
that was downstairs, building the nerve to see what lay beyond.  Finally, Kyle turned the knob quietly but shoved it open.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

The room was dark, but I could see some movement in the corner.  I trained the pistol on it, then reached in and flicked on the light switch, revealing a horrific scene that I was not actually prepared for.  Both people were badly beaten.  The unconscious man was missing nine of his ten fingers, and the woman had horrible bruising across her face and arms.  They were both alive, not zombies.

Despite the wounds, I recognized them from the pictures down stairs.  The woman looked up at us, terror written all over her face. A weak and hoarse whisper for help was all that she could muster.

We were loosening the ropes that they were bound by when we heard a car alarm going off outside.

Michael stayed to finish untying the ropes, while Kyle and I raced downstairs.  We checked the back door, scaring the shit out of the cops who were still trying to figure out how to stop looking as if they were
butt fucking each other.  The sound was coming from the front.

We darted through the house, pushing open the front door cautiously.  We saw Sophia beating the shit out of what looked like a red Porsche.  It wasn’t there when we had pulled up
, so I figure she had pulled it out of the garage, leaving it in the middle of the street.  Kyle and I watched as some of the neighbors walked toward her.  Sofia had a kitchen knife in her hand and was wildly swinging it at anybody that approached her.  They were all screaming at her to turn off the alarm.  It was chaos, until we heard a single shot fired.  Sophia dropped lifelessly to the ground.

The man holding the gun stepped over her, and reached into the car.  We heard a “beep, beep
,” as the alarm was turned off.

Kyle and I closed the front door, and watched through the glass as the group circled around.  They kept looking down at Sophia
and then back at the house.

“Richard.  Richard.  You in there?”
 the man with the gun called out.

A woman standing next to him suddenly screamed, “What was she thinking?  She might have called the
Zs in from all around.  She lost it!”

“If you don’t shut
your
mouth, you’ll pull those damn Zs right to our doorstep!” the man snarled then added, “We didn’t want to shoot her, but we had to, Richard. Why don’t you come out so we can talk about this?”

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Kyle and I didn’t say a word.  The group started to walk toward the house.  We ducked down, leaning heavily against the door.

“What do we do?” I whispered.

Kyle shook his head.  “I’m not sure.”

I cracked open the door a little. Kyle and I peered out cautiously, our eyes just above the window.

“Richard is dead! Sophia shot him!”  The group stopped in their tracks.

“Who are you?”
The guy with the gun questioned, glancing around the yard before back to the front door.

“That doesn’t matter.  We are just passing through.  Richard and Sophia had the owners of this house tied up and bleeding to death upstairs.  We don’t want any trouble.  We all want to live, just like you.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all got the owners of our houses tied up, bleeding or dead,” the guy jeered, the rest of the group chuckling behind him.

Kyle and I looked at each other, brows raised.  That wasn’t the reaction either of us were expecting.

“We may be fucked,” Kyle murmured looking out.

“We’re armed, like you,” I yelled. “To be clear, we don’t want any trouble.  Let us go, and nobody else has to get hurt.  We can all walk away from this.”

Glass rained down on our heads.  Bullets were rocketing into the staircase behind us, and pictures were falling off the walls as the house was riddled with gunfire.

Then it was quiet, except for that damn clock that
was miraculously missed by every bullet. Go figure.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

“Way too much noise from out there,” Kyle said to me, shaking his head.

“Yeah. Assuming we don’t get shot, this place is going to be surrounded by the dead, and really damn soon.”

Michael screamed down the stairs.  “What the hell is going on down there?”

“Stay down!” Kyle warned.

“This guy up here has lost a ton of blood. I’m not sure he’s going to make it.” Michael’s voice wavered for a moment.

“See what you can do
,” Kyle threw up his hands. Michael moved back into the room.

Kyle pushed the front door open a bit more to see the group. Nothing was in sight, until we saw a muzzle flash from the darkness of nearby bushes.  A bullet tore through the door near the handle next to Kyle’s head.  He fell back as the splinters burst into the hallway.

We moved back to the kitchen, keeping our heads down.  Another bullet tore through a window and hit the refrigerator.

“They’ve surrounded the house,” Kyle whispered as he reached up to flick the light off. “They can see us if we keep the lights on. Turn them all off.”

Dodging more bullets, we managed to get all the lights out.  Everything was dark, silent once again…aside from the clock.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

“Michael, get the people down here if you can,” Kyle loudly whispered up the stairs.

We waited as Michael and the woman carried the man down the stairs.  He was totally out, and blood was still dripping from his fingerless nubs. Once they made it down to the last few st
eps, Kyle and I took the guy, laying him down on the floor.

We needed to make it to the Hummer.

Bullets started to fly in from all around the house.  We picked a wall and made ourselves as small as possible, except for Mr. Nubs, who lay there in front of the stairs.  Glass and wooden splinters were flying all around us.

The firing stopped again but we heard some commotion from outside.  Gun shots started back up, but not aimed at the house.

Kyle raised his head guardedly to one of the windows.  After a moment, I followed suit. The street was flooded with the dead.

“They are going to get killed by their own arrogance,” he said in a husky whisper.

“Guess the siren trick didn’t clear them all out,” I replied.

The creatures were moving toward the house as well.  Instantly, I had my firearm in one hand and hammer in the other.  Kyle bolted the front door.

We need to get to the Hummer, I thought again. I turned in Kyle’s direction to tell him so.

That’s when we heard screaming from the backyard.  We ran to the great room, just in time to see four of the zombies come down on the two handcuffed cops.

Just beyond their screams, I heard a familiar sound.  With everything happening, I couldn’t quite place it at first.  It was rhythmic, almost like a chime. The phone was ringing!

One of the dead was pounding on the rear door and smashing its face against the glass.  Over and over, almost in sync with the ringing of the phone.

Beep. The answering machine switched on.

“John.  John.  Are you there?” My heart almost stopped; her voice was somewhat calmer tha
n the last time I’d heard it.

A tremendous crash echoed through the house as the glass door shattered.

“I got your message. I’m so happy to hear you’re alive!”

All four zombies entered the house. I had to get to the phone.

“We’re okay.  Luckily, we haven’t seen any of those monsters up here in the mountains.  I guess there are not a lot of people up here.”

Kyle and I rushed to take them out.  We didn’t use the guns, wanting to save ammunition.  I gouged my hammer deep into the first one’s skull.

“The baby is okay.  I’m okay.  Joe is really hanging in there.”

Kyle swung his metal weapon violently, hitting a vase off a nearby table before he split open the head of the second being.

“You’ve got to get here as soon as possible.  The idea of heading someplace safe sounds wonderful.  It was so great to hear your voice.” Her voice wavered with emotion. I could almost hear the tears sliding down her cheeks.

One of the undead lumbered to Mr. Nubs, and dropped down on him, tearing into his guts before either Kyle or I could get there.

“I can’t wait to see you. I love you so much.  Get home to me.” Beep.  The message time ended.

I pulled my hammer from the head of the zombie, and went after the one tearing open Mr. Nubs.  I had to tackle him just to pull him off.  I tore the hammer through its neck first, a slight miss but relatively effective.  Its head fell
back; hanging by a thick thread of flesh as the creature stumbled, almost falling over.

The woman crawled over towards her husband, who was bleeding out all over the floor.  She didn’t seem to mind, putting her arms around him, crying into his chest.

I pulled the hammer back and brought it down hard on the zombie’s dangling head. With that one final blow, it dropped to the floor with a muffled
thud
.

Kyle finished off the fourth one, just as Mr. Nubs began to re-animate.  Thinking her husband was okay, the woman wiped her eyes as a smile grew on her thin lips.  In that instant, her husband reached up and tore into her cheek with his teeth.  I watched the skin stretch and finally break open with a burst of blood
, as she pulled back and screamed in horror.  She then stood up, and took three steps before falling down.

I raced over and took out Mr. Nubs before he was able to sit up.  At the same time, Kyle slowly walked over to the woman, watching as she slipped away.  I looked at Kyle's expression.  It was clear that he was hoping she wouldn’t come back.

Even in such dire life and death situations, there is a point in time where one hopes that what is happening will just stop, before another killing occurs.

Just as she gurgled and move
d an arm, he brought his weapon down across her face.

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

One of the many games we played was aptly titled, “Midnight.”

We sat in silence for several minutes, catching our breath, trying to take in what all had happened.  Beyond the walls of the house, we could hear gunshots followed by screams of pain, then silence again.

Kyle went to the front door to watch the street as I walked unsteadily to the phone.  Even through the
darkness, I could see him grimace as he looked out.

I studied the caller ID, before pushing the down arrow, hoping it was the last number to call the house.  After hitting the dial button, I pulled the receiver up to the side of my head.  It took a moment, but the phone began to ring.

Kyle swiftly crouched down below the window, catching my attention.  I could see a silhouette from outside pass through the glare of a street lamp.

I felt the phone receiver trembling against my ear.

Five rings, six rings, seven... No voice mail, nobody answered.

With the precision of a surgeon, I quietly hung up the phone on the eleventh ring, the fist-sized lump in my throat nearly strangling me.  Gripping the base of my hammer, a surge of frustration swallowed my fear.  An impulse to slam the metal head against the wall with everything I had left kicked in, but my instincts kept me from making too much noise.

I felt my anger slip away as I continued to squeeze the hammers base. I kept telling myself that I had to keep going. I had to reach my Jenn. I needed to hold her in my arms once again.

After taking several moments to collect myself, I made a mental note of the number on the caller ID.  Then, surveying the room, I moved past Michael, who was holding his stomach with his good hand, and joined Kyle by the door.

Peering out the window, I could see the diseased undead spreading out like a filthy piss puddle in the street.  They were slowly hunting around, searching for their prey.  The gunshots had stopped now.  The screams were replaced by dull moans.

I realized that this was the closest we had been to these things without them attacking, since watching them from the office building back in
New York.