Box of Zombies: Rise of the Dead Volumes 1-3 (5 page)

“I suppose it doesn’t matter how much noise we make now,” she said.

“I suppose not,” Sam agreed. He pinched the joint out and left it on the nightstand.

“For old time’s sake?” he asked.

“For old time’s sake,” she whispered.

***

Outside the storms continued. In the dancing light from outside, Ellie looked lovely as she began to undress. Sam realized he had forgotten what a true beauty she was.

He smiled up at her, a bit dazed, a bit stoned
. He giggled, unable to help himself.

“It’s been one fucked up twenty-four,” he said.

She moved over to the bed and he slipped his hands around her waist. He took one of her nipples into his mouth.

“
Mmmm,” she sighed. Then she shoved him back down onto the bed and climbed on top of him.

Sex was clumsy and out of synch, as if they had never been lovers
. At one point Sam called out Katy’s name, then apologized quickly.

“It’s all right,” Ellie told him. “Neither of us really want to be here, do we?”

Images of his lost wife and daughter refused to leave his mind’s eye and he wilted. Ellie rolled away with a frustrated little groan.

“Sorry,” he whispered, pathetically
.

She stretched out next to him and lit the remaining twig of the joint
. “It’s no biggie,” she said.

“Got that right,” he attempted to joke
.

They lay there in silence, looking only at the smoke swirling up and up like thin ghosts. Sam wanted to ask Ellie about her life, but what was the point?  Her life was gone, just as his was
.

Guns within reach, they dozed
. At one point, they were startled awake by a loud thump. The wind had indeed blown the screen door open this time. It banged angrily back against the house, then closed again.

“I am so afraid,” Sam whispered.

“I am too, Sam,” Ellie answered in the dark.

Hearts pounding and eyes roving the darkness for any moving shape, they waited for dawn’s merciful return.

***

Days passed
. The electricity was sporadic and things in the refrigerator began to spoil. The entire house carried that same sickly-sweet smell that had been with Neil Clark. Sam gathered the rotting food into a garbage bag and took it out back, far from the house. Ellie covered him, her rifle poised, a scowl on her face against the bright sun. They saw nothing.

They buried Sam’s father on the edge of the soybean field beyond the lawn because the earth was easier to turn there
. They said a few words and neither of them cried. Tears had run dry days ago, replaced by an odd no-feeling.

That feeling, that numbness was somehow more frightening than the fear and the sadness
.

Sam found his eyes always drawn to the soft sloping hills at the horizon, watching for shuffling, stooped figures coming to find them.

He wondered what had happened to his mother, but forced himself to think of other things. The “what-ifs” were too horrible to envision.

Ellie began to have a cautious sense of safety and she tried to infect him with it
. He wanted to humor her, but he knew things could change quickly.  

Supplies held for the most part, but Sam was sick of canned vegetables and fruits
. The Clarks considered themselves a frugal pair, and they had visited the shopper’s clubs often. Sam had always teased their overbuying, but now he was certainly glad they had. Especially when he went to the cellar and discovered five cases of imported beer stacked in the cool darkness.

They passed the time having sex, getting drunk and listening to music
. His parents had one hell of a jazz collection and they had a constant loop of Coltrane, Davis, Parker, and an army of others. He had hated that music growing up, but it was comfort now. They slow danced like they were anywhere beside an old farmhouse waiting for the world to end.

Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday sang them to sleep at night
—”Under a Blanket of Blue,” and “Autumn In New York”—their dreamy voices echoing in through a tunnel created by paranoia and alcohol.

***

On the tenth day, the cats began to gather. Sam did not notice anything unusual at first—one or two cats slinking around. It was farm country, after all. Cats always hung around and most times his mother or father would end up feeding them. But by dusk, it had grown to something much more than just one or two.

The mewling, mournful crying was suddenly audible even over the music
. “What the hell was that?”  Ellie asked.

Sam switched down the volume and Sarah Vaughn faded into the background for a moment
. He peered out the living room window and could not believe what he saw. There were a thousand eyes staring back at
him
. Reflected silver and ghostly in the moonlight, unblinking. He nearly screamed, then realized it was only cats.

Only cats.

“You’re not gonna to believe this,” he said.

Ellie came over, put her face next to his and looked out
.

They were everywhere, crowding the porch railings
. The steps. The rocking chairs and the little side table out there. They paced the lawn, droves of them. Waiting.

Sam and Ellie could hear light footfalls on the roof even, pawing at the upstairs windows
. The crying was like that of infants alone and starving.

Sam’s father had always kept a big bag of Kitty Chow in the garage, to feed those slinking visitors and he ran out to get it
.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ellie wanted to know
.

“We can’t let them starve to death.”

When he opened the front door, the cats scattered like roaches in the light. He emptied the bag on the front walkway, fifteen pounds at least.

The cats stampeded back and Sam rushed back into the house, surprised and startled
. Ellie slammed the door behind him.

“So, what happens when they eat that up?”  Ellie asked
. She had never liked cats, and Sam could see she was not thrilled with a herd of them just outside the door.

It did not take long to find out what would happen when the food was gone
. It was a gruesome scene as they began to tear into one another. The smaller ones went down first, torn apart by the bigger ones. Sam watched the nightmare out the window, his hand nervously rubbing his beard roughened jaw. “I can’t believe I caused this,” he whispered, although in the grand scheme of things, he knew a bunch of cats were insignificant.

Ellie pulled him away from the window by the hand and then she switched the music back up, even louder than before, to mask the growls and cries outside.

***

He had lost count of the days, but he knew it had been more than a week since the cat incident
. It was more the stink of the cat carcasses rotting outside that kept them indoor than the fear of one of the infected paying a visit.

They grew bored and both began to wonder what if anything was left outside the valley
. Food was dwindling. The beer was nearly gone. Sam longed for the ocean and the sun and began to consider returning to the coast. He would ask Ellie to go with him, he decided. Of course, if she did not want to go there, he would stay with her. The idea of being so totally alone scared the hell out of him.

Ellie began to show signs of infection on a Tuesday evening, shortly after an ill attempted venture to some of the neighboring houses
. Their only encounter with anyone was with a guy they had known back in grade school. Peter. Peter-somebody.

Pete had always been a bit off and when they discovered him, he was sitting crossed-legged on the floor in a pool of his own waste
. The stench nearly overwhelmed them. His urine and feces had soaked into his jeans and up the hem of his t-shirt, some caked and dry, some quite fresh. He had devoured his left foot to the bone.

He seemed to be completely unaware of their presence in the house.

“Shoot him,” Ellie said.

“He’s not doing anything, Ellie,” Sam protested
. “Let’s just leave him. He’ll be dead soon enough.”

“He’s dead now
. Do it. He knows we‘re here—”

“You can’t really believe that
. He hasn’t even moved.”

“Look, you go into the kitchen and see if you can find anything we can use
. I’ll watch him.”

Sam shrugged and went to search the cupboards
. It was only a few moments it seemed, before he heard a scuffle, then the shots. He jumped, heart thundering, dropping cans of food onto the floor.

“Ellie!”

He found her sitting on the floor grasping her calf. Peter-somebody was sprawled on the floor, his rotting brains spilling all over the rug. His legs still twitched slightly.

“I told you, Sam!”

“What the hell—”

“He fucking
bit
me.”

“Here, let me see.”  He took her hand and pulled away
. Blood jetted from the ragged wound and he nearly fainted dead away. He took a deep breath and pressed her hand back over it. “I’ll find some gauze or something.”

“Fucking lot of help that is,” Ellie muttered
. “Cut my leg off, Sam. Maybe it’s not in my bloodstream yet.”

Sam pretended not to hear her and fled to the bathroom in search of a first aid kit.

She was showing signs of infection before the night was over. Very soon he would be alone again.

***

Now he sat, waiting, back against his bedroom door, Ellie‘s rifle lying on the floor next to him. She had gone crazy an hour ago, tore up his room, then went into a rant about how fucking weak he was. How stunted. How sniveling. She screamed through the door that she had dumped him on her own, not because of the constant prodding from her family. He was weak and most times she only stayed with him because she had pitied him. She cursed him with language saved for sailors and death row inmates. She clawed at the door furiously and he could imagine her nails splintering and peeling back from the ends of her fingers.

She begged him for death, before things went even further south
. He promised over and over again that he would.

He lied
. He’d always been able to spit out a lie as easily as the truth.

He could smell the death stink coming under the door
. He could hear her breath against the wood, almost as if it were on the back of his neck.

“I’ll break through this fucking door, Sam
. I will take you down with me for doing this,” she whispered, wet and slurred. “I will take you down and you will hurt like I hurt right now.”

Sam reasoned that surely there were others out there that were not infected, but those thoughts quickly turned to the possibility of being the only one left
. Was there a reason to go on, if he was to be all alone?  Besides, did he actually think he could survive long enough to find others? 

Ellie was right, just like Katy
. He was weak. He was an overgrown little boy.

His little daughter had been devoured right before his eyes
. His mother, who had coddled him and his father, who had doted on him were gone, too. Everyone who loved him was gone.

His world was as good as gone.

He sat as the sun began to sink and the hallway became dark. Ellie had grown quiet again and he knew she was waiting as well.

Finally
, he sighed and reached up. He unlocked the bedroom door then he picked up the rifle. The moved across the hallway, opposite the door and placed the gun across his knees.

“I’m waiting, Ellie,” he said quietly
. “I’m waiting.”

Dead Girl

Rise of the Dead Volume 3

Dead Girl’s Blog

Tuesday, September 09
, 2014

I never thought it would happen to me. Damn that Tommy Barker. Always grabbing at me. So we stopped over at Allston Park and went down to the beach to you know. Ever since I let him go under my sweater after Laura Murphy’s birthday party a month ago, he’s been determined to go all the way. But I was drunk that night and besides he does want to use protection—

Never mind. The point is this—we went down to the beach and suddenly there was this old guy stumbling out of the dunes like some kind of drunk or maybe perv, and Tommy—that jerk—ran off with his junk hanging out and left me there with my pants halfway down.

Turns out this old guy wasn’t
a drunk (though he might have been a perv—at least at some point). He was one of those. You know. Those Deaders that’s been on the internet and in the paper. One of those things my dad is always warning me to stay clear.

But there he was. Dead as
homemade shit and stumbling around in his stinky, wet clothes.  He was on his knees before I could get my jeans buttoned. Then he clamped his teeth into my calf. He ruined my best jeans—the ones Mom picked up at Hollister. That numbnuts tore a hole right through those jeans and took a piece of my leg, too.

You know, I don’t think I even realized he was a Deader until I kicked him. Right in the side of the head, just like he was a soccer ball, and he let go right away, but only because his lower jaw came loose on that side. I remember standing there a second and watching his rotted black tongue sort of waggle and flap around. Then I ran. It didn’t really even hurt that much. The ER doc said that was likely because of the adrenaline rush I had. But now I’m just high on the pills he gave me. He gave Mom a little bottle of pills, too.
To add to her collection.

Anyway, Tommy had the car running already. Good
ol’ Tommy. How manly of him, BTW. Idiot. And then had the nerve to bitch about me getting blood all over the floorboard of his daddy’s Lexus. He dropped me off in front of the ER entrance and sped away with my purse and my phone. I had to use a greasy payphone to call my dad.

Boy, you should have seen the look on my parents’ faces when they picked me up. You’d thought I was caught screwing the entire Varsity and J.V. football team at a church picnic.

“What are we going to do with you, Audrey?” Mom asked. She was crying, but she did that sometime anyway and usually for no real reason. But they seemed to think the whole thing pretty dire.

I sighed, rolled my eyes in the backseat of Dad’s Beemer, and
watched as the bloodspot was already growing wide and dark through the bandage.

That
dumbass ruined my best jeans. Did I mention that?

Posted at 09/09/2014
11:52:34 pm by deadgirl

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