Authors: Tim Meyer
T
he roof.
It was his only chance. Ben raced down the hallway, locating the attic stairs. He unfolded them, climbed quickly, and ascended into darkness. He almost tried pulling the chain on the light, but then remembered there was no electricity.
Dumbass,
he thought to himself. He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight, probably one of the most important things he could have packed in his survival trunk. He debated whether or not to run back down the stairs and grab one out of the junk drawer, but the sound of shattered glass quickly determined that going back was not an option—unless he wanted to end up the living dead's breakfast.
The inarticulate vocalizations of the zombies quickly filled the living room. Ben reached for his Smart-Phone. Even though it was useless for making calls, it proved resourceful in other ways. He selected the flashlight application and the tiny light on the back of the phone illuminated the attic.
You lucky bastard,
he thought, as he ducked trusses, rolling over pink tufts of insulation. He continued until he got to the far end of the attic, where a fan blocked him from getting to the roof. It was roughly the size of a manhole cover, and Ben felt he could squeeze through it, if only the blades weren't there.
Ben started removing the metal grate that covered the fan. To his surprise, it popped out easily. Trying to stay calm, he closed his eyes, blocking out the noises coming from the rooms below. Then he thought he heard lumber behind him creak. He quickly spun, shining the light toward the stairs. There was no one there. His heartbeat slowly resumed its normal rhythm.
He turned his attention back to the fan, which he tried removing. It was screwed in and there was no screwdriver handy. Ben started to debate whether or not he had met a dead end. He also wondered if the zombies knew how to climb stairs. If they couldn't, maybe they'd eventually abandon the house and decide to look for food elsewhere.
Ben started kicking the fan blades, hoping to break, or at least bend two of them back far enough so he could slide through. There was another grate separating the fan from freedom, but it was made of old, rotted wood. It looked flimsy and easy to break. He continued kicking the fan blades. The metal was thin and cheap, curved with each stomp.
Noises. Close. Behind him.
He stopped kicking, rotating toward his point of entry. He saw the top of a head peeking out of the empty square in the attic floor.
“Shit,” Ben muttered, turning back to his only way out. After the two blades were completely bent back, he realized that in order for him to squeeze through, he was going to have to do a third. He didn't waste any time. He kicked the third blade back, granting him passage to the roof. He lay down, slid himself underneath the fan. He started punching the wood grate, the only thing standing between him and fresh air. The wood cracked, splintering with each attack. In less than a minute, the grate popped off and Ben finally had unobstructed access to the roof.
The morning sun peaked above the horizon, a faint orange glow filling his eyes.
Something grabbed his foot. He turned his makeshift flashlight on the lower half of his body, seeing his new shoe was being gnawed on by Teddy Rowland, a forty-year old computer nerd from three blocks over. Teddy's head was split open down the middle, but he didn't seem to mind. From the looks of the wound, it happened days ago. Black blood congealed on his face, his mouth leaking dark fluids onto Ben's shoe. Ben lashed out, kicking Teddy in the face, sending him stumbling into his dead friends.
Ben didn't have time reach for his suitcase. He pulled himself through the tiny passageway, landing on the asphalt-shingled roof. He jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain in his ribs. He hesitated, wanting to reach back inside and grab his belongings, but the hole in the siding quickly filled up with zombies.
Never looking back, he run to the edge of the roof. He peered down at the driveway, his eyes honing in on his Sonata. The area was surprisingly clear of walking corpses.
“
Here goes nothing,” he muttered, jumping into the big bush. Some of the branches penetrated his skin, but he didn't care. Adrenaline helped numb the pain. He rushed to the car as quickly as possible, key in hand. A few stragglers who were slow getting to the party turned their attention toward Ben. They changed directions and headed after him, stumbling along leisurely. In the distance, down the block, more dead came into view.
He started the car with only one thing on his mind.
I'm coming, bud,
he thought.
I'm coming for you. I promised, didn't I?
Ben Ackerman had no intentions of being an absent father.
CHAPTER THREE
“
W
hat are you talking about?” Ross asked. He peered at Ben dubiously.
“
I'm talking about getting out of here, before something really bad happens,” Ben told him.
“
Haven't you been listening, fucktard?” Jason spat. “Those fucking savages are going to come back any minute. And when they do, they are going to kill us. Probably torture us, too.” His head craned toward little Emily, who remained quiet throughout the arguing. “Sexually, perhaps.”
“
Hey now—”
“
Why don't you shut up,” Josh told the kid, who looked no older than himself. “No need to freak everyone out more than they already are.”
“
Oh, yeah, tough guy? What if I don't? Huh?”
“
Then I'll have to make you.”
Jason lunged forward, pressing his face against the kennel. “You're lucky this cage is here, or I'd kick your fucking ass, man!”
“Sit down, clown,” Josh chuckled.
“
I've had enough of your mouth, you shit-nose little punk—” Ross started.
“
Oh, yeah?” Jason turned toward Ross, grinding his teeth together. “What are you going to do about it, old man?”
Ross rose to his feet. “Old man? I'll show you old—”
Before anyone could tell them to relax, Jason lashed out, socking Ross in the jaw. Everyone gasped collectively when his fist rocked Ross's head backwards. He stumbled but kept his balance. Landry stood up, looking like he wanted to step in and take his father's place in what had become a steel-cage match. Ross shoved him aside gently. Jason wound his fist and took another swing, a wildly-inaccurate haymaker that Ross sidestepped easily. He jabbed the kid in the ribs, deflating his lungs. Jason stumbled sideways. Ross caught him with a hook across the chin. The energetic, rat-faced punk went down hard, spitting bloody mucus onto the concrete floor.
A gunshot sounded, causing everyone's shoulders to buck. Hearts skipped. Ringing in their ears left them temporarily deaf to other sounds. They hadn't heard their three husky hosts enter the basement over their own outbursts.
The Three Little Pigs,
Josh thought.
“
Well, well,” Otis said, chewing tobacco as he spoke. He spit a long stream of brown liquid into truck driver's cage, missing his feet by inches. The splatter touched his boots. “What we got hur?”
“
Looky like we got ourselves a little alt-cation, Otis,” Cooter said.
“
Hey, you... nagger.” Otis stared directly at Ross. “Yeah, I'm talkin' to you, boy. Get your monkey ass over der. You can't be goan round beatin' up erry white boy you see, sheet.”
Floyd, the third and widest little piggy, rushed over and unlocked the cage. Cooter strolled inside and grabbed Jason by his neck, dragging him out. His knees and elbows scraped against the concrete as he cried out, but Cooter didn't seem to care. In fact, Cooter laughed, hacked a giant wad of snot and spat on his face. “Dumb sombitch,” he sneered.
Otis and Floyd approached Ross, who backed himself into the corner of his cage. Landry tried to reach his father's side, but Floyd collected him against his chest with his flabby arms. Landry screamed, tried to kick himself free. The big boy's clutches were like a black hole, absorbing Landry with little effort. Ross instinctively reached out for his son, but Otis took the stock of his shotgun and jammed it into his face. Ross immediately saw stars and fell to the floor. He felt something warm trickle down his upper lip, into his mouth. He tasted copper.
“
Looks like someone bought themselves a ticket to the game,” Otis whispered to Ross, who struggled to keep conscious.
“
What game?”
Smirking ominously, Otis waved his finger. “Ya'll find out soon enough.” He nodded to Floyd, who immediately let go of Landry. They exited the cage, Floyd locking it behind them.
Otis turned to Cooter. “Bring that sumbitch.” Otis and Floyd trotted up the stairs and Cooter followed, dragging Jason behind him like a sack of Christmas presents.
The prisoners listened to the kid scream his way to the top before wet slapping sounds silenced him forever.
CHAPTER FOUR
TWO DAYS AGO...
D
espite his mother's plea to always park in the street, Josh parked in the empty driveway. He exhaled, killing the engine simultaneously. Josh didn't want to be there and he did very little to hide it. It wasn't that he hated visiting her, and it wasn't even the fact that he sometimes had to explain things to her over and over again; it was the fact that Josh would rather spend his free time doing other things. Such as riding around doing nothing, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed, finding girls to hook up with, hooking up with them, going to bars, getting drunk, occasionally—but not frequently—starting fights, playing sports, playing sports video games, and doing his best to be an all-around douchebag to everyone he meets. Recently, pill-popping made its way to the top of the list.
As he knocked on his mother's front door, he surveyed the adult community around him. It was peaceful.
More than peaceful.
There wasn't a single person out and about. He assumed old people in this kind of community didn't get out very much.
Meridith Emberson, however, was not an old person. She was only fifty-nine. They accepted residents over the age of fifty-five, although most were much older than that. The award-winning staff was the reason Meridith decided to check into Pine Coast Village a few years early.
Meridith loved Pine Coast Village. She also loved when her only child came to visit. Unfortunately, she always forgot when he was coming, which made her even more excited when she opened the front door and saw him standing there, glassy-eyed and gawking at the neighborhood homes dreamily.
“
Joshy!” she cried out, giving her son a powerful hug.
“
Hey, ma,” he said, squeezing her gently.
“
It's been too long.”
“
It's only been three weeks.” It had actually been longer than that, closer to a month and a half, but she didn't remember those kinds of things. It was cruel how he sometimes used her sickness to skate around visiting her.
What she doesn't remember, won't hurt her
. He repeated the same thing while he slipped a few twenties out her pocketbook whenever she ran to the bathroom during his visits. She always found a few bills missing, swearing she had visited the ATM earlier that day. In the end, she'd deduce that she hadn't gone at all.
“
Well... I can never see too much of my Joshy,” she said. “Come inside.” She patted him on the back as he entered the house.
As she was about to close the door, she spotted her next-door neighbor, Russ Lowery, taking his daily walk. He was stumbling over himself, came close to falling down several times. Meridith smiled, thinking the old coot had a bit too much to drink. She reminded herself that she didn't want to be outside when Wanda Lowery caught up to him. She had met Wanda several times over the last four years and she was no joy to be around.
Meridith Emberson shut the door. She was going to lock it, but thought about offering her son a cup of coffee instead. In fact, she forgot to shut the door all together, leaving it slightly ajar with enough room for mosquitoes and other summer insects to get in.
Unfortunately for Meridith Emberson, bugs weren't the only thing out there wanting to get in.
“
H
ow have you been feeling?” Josh asked.
“
Fine,” she replied. She set two fresh cups of coffee down on the table, one for each of them. She sat down, sighing simultaneously with the creaking of old wooden chairs. “I have good days and I have bad ones. Mostly bad ones. The goddamn medication they have me on doesn't seem to want to work. They rave about this shit like it's a miracle drug—well, the only miracle it gives me are bad dreams and awful headaches in the morning.”
Josh grabbed the small bottle off the kitchen table and read the label: APEDESIAM.
“Never heard of it,” Josh admitted.
“
Have you been living under a rock?” she asked. She slid a cigarette out of her pack of Misty's and lit one up. Her son joined her, sparking a full-flavored Marlboro. “This stuff was all over the news.
The cure for Alzheimer's.
Yeah, well, some days I wouldn't be able to remember my name if it weren't on every envelope that comes in the mail.”
“
Sounds bogus.” Josh took a long drag and exhaled.
“
What about you, honey? You keeping out of trouble? Got any future daughter-in-laws for me?”
He shook his head, laughing. “Na. Not really. Don't have the time.”
“What do you have time for?”
That was the question, wasn't it? He had time to buy drugs and plenty of time to do them. He had time to go to work, although, lately, he had burned through his sick time faster than hemp at Woodstock. Late-night security gigs wasn't exactly a premier career choice, but it paid his rent and supported his drug habit.
“Not much, Mom. Not much at all.” Josh stamped his cigarette out in the glass ashtray, then stretched his arms behind his head. He was tired. The effects of the oxycotton he had popped three hours ago started wearing off. In an hour, he'd be completely drained and ready for bed.
Outside, something exploded with a thunderous bang. The power went out. Meridith nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Oh, dear!” she yelped.
Josh giggled. “Relax, Mom. It's just the power. It'll come back on any minute.”
A
bout thirty minutes after the power went out, Josh decided he had had enough. He longed for his cramped, grimy apartment. His mother's house grew tiresome in no time at all. He only hung around hoping she would leave the room, so he could fish a few twenties out of her purse. He had a craving for Taco Bell and payday wasn't until the end of the week. Instead, Meridith shuffled around the kitchen, occasionally peaking through the window into the dead world, reciting the names of those who walked around without any agenda.
“
And there goes Brenda Johnston. What the hell is wrong with her? She keeps looking up into the sky and walking in circles,” she said, sounding confused.
Josh rested his head on his hands. Yawning, he struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn't wait any longer. Stolen money or no stolen money, he decided it was time to leave.
He stood up from the table, grabbing his cigarettes. Pocketing them, he headed around the counter. “I'm gonna run to the bathroom, then I'm heading out.”
“
Head out? You just got here,” she whined.
“
I've been here over an hour, Mom.”
“
Well, can you wait until the power comes back on? I don't want to be by myself without power.”
He sighed heavily as he entered the bathroom, never bothering to answer her question. As he listened to the sound of his piss rain into the toilet-bowl water, Josh swore he heard the front door swing open. There was a loud bang, something heavy colliding with the floor. Then he heard his mother shriek.
“Oh, Tilda. What happened to your fa—” Josh heard his mother say, but her words were cut short by another ear-scraping scream. Then there were other noises. It sounded like dogs growling. Quickly zipping his pants, being careful not to mutilate any parts he might need down the road, he rushed into the hallway.
“
Mom? You okay? I heard—”
He walked into the kitchen and saw his mother on the floor, a sea of red beneath her. There was a woman—or at least it looked like a woman—kneeling over her, feasting on a long string of Meridith's intestines. His mother was squirming, screaming out, extending her arms toward her son. She cried for help. Her eyes bulged out of her skull as she yelled frantically. The woman growled brutishly. She kept shoveling the long pink strand of meat into her mouth, devouring it ravenously.
Josh's legs felt absent, as if they left the room without him. He froze, his stare locked on the woman's eyes. They were hazy and lifeless. Gore had settled around her mouth. Some ran down her blouse, a once-pretty blue and flowery-patterned fabric, but now stained dark with blood. The woman's hair was matted with crimson fluids mixed with chunks of raw meat.
Before Josh thought about rushing to his mother's aid, a man appeared in the doorway. His gaze mirrored the woman's. He too was covered in the blood of the people he had mercilessly feasted on. He leered contemptuously at Josh before bolting toward him like a bullet from its chamber.
Instinctively, Josh turned, running as fast as his rubbery legs would carry him. He felt the thing on his heels, the rotten aroma that perspired from its pores filled the air. Josh imagined the man's fingers on the back of his neck, inspiring him to run faster.
Fear propelled him around the corner, his mother's bedroom at the end of the long hallway inviting him to safety. Josh sprinted toward it, glancing over his shoulder just in time to witness the intruder's uncoordinated legs twist, causing him to stumble to the ground. He didn't stay down for very long. Snarling, the bloody man quickly found his feet and continued after Josh.
Josh scrambled to his mother's room. He closed the door behind him, immediately locking it.
He jumped back when the zombie ran into the door full speed, cracking the frame, and busting through on its second attempt.
T
he dead man stumbled into the room drunkenly. His legs criss-crossed. He tripped, falling to the carpet. Josh looked beyond him, down the hallway. He saw the woman with scraps of his mother's flesh hanging from her mouth rushing toward him. He sped into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Zombies,
he said to himself.
That's what they are, aren't they? Fucking zombies.
He did not know what else to call them. He heard reports of people high on some unknown drugs walking around eating people,
acting
like zombies. The closest incident occurred in New Brunswick, at Rutgers University, about an hour from Josh's apartment. A professor went berserk and stumbled into a freshman's dorm room, killing three students, hospitalizing another seven before police were forced to put him down permanently.
Fists pounding on the door broke his daydream, forcing Josh to look for an exit strategy. His only way out seemed to be the single-hung window on the wall next to the toilet. He pushed it open. The door frame cracked behind him. He released the small clips on both sides of the window. The screen popped out and fell to the grassy ground below. Then, he dove headfirst out into the zombie-infested world.
Above him, something snarled. He glanced up, seeing the two zombies reaching for him.
Not very smart,
he thought.
Just like the movies.
As if on cue, they abandoned their hopeless efforts and disappeared, seeking an alternative way to reach their meal.
Josh ran to the front of the house, fishing through his pockets for his car keys. “Motherfucker,” he muttered. He removed his hands from his empty pockets, realizing he had left his keys on the kitchen counter. Josh quickly debated whether or not to sneak back inside and grab them. As he rounded the corner, he saw the residents of Pine Coast Village being flushed out of their homes by the living dead. Josh decided it was better to do the second idea that came to mind.
Run.
H
e witnessed an old lady being eaten alive while screaming for help that would never come. A man tried to flee from two zombies in white coats sporting name tags above their right-breast pocket. The old man could not run very fast; two zombies tackled him to the ground with ease. The sounds of his body being torn apart deafened his final cries for help.
Taking a moment to survey the chaos around him, Josh sprinted down the middle of the street, glancing at people being eviscerated on their front lawns. A car came barreling down the street, three zombies clinging to its hood. The driver ended up speeding into a house on the corner, crashing through the vinyl siding, ending up in the homeowner's living room. The zombies started to pound on the windshield, their dinner helplessly trapped inside.
Josh tried blocking out the murderous screams of the living.
Up ahead, flashing lights shone on the dusky sky. He became relieved almost instantly, hopeful he was going to make it out of this nightmare. Never did he think he'd say it, but “Thank God, the cops are here,” fell from his lips. With barely any air left in his lungs, he ran toward the flashing lights as if they were the finish line in a very long, enduring race.
The swarm of flesh-eating corpses outnumbered the cops. A few officers drew their weapons immediately, firing at the oncoming onslaught. Josh watched a few zombies take bullets in the head and fall to the ground like puppets suddenly cut from their string. The officers late to the trigger were slaughtered quickly. The zombies took them with ease. Within minutes, other police officers suffered a similar fate. Josh noticed the remaining policemen were running, returning to their vehicles in cowardly attempts to save themselves. The others were dismembered in the street.