“No!”
By the time Davis was close enough to help
his friend the deaders were pulling out foot after foot of his
bloody, ropey innards. They pulled, fighting like hungry rats over
subway scraps dropped by carefree yuppies. He couldn’t scream
anymore, but his face writhed in pain, the veins in his neck bulged
but disappeared as they ripped the skin from it. One of the
creatures bit his lip, tearing it down to the butt of his chin,
exposing his coffee-stained teeth.
“No! You bastards! Get off him! Get off him,”
Davis cried.
He stood just behind the feasting dead and
began to fire. His aim was off and his shots ran wild. He hit one
in the neck, another in the back, another in the leg. He fought his
emotions, and tried to force them down deep but they wouldn’t
budge. Much like the dead, he couldn’t keep them down.
He stepped closer, seeing more of his friend
than he could handle and lost himself in a blind rage. He fired
again, and again, and by some form of autonomy his shots connected
so that all that was left was a pile of dead bodies with one coming
back in the middle–Sal.
“No,” the words fell like whispers but hurt
worse than broken bones. “No, Sal…oh, God…oh…God…” He hesitated for
a breath, then he shot him in the head. The pile again laid
still.
Janice had found her way to her sons. They
stood feet ahead of her and had no idea she was behind them. She
watched on in mild disbelief, her boys now men and doing what they
needed to do to survive.
They were two among several, Chuck was there
with his fading tan and bleached out hair. He was a horrible shot
and probably wasted bullets if anything, but his presence alone was
comfort to others who held the line with him. She saw Frankie, his
once youthful face now bore the scars of hard times, sleepless
nights, and heavier than lead thoughts. She could barely recognize
these men as the boys they were only weeks ago. Time flies, she
thought, wondering if hers was up. She stared at the dead stumbling
from the tree line. They still came in droves, staggering one
crooked step at a time. Her eyes locked onto a small girl, and her
thoughts flashed back to her daughter. In a flash she relived the
nightmare from days earlier, reopening the sticky-sweet scabs that
hadn’t quite formed scars. The little girl had hair cemented by
dried blood to the side of her head. Most of her cheek was chewed
off and her eye dangled loose from its socket. Her skin was scraped
and clawed, her lips were frayed and hung in slivers. Her head hung
to the side and her arm remained rigid to the side while the other
arched halfway up, her mangled fingers in a pose that seemed to be
showing off a ring finger far too young to adorn one. Her leg bent
inward and her foot twisted on its side. She walked more on her
ankle than her foot, which caused her stagger to be that much more
prevalent. Then a gunshot to her head sent her falling backward
into the legs of another dead thing moving forward, causing it to
stumble on top of the little dead girl. That shook Janice from her
thoughts, and she moved closer to her sons, reaching out for
Joseph’s arm.
Joseph turned around with fierce eyes that
softened once he saw his mother.
“What are you doing? Why aren’t you in the
car?” Joseph asked.
“The car’s been wrecked.” She pointed back
towards it.
“Fuck…are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, but we don’t have a car. The
Sheriff is telling everyone to leave…” she tried to yell over the
noise.
“We can’t just leave. We have to fight
them.”
“There’s too many, honey. Let’s go before its
too late…please,” she coaxed him.
Eddie turned to see where his brother had
gone, and noticed him and his mother talking.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Car’s fucked, that stupid cop crashed into
it,” his brother replied.
“Shit, let’s back it up then, give us some
more room.” He began moving closer to the wall of the hall. “Guys,”
he yelled out, “move back!” But nobody could hear him. “Guys! Move
back,” he yelled as loud as he could, instantly getting hoarse.
They finally heard him and acknowledged by
moving back. Once back Eddie noticed Davis out of the corner of his
eye. He was walking up to the deaders with an outstretched arm and
shooting the creatures at close range, much like Sal had done with
an empty gun.
“Oh, shit, he’s lost it. Look at him,” Eddie
pointed out.
“Can’t blame him, looks like its working
though,” Frankie replied. And with that he ran to Davis, shotgun in
hand and backed him up.
“Frankie, don’t be stupid,” Eddie called out.
But it was too late: by the time the words came out he was halfway
there.
“Where are we going?” Dawn asked.
“I don’t know! I don’t fucking know!” Jon-Jon
yelled, having lost any cool he once possessed.
“Don’t yell at me,” she said, her arm wrapped
around Yussef.
“I’m sorry. I’m just scared shitless…I can’t
believe how many there are! It’s like the gas station all over
again…”
“I know…but don’t take it out on me. We need
to keep calm,” she said, gesturing toward the small boy.
“Calm?” Jon-Jon laughed.
He pulled the van over to the side of the
road and was haunted by the lyrics of one of his favorite songs:
should I stay, or should I go? he thought, and heard the voice of
Mick Jones reverberating in his head.
“If I stay…there will be double,” he
mumbled.
“What’s that?” Dawn asked.
“Huh--? Oh, nothing, just thinking out
loud.”
“This is so fucked. I’m chicken shit for
running out aren’t I?”
“We’re all scared,” she said.
“Scared yeah, but I ran. In the end I’m just
a bitch.”
“We’re alive, and that’s how I want to
stay.”
“We’re only alive because we’ve stuck
together,” Jon-Jon said, his tone shifting. “We’re going back.”
“Fine. Just don’t get us killed,” Dawn said,
her eyes wet.
Scott had run out of ammunition and, after
falling back with the rest of the line, he ran toward the tiny box
he called a car. The blood streaked oversized Hot-Wheels sat
crookedly down the slope on the front side of the VFW’s grounds. It
was only a few feet away, but every step felt like a mile away from
Judy, and it pained him fiercely. He kept looking back, and then
around, making sure to be on guard from all sides.
Scott took note of all the missing vehicles
and quickly put the pieces together, or at least enough of them to
make out the puzzle. He reached the car, got what he needed and
hurried back while stuffing extra shells into his pockets. By the
time he reached the line of defense he was reloading and catching
his breath. Once he began firing, Frankie dropped back to do the
same. Joseph clicked empty, and that was all he had. He tossed his
empty gun toward the oncoming dead, but it fell short and hit the
dirt.
“Come on, ma,” he said, pulling her away from
the line and toward the wrecked cars. He hoped there was something
in the trunk with a few bullets left in it.
CHAPTER
26: Deeper down
“So much for that damned wall,” Walter
slammed his fist on the windowsill.
“What’s the matter, dad?” asked Barbara.
“Nothing good sweetheart,” he replied. He
forced a smile on his tired face.
“Let me see,” she said. She pushed past him
to look out the window.
Pushing the curtain aside she looked out the
window and gasped at what she saw. The dead things wandered through
the fields to the rear of their home. They were spread apart, but
numbered in the dozens with more even more in the distance.
“What are we going to do, dad?”
“Exactly what we planned on doing,
sweetheart,” he replied. “Now, calm down, take a deep breath. We’re
safe in here. Me and Jeff boarded the place up real tight. And if
they do get in we can fight them off. This doesn’t change anything,
it was bound to happen so just keep your cool and stick to the
plan.”
Barbara didn’t know what it was about her
father that was so calming to her and she was in no mood to
question it. She took a breath and found her resolve. Her father
was right, they planned for this, they prepared for it, and now it
was happening. She had things to do and now was the time to do
them.
“I’ll go tell mom and Jeff,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Good girl, kiddo.”
Once his daughter left the room and headed
downstairs, Walter turned his again worried gaze to the dead things
wandering around outside. Never planned for this many, he thought
as he studied them. They’re slow, he noticed, slow and unbalanced,
but damn… there’s so many.
“Dad.” Jeff came running into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“Have a look-see,” Walter said as he moved
back from the window.
Jeff leaned over to look. “Shit,” he said,
“this is so crazy. It’s one thing to see them on TV, but in real
life…it makes you weak in the knees.”
“Yeah, yeah it does. But we can’t think about
them. We got to think about ourselves.”
Laura peeked in the room as Maria ushered the
kids to their room.
“We have to keep our wits,” Walter said. “We
have to think ahead of them. We can’t react, we have to act. Now,
look at them. They’re slow, and right now they’re spread out. But
if they get clumped together, slow or not we wouldn’t stand a
chance.”
“Right, and if they all start pulling at the
boards we’d be in for some trouble,” Jeff said.
“It’s early,” Barbara noted. “That gives us
plenty of daylight to be able to keep an eye on these things.”
“And that’s exactly what I want to do. I want
to watch them, study them. I want to know everything about our
enemy before we have to go toe to toe with them.”
“Shouldn’t we go for help?” Laura asked.
“No, Davis has been on top of things,” Walter
replied. “He either already has his hands full, or he’s dead.”
“Dead?” Laura asked, sounding shocked.
“Davis is the kind of guy that goes down with
his ship. If these things are this close to us he already knows
about them. If we go out looking for him we’d only be risking our
lives even more. We’re safe here for now, so that’s exactly where
we’ll be staying.”
No one argued, and no one wanted to go
outside anytime soon.
***
Clem paced around the station. He’d gotten a
solid couple hours of sleep, but his back ached, his neck was sore
and his knees clicked with every step. He hated himself for getting
so damned old and useless, but there wasn’t anything he could do
about it. He tried to walk the clicks out but they remained despite
his efforts.
His stomach grumbled and he knew he could at
least fix that. He walked around and eventually came across some
packaged goods that would do the trick. He secretly hoped for a
Pop-Tart but didn’t mind settling for the ass end of a sleeve of
saltines.
He paced around some more, making his way to
the windows at the front of the station. The street outside was
deserted except for a few vehicles. No one was lingering around
outside. A quiet morning, he thought, never thinking that would
seem strange. But here it was and it just wasn’t sitting right with
him. Only a few hours ago it was as busy as a bus terminal in the
city. Now, it wouldn’t surprise him if tumbleweeds rolled by.
Danni was sleeping soundly, and after
checking on her Clem hoped he wouldn’t make enough noise to wake
her. Let the poor thing sleep, he thought. She needs it.
***
Jon-Jon drove back toward the VFW hall,
avoiding several near accidents with the vehicles that were leaving
the place.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go back,” Dawn said.
“If everyone’s leaving we can just turn
around again,” he replied. “But if someone needs us then we’re
here.”
“Okay. I was just sayin’.”
“I know.”
The van pulled up the hillside and sure
enough the dead were still coming down. For all the fighting the
living had done you would never notice. Most of the vehicles had
pulled out and left. Jon-Jon could see the police cruiser had
smashed into Eddie’s car and neither would be able to drive out. He
saw the vehicles were covered in blood and hoped to God that Eddie
and his family were all right. He noticed the dozens of bodies
strewn about and was relieved to see that none of them were fresh
enough to be anyone he’d been surviving with–at least that’s what
he hoped.
“Over there!” Dawn pointed from the back.
“Oh, shit!” Jon-Jon said. “They’re still
going at it! Fuckers are crazy,” he continued.
“Too crazy. Get them in here,” she
yelled.
Jon-Jon drove up fast, nearly startling the
group that remained; Eddie, Joseph, Janice, Frankie, Scott, Judy,
Chuck, and Chung-Hee. Before the van came to a stop Dawn opened the
side door. “Get in,” she yelled.
Chuck smiled. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said
and wasted no time jumping in.
“It’s now or never,” Eddie said, rushing his
mother inside.
Joseph called out to him. “Frankie, come
on.”
“We’ll follow you,” Judy said, leaving the
group to run to her car, with Scott in tow.
“You got enough room or should I go with
them?” Chung-Hee asked.
“Just get the fuck in,” Jon-Jon said, eager
to pull away from the approaching horde.
He did, and before they could close the door
Jon-Jon spun around and sped away. Scott and Judy were already
ahead of them.
CHAPTER
27: Decisions
Dane was hurriedly packing his suitcase. He
put two pairs of jeans in, a few shirts, socks and underwear. He
grabbed a few photographs and an old watch that belonged to his
grandfather. He looked around the room, his eyes locked onto the
walkie-talkie, which had been silent for far too long, and he felt
the pangs of guilt bite down hard.