Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (18 page)

Emma does as instructed and cuts
the next corner, staying close to the low lying block wall that surrounds a
salt stained beach house. In the yard, a body - nothing more than a torso and
arms - drags itself along on bloody stumps, on fingers ground to the bone and
oozing thick black liquid. She backs away and turns to sprint when she sees the
creature. She takes to the center of the street to follow her grandfather,
cautiously looking over her shoulder as the dead home in.

As the pair zigzags over cracked
asphalt, a horde of misshapen death converges and follows. Hundreds strong, the
mob chants with dripping voices, saturated in lustful want as they shamble
close behind. The predatory calls summon others as the crowd grows, collecting
others in their wake.

“Take the cart,” Jacob says. “I
have a plan.”

Emma shoulders her rifle and
grabs hold of the cart, not letting it slow as she transfers to pulling it
along the street. The dead are falling behind as she maneuvers around the next
corner and her grandfather pulls a bottle from the back of the cart.

He fishes a lighter from the top
pocket of his shirt and lights the rag that hangs from the bottle. “Keep going,
don’t wait for me,” he says, standing his ground. He waits for the dead to
congregate around the corner and build as more bodies converge behind them.
Once the wick is a mere stub, he grits his teeth and lets it fly, hurling it
head level at the growing mass. The bottle crests at the crowd and drops to the
asphalt with a brittle crack. An inferno rises at their feet, sending flames
licking up at the rags they wear as clothes. They’re packed so tightly together
that the fire builds, spreading through the mob as they bump and jostle into
one another. The sizzling sounds almost silence their feeble cries, but
transform as more of the dead bask in the light of burning fuel.

Jacob backs away as the fire
rises and begins to fully engulf the dead. As more converge, they are swept up
in the sea of flame and ignite along with the others. Their molten moans gurgle
out like basting meat, sending a shiver along Jacob’s spine as he watches in
awe. Their eyes finally melt away in their sockets and a fluidic sizzle ensues
before they begin to fall. The burning roadblock gives him enough time to make
a hobbling retreat and catch up with Emma who is waiting at the boardwalk to
the beach.

He favors his sore leg as he
approaches and glances back from time to time to make sure the dead are still
occupied at the intersection. Their miserable moans carry through the morning
air and they howl in an unnatural pitch before they fall.

In the war, he had seen soldiers
burnt alive by flamethrowers, only to succumb to the lack of oxygen before
their bodies turned to blackened husks. But the dead, shallow and lifeless,
take much more to deal with. When he had tried the same thing a couple of weeks
back, he found that there was something in the decay, maybe methane or whatever
it was that brought them back that made them flammable. He was pleased with
himself when he found that they went up like roman candles once they ignited.
It had been the single highlight in an otherwise hopeless situation. And now,
looking back at his efforts made him think that one day, they may finally fall
for good.

“We’ll take it slow along the
walk, we don’t want to attract any more than necessary,” he says in a hushed
voice, glancing around at the handful of bodies shuffling off toward the docks.

Emma nods in agreement as she
watches a group of bodies shamble off along the street by the pier, following
the masses that encircle through the back and around to where the others are
burning.

Some of the dead have returned
to the beach and are scouring around the drainage outlet along a manmade rock
formation that is placed to keep people away from the sewers.

Emma points and Jacob follows
the direction of her finger until he can see a speck of someone coming out
through the rocks along a sandy trail that leads over the final dune to the
beach. He squints through the sunlight to make out the form and turns toward
the dead that amble close by.

“Hurry, we have to go,” he says
and grabs the cart from Emma. “There’s not much time.”

“But, grandpa…” Emma points out
toward the breaker.

“It’s just another body,” he
says and strengthens his grip on the cart.

·14

Waves crash upon the desolate beach, cresting,
foaming before they break: row after row surges in, erupting in a cascade of
white and blue that flows along the sand in circular patterns. Occasionally,
seaweed and debris float ashore, strewn about, and dot the landscape.

Seagulls bank hard, drifting downward, picking
through the remnants of the previous storm. Their hacking, high pitched squeals
sound off like a battalion of soldiers, barking out orders, moving in to pick
through the waste of fallen enemies. In a frenzy, the birds work through the
sand, searching for their elusive meals and peck at the dead if they happen to
be in the way.

Her body is shivering from the cold. She trudges
along as her feet sink in ankle deep through the sludge that the ocean has
purged forth. She is miles from home, or what she once considered home,
wandering along the shoreline for lack of any other place to go. Her mind is as
thick as the muck she negotiates through, filled with fragments of memory that
flash through her like morbid clips from a slide show.

Beach homes, once groomed and polished now lay in
ruin, decayed from years of neglect. April glances at them from time to time,
hoping the next look she takes will suddenly bring them back to life. She bows
her head when she realizes they will only fall closer to oblivion as time
washes them away. There is the smell of smoke in the air, mingling with roasted
flesh and she becomes sick of the thought of what may be cooking nearby.

As she looks down the beach, April stops cold when
she sees a body crouching on the shore, only a few hundred yards away, bent
over something in the sand. Moans can be heard in the distance, erupting into
deafening howls and groans as the dead pick through the streets. She watches
the figure for a moment, glances around for a better route to travel, and veers
off to the right, heading towards the weathered homes. The corpse doesn’t seem
to notice her, doesn’t even pay her the faintest glance as it continues to tear
into the mass of gray pulp on the beach.

April can’t help but stare as she passes the creature,
curiosity getting the better of her. The torn out body of a seal lays sprawled
out, guts looped and hanging over its prone body as the creature kneels beside
it, gorging itself on glistening flesh. She feels nausea rise up inside the pit
of her empty stomach, cramping her abdomen, surging a torrent of gastric juices
into her throat. All she can do is stop and breath, hopefully allowing the
feeling to eventually subside.

Turned toward the mainland, April looks away in
disgust, compelled to run. Behind her, the sound of surging water ensues. Wet,
rancid gurgling noises follow before the first groan emits. She pauses, turns
slowly, not wanting to see what it is that the ocean has stirred forth. A hiss
evaporates under rushing waves and squealing birds. Over her shoulder, she
looks at the outline of a man, black as tar, leaking waste from his body. With
tired, lucid movements the corpse wanders on shore, skinless and void. The
remnants of its clothes hang like rags, as black as an oil slick, dripping from
its exposed bones.

The slightest whimper escapes from April’s mouth,
drowned out by the slurping noises of the shambling body as it slops up onto
the beach after her. She quickens her pace a little and looks back toward the
ocean. Decayed, waterlogged faces appear in the surf. Featureless visages groan
out the sea from their lungs, cascading over mouths devoid of lips and over the
rot that clings to their putrid skulls.

Ten bodies move toward the shore, followed by ten
more, and another handful after that. The sea spits out the dead, waves topple
the bodies over, rolling them out onto the beach while some retain their
footholds, shambling closer to the promise of escaping the wicked surf.

Knees weak, April struggles forward, propelled by
fear. There are a mass of corpses now, all with the same features; black,
rotting scraps of skin hanging deflated like the sails of some gruesome ghost
ship, wrecked at sea. She panics, begins to run as if in slow motion as her
feet sink into the wet sand. She trips over a length of driftwood protruding
from the surface of the beach. At the very last moment, she twists, lands on
her back, and gasps for air.

Kicking, Aprils scurries on her back, jerks over
onto her forearms and pushes herself up as another wave of death emerges from
the surf. She catches a glimpse, the faintest outline of a child standing in
the street above the retaining wall that keeps the ocean at bay.

April’s arms swing as she gains footing and begins
to sprint. Drenched voices, muddy and gurgling, chorus behind her. The dead
seem to be right at her heels as she dashes toward a set of stairs that lead up
to the walkway along the coast. She looks back again for fear of being
overwhelmed by the dead. She breathes deeply, trying to calm herself as she
realizes they are still struggling at the shore, slowly making their way out of
the foaming waters.

Holding firmly to the handrail, she pulls herself
up every step of the stairway, exhausted. At the last rest, April snags the
sole of her shoe on a bit of broken concrete and topples downward onto the
landing. Her head hits the walkway with a thud before her vision whitens into a
burst of electrified cloudiness.

In a kaleidoscopic whirl, clouds twirl and dance
above her, peppering a perfectly blue sky with wisps of white and gray. Her
breath is heavy, labored as she watches the world spin around her. April blinks
several times, trying to bring the image into focus. A throbbing pain beats at
the side of her head, pounding in unison with her injured knee.

A white bearded face appears above her, mingling
with the clouds in the background as the rest of his features snap in and out
of focus, “You’ll be fine. We’re going to get you out of here,” he says,
patting her forehead, his voice is hallow and sympathetic; his movements, quick
and restless.

Heat rises from below, trailing dark smoke tinted
with the smell of burning hair. April’s feet tingle from the warmth. Glass
breaks. A bright, orange flash is followed by a booming whoosh. The dead howl
and hiss at the explosion. She can feel their voices reverberate through her,
mingling with the flesh of her back, working along her spine, and resting at
the base of her skull.

“Where am I?” April asks, but no one is there to
answer.

Seconds seem like hours while she lays there,
confused and forgotten.

“I’ve got you, hold still and we’ll be out of here
in a jiffy,” the old man reassures her.

April feels hands nudge up beneath her shoulders,
lifting her, sliding her over a few feet. She is gently placed upon something
soft, something safe and comforting. Her legs come next. A pain shoots up from
her knee, mingles with the slightest discomfort from her ankle before she feels
the cushion beneath her.

The view below the barrier exposes itself as April
feels herself being lifted. She peers down through the smoke at the landing of
the stairwell, greeted by flames that lick upward toward the sky. Through heat
vapors and black smoke, the faces of the dead appear deformed and surreal,
flailing at the fire. Bodies shamble off along the beach, ignited, screaming
through melting mouths and crackling bones as April is pulled away. The smell
of gasoline is strong, but she can’t pinpoint where it is coming from.

She cocks her head to the right. Her eyes are
heavy, but she can see a child holding a small rifle. At the end of the barrel
a potato is fastened; holes carved through the surface like some type of
science project gone wrong. For a moment, she wonders if she’s seeing things.
The child levels the weapon, aims and pulls the trigger. With a muted pop, the
potato flashes and a creature falls a half of a block behind. The child nods at
April and gives her a wink.

Unable to see where she is being taken, April
watches as the world departs. She can feel every scrape and bump as the
makeshift cot is dragged along the rough surface of the walkway. Her head bumps
on a protrusion beneath the matting of the cart. Her hands fumble with the bars
along the sides.

“Where are you taking me?” April asks the child.

“Don’t worry, Grandpa is taking us somewhere safe,”
the child replies.

Beneath disheveled brown hair and a scarf that
covers most of the child’s face, April realizes a little girl dwells within.
Her voice is timid and soft, reassuring and calm. There is a fire in the
child’s eyes as she levels the rifle again.

Pop!

As she is being dragged away, April watches a
corpse that follows. With a sudden look of realization, the creature stops in
its tracks and topples over backwards, a small hole appearing on its forehead,
right above its left eye.

The little girl pats April’s arm, “See? I’m a
pretty good shot,” she says, lowering her scarf. “I’m Emma. What’s your name?”
she smiles.