Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (22 page)

He
waits, bides his time, and allows the dead to come closer. Their voices rise as
they spot him like hungry dogs lapping at the wind, searching for food. They
bite at the air, at the promise of taut skin, at the living thing that waits
for them to feed.

Johnny
steps up onto the box and grabs the top of the wall, looking over his shoulder to
make sure they are still coming. He pulls himself up and drapes his legs across
to the other side.

Still,
they draw nearer. On withered legs, they come.

When the
first of them are only a few feet away, he leaps to the other side and lands in
soft, rain soaked grass. He lies there for a moment, listening to their rasping
voices, muffled from the other side of the wall. He breathes softly, taking in
the smell of the grass and the soil and the flowers that grow nearby. For a
moment, he feels like laying there forever, forgetting the dead, forgetting the
past, and letting the void of sleepy eyes and aching bones take him away to
lonely dreams.

He lets
the blades of grass pass through his fingers, lets their dampness linger on his
palms, and allows the softness to pull him in. In his blissful daze, he hears a
tapping like an S.O.S. signal. At first, he believes that he’s imagining it,
but the tapping becomes louder, more aggressive as he lies there, unmoving. The
taps turn to scrapes and he peers up from the ground, lying on his belly and
stares toward the house.

There in
the sliding glass door, a body quivers, smearing itself along like a snake,
unaware of its own limitations. He lets out a sigh and rises to all fours. The
weight of his body threatens to drop him back down, but he grits his teeth,
tenses his muscles, and gets to his feet.

The
abomination slaps away at the glass, wavering drunkenly through the vertical
blinds. It tosses back its head as if it weren’t in control of its own neck and
slams its forehead against the pane with a thwack. It rolls its head to the
side, awkwardly and bashes against the protrusion again.

Johnny
breathes rapidly as he stands, staring at the creature. Every muscle in his
body screams out in pain as he tries to find a way out of the back yard. Every
section of the wood fence resembles the next and he tries to focus his eyes to
make out the details. He works himself toward the side of the home, keeping a
vigilant eye on the corpse that bangs against the glass door. The corpse snarls
and stares back.

He
fumbles with the latch on the gate, lifts the lever and slides it over slowly.
Even his fingers ache as they refuse to cooperate, dropping the latch once the
gate is open. He stumbles out into an alcove covered with bending trees that
shade the sidewalk from the blaring sun. A wispy wind arises once he wanders
from the cover of vegetation, bringing the salt air from the ocean into his
nose. He holds his breath for a moment, savoring the fresh smell, a smell that
rarely comes over rancid decay.

His life
is without meaning, without purpose as he considers going on without April. He
can’t find a point to living in this burning nightmare. Nothing has substance
beyond the hateful dead and the sweet wind that laps at his skin. If he could
grow wings, he would soar into the sky, fly past the images of angels that
streak his imagination, and dive into the sun. He would let the fire melt away
his regret and cleanse his soul. He would proudly burn for the chance of
freedom.

Unable
to decide where else to go, he makes his way through the streets, heading back
to the apartment he shared with April. He decides to struggle past the dead and
over the iron gates that surround Mike’s place. Once inside, he will head to
the roof and ponder death. Maybe this time he will be able to jump.

No
matter whether April would have wanted him to live or not, he can’t seem to find
a reason to keep struggling. He yearns for the sweet release of cold concrete,
for the bones snapping within the husk he has become. He wants to spit on the
dead as he falls.

Still
dragging his feet, the dead turn their heads at the sounds of the broken man
amongst them. They begin to shamble off behind, calling others to follow their
quest. He can hear their feet pound and scrape from behind, shuffling closer
now.

He can
hear a little song in his head that he used to sing when he was younger. “
Summer
breeze
,” he whispers through parched lips, “
makes me feel fine…
” He
smiles at the memory of listening to it over and over again with April. He
hears her sigh at the music as he pulls her closer and kisses her forehead,
tucking her hair behind her ear. If it weren’t for memories, the future would
never be.

Like the
Pied Piper of the dead, Johnny leads the magnitude of bodies along through the
neighborhood. At first glance, he looks to be their shambling, stumbling leader,
disheveled and spent. But upon closer inspection, he is merely their victim.

·16

The glow from the flashlight is
dim in the midday sun, almost unperceivable as the child flashes it toward the
window of the office building.

“Quiet as a mouse,” Emma
breathes and tucks the light back into her pack when she sees the woman nod
from the window.

She watches the writhing bodies,
intertwined from a block away. There are more than she has ever seen before.
Their rotten limbs and contorted faces blend with one another like scowling
facades drenched in coagulated filth. The culmination of moans sound like a
low, pulsating hum as each dead voice mingles with the next.

They crane their necks at the
faintest sound, searching desperately for anything of substance. They climb
over one another, bombarding the walls of an office building with putrid and
decomposed fists and fingers, smearing waste along the surface like primitive
graffiti.

Emma has her rifle slung tightly
across her back, nestled between the folds of her pack. She keeps low to the
ground, switching her vantage point from one abandoned vehicle to the next as
she makes her way along the street. As she scurries alongside a delivery truck,
she spots a body dragging itself on the ground. She climbs onto the step at the
side of the truck’s cab and silently opens the door as the creature drags
itself under the vehicle.

The corpse sniffs the air as its
tongue laps out of its jawless mouth, coursing along its leathery neck like a
worm dangling from a black and slimy crevasse. It inspects the area where it
had registered movement. With dripping, milky eyes, it slithers away once it is
satisfied that there is nothing there.

The girl tries to keep herself
calm as the corpse wiggles alongside the truck, making its way through the
gutter. She doesn’t dare move for fear of alerting the ghoul. She remains motionless
until the corpse has rounded the corner of the next street and slithers off out
of sight.

Her grandfather has told her
that things happen in life for a purpose and she begins to believe him when she
gazes down between the seats of the delivery truck and finds an unopened candy
bar. She picks it up by the upper portion of the wrapper and silently places it
in the bottom pocket of her coat.

Through the driver’s side
window, Emma looks out upon the crowd of bodies as they continue to slam against
the building. She gazes up at the third story window and sees a woman give her
the thumbs up. From her backpack, Emma pulls out a small device, extends the
antenna and turns it on with a switch situated in the center between two
joysticks.

She can’t hear the hum of the
remote control car a few yards away, but she knows that the dead can. The
corpses begin to twist their heads around, looking for the source of the sound.
In the distance, the small car moves back and forth as Emma plays with the
controls, trying to get the attention of the dead.

The crowd surges as the
electronic sound of the car winds up, moving a few feet forward then stopping
for a second as Emma waits for the bodies to catch up. Hundreds strong, the
bodies lurch forward, tripping over one another as they shamble off toward the car.

Emma giggles under her breath as
a corpse falls to the ground and the crowd behind follows, tripping over one
another. She stops the toy and waits until the dead have regained their footing
before finally putting it back in drive and navigating up a wheelchair ramp.
Once the dead are in position, Emma drives the car off of the side of the ramp
and watches as the bodies pack in. She taps the throttle forward, taunting the
dead.

Once the crowd disperses, a
group of survivors emerge through the debris of office chairs and desks that are
positioned against the inside of the front doors. The woman Emma had seen in
the window is the first to emerge, followed by a stout man in a disheveled security
guard uniform and finally, a young, brown haired boy.

The three survivors scurry off
along the street, moving away from Emma. She pulls a small length of tape from
a roll she has removed from her bag and tapes the joystick in the forward
position before exiting out through the passenger side door and back onto the
street.

When the car is out of range of
the signal, it begins to circle, stop and reverse as the dead pour out from
over the railing of the wheelchair ramp and land in a pile below, trying to get
at the device. Straggling, decrepit hands probe through the railing, left
behind by the others that launched themselves over.

Emma runs after the group of
survivors and follows them into a walkway between two buildings.
She glances upward at a sign that indicates they
are heading toward the train station at Central and Graham. The footbridge is
narrow, surrounded by a chain link fence, and Emma worries about getting
trapped in the enclosure.

The woman ahead turns and waits
for the girl, letting the man and the boy go ahead of her. “Come on,” she
beckons, “it’s just a little further.”

“Just go, I’m coming!” Emma
shouts.

She can hear the dead getting
closer and quickly glances over her shoulder. Ragged and decay deformed bodies
begin to squeeze into the alleyway. Black, lifeless lips snarl and distort,
exposing broken, stained teeth. Hordes of the walking dead fill the alley,
scraping against the brick buildings at each side, and shed scraps of putrid
flesh upon the once clean façade.

The woman turns the corner and
begins to descend the stairway to the train terminal as Emma catches up. Once
they clear the final landing, the boy slams the chain link gate at the bottom
of the stairs behind them and closes the clasp. He inserts a scrap of heavy
wire from his pocket into the lock fitting and twists it closed.

A guttural scream sounds out
from alongside the train tracks as the stout man grapples with a cadaver. He is
pushed back hard against a boxcar as the autonomous body inches in with bared
teeth. The man wrenches his arms up between himself and the corpse, managing to
keep the creature at bay as it snaps at him between jutting out its filthy,
flailing tongue.

The boy scavenges a length of
board from a pile of broken pallets at the edge of the train platform. With a
look of intensity on his face, he rears back with the board and sends it into
the base of the corpse’s neck. A high pitched crack ensues as the aged board
snaps in half, leaving splinters in the decomposed flesh. Gelatinous filth
smears away from the dead thing’s spine, exposing bone and gore that oozes out like
a pustule on leprous skin.

The impact is enough to make the
creature turn its attention to the boy. It stumbles, waivers and reaches out
drunkenly as its dead, placid eyes home in on the child. As if at the edge of a
sneeze, the cadaver’s jaw hangs slack before it lurches forward.

The stout man’s eyes widen as
the creature turns, and he launches himself onto its back, sending it hard to
the ground. Face first in the cold concrete platform, the body writhes in the
man’s grasp, trying to turn over to face the meal on its back. He grabs the
corpse by its hair and slams its face into the walkway, smashing out most of
the creature’s front teeth. Again and again, he slams the cadaver into the
cement until it finally goes slack and lays face first on the ground.

Covered in the waste, the man
stands up on unsure legs. His breath is labored and quick as he stares at the
cadaver. Pulsating mush leaks through its collapsed skull. A moment of sickness
graces his face and he closes his eyes, trying to get his stomach to settle. He
looks through the corpse’s pockets, but comes up empty handed.

The dead bombard the gate,
snarling and moaning out in hunger at the group on the other side. They bite
and snap at the fencing as if they were trying to eat their way through and
bash their hands against the metal strands.

The boy backs away from the gate
as his face contorts. “We have to go,” his voice shakes.

“He’s right, that won’t hold for
long,” the stout man adds, motioning to the buckling gate.

“The main station is this way,”
the woman says. “It should be safe. The CDC locked it down when all this
started.”

The group follows the tracks
through abandoned cars to the main terminal and up along a maintenance walkway
to the rear entrance.