Dead Living (7 page)

Frank gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. It
felt good, no longer having to sneak around. They only kept it a
secret so they could sort our their feelings. At first, it was just
sex, but then it grew into something more.

“It's okay. We don't come out here that
often. And I don't think we'll ever get used to it.” He gestured to
town. “This is all just still so . . . unnatural.”

Aaron slowly looked across the houses, the
small corner businesses, the streets. He saw the world in a way his
family would never be able to understand. He saw much of what the
world was like in magazines and books, but never experienced it. He
just couldn't imagine millions of people all living together
without going at each other's throats. As he studied the dead town,
he passed over a mailbox and fire hydrant, having no idea of what
either one was.

The town looked the same as it did last time.
Abandoned cars lined the streets. Vultures circled from above, then
they would swoop down and eat maggots off of the undead. Fallen
trees leaned into the roofs of houses. Nature had begun to reclaim
the town, trees and bushes growing in the middle of the street. The
only sounds were the shuffling and wailing of the corpses, and the
wind as it blew through the streets.

To Aaron's family, it was a ghost town, a
reminder of a life that once was. To Aaron, it was a place he never
got to know, a life he never had.

He watched the undead. They stumbled and
wandered around town without a purpose. Some didn't bother moving
at all. One pulled himself along with his arms, as he didn't have
any legs. Some of them were more decomposed than others, but they
were all horrible and disgusting. It was hard to believe that they
were once people, with their own thoughts and desires. Now they had
only one desire, and that was to eat the flesh of the living.

Aaron took another sweep of the town. He
noticed that some of the undead seemed to be stumbling in one
direction. He tried to figure out where they were heading. Then he
saw three figures in the street, running from building to
building.

“Hey Dad,” he said. “There's people down
there.”

“Let me see.” Joe watched as they shot a few
corpses while maneuvering around others. They were dangerously
close to getting grabbed a few times.

“What's going on?” Frank asked.

“I don't believe it. I think it's Dillon and
Shaffer. They got a third guy with them, don't recognize him.”

“Who?” Denise asked.

“Dillon and Shaffer. Two guys Joe and I ran
into last time we were out here. Good enough people, if a little
reckless. Guess they have a camp around here somewhere.”

Joe continued to look through the binoculars.
“Well, for better or worse, they're dragging half the corpses in
town along with them. We might be able to hit our normal stops a
lot easier today.”

“Shouldn't we help them?” Margie asked.

The men looked at each other. Joe felt a tiny
twinge of guilt, but that just wasn't the way the world worked
anymore. If they were in trouble against three or four corpses,
that was one thing. But Dillon and Shaffer were carelessly running
through town, attracting the attention of every corpse that could
still see, hear, or smell.

“No,” he said. “We'll hit the clothes store
first. Remember, always stay together. Don't wander off. When we're
back on top of the hill, we'll give Aaron a gun. Unless you want
one now.”

He shook his head without a smile.

They started down the hill. Joe caught
Denise's arm for a moment. “Hey, uh-” He fumbled for words. “I need
to talk to you tonight.”

She smiled. “Sure. I'm not going
anywhere.”

The five quickly and quietly made their way
down the hill and hugged the back wall of what used to be a
laundromat. Joe took a look around the corner. There were six
corpses in the way between them and the clothing shop. He tried the
other side and saw a much clearer path, although a more disgusting
sight. A single corpse with a raggedy police uniform slowly walked
with a broken leg. A malnourished dog ate at the corpse as he
walked. The dog chewed off one finger, then another. The corpse did
nothing besides moan and wail, only giving the occasional annoyed
glance at the dog. For whatever reason, they only craved warm human
flesh, not animal.

They heard gunshots. It was hard to tell
where they came from. With the eerie quiet, it could have been
close to the other side of town.

They sprinted around the laundromat and
across the street to the clothing store. The corpse with the dog
noticed them, but Frank dropped him with a single shot to the head.
Aaron flinched, like he always did. He knew they weren't people
anymore. They were monsters, which his books said didn't exist.

Joe and Frank did a sweep of the store while
everyone else hid against the wall behind a rack of clothes. Joe
used to be able to smell if corpses were nearby. But the walking
dead's numbers only increased over the years, and the smell was
everywhere.

The clothes store, like everything in the
world, was destroyed. The large glass windows that once separated
the store from the sidewalk were shattered. Clothes were scattered
everywhere. Mold grew on the walls.

They didn't say a word, just watched the
street. They'd been through these trips countless times. The street
was empty, but that didn't mean a thousand corpses weren't just
around the corner. It looked deceptively safe, but they all knew
better.

“Okay,” Joe said. He grabbed Aaron's and his
own backpack. “Fill these two up with as much as we can. Shoes,
warm winter clothes, you know the routine.”

They did know the routine, and it was a sad
one. Their van had run out of gas years ago, and the battery was
dead. Their trips to the city consisted of filling their backpacks
with whatever they needed. Backpacks only carried so much, and they
were always in short supply.

Frank tossed a thick pair of jeans to Joe. He
caught them and handed them to Aaron. Aaron shoved them in his
backpack as tightly as he could.

“You alright?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. Those things, they just scare me out a
little.”

Joe gave him a pat on the shoulder. Even
growing up in a world of the dead, there wasn't any way to
completely acclimate to the walking corpses. Everything about them
was inhuman, despite the fact they used to be human. The way they
moaned when no one was around, only showing excitement when they
sensed warm flesh. The way they staggered, unable to control their
own bodies. Aaron saw a man get killed once on a trip. It was
terrifying to watch them go from creatures without a purpose to a
bloodthirsty mob, in no time at all.

“Okay, we full up on two bags?” Joe asked,
keeping his voice low.

Frank nodded. “Yeah. But it's not much.”

Margie laughed, but it wasn't happy. “It
never is.”

“Okay, next stop, the Rite-Aid across-”

Joe was interrupted by gunshots. They weren't
far away this time. They heard some voices just out in the
street.

“Dillon! Stop shooting them in the fuckin'
shoulder! Get the goddamn head!”

“I'm trying!”

Dillon, Shaffer, and their friend stopped in
front of the clothing store to fire a few more rounds. Joe heard a
skull explode and a body fall. Dillon turned and saw Joe and his
family. He recognized Joe and Frank, whom he'd seen one other time
in town before, but not the women or teenage boy.

“Guys! In here!”

The three men jumped over a few overturned
clothes racks and joined the group.

“Frank. Joe,” Shaffer greeted.

“What's going on?” Joe asked.

“The corpses are coming. A lot of them.”

As soon as he said it, two shuffled on the
sidewalk in front of the store. They turned and moaned. Aaron tried
to fight the feeling that monsters were coming for them. But that's
exactly what was happening.

Margie gave the three outsiders an angry
look.

“And you thought it would be a good idea to
drag them to us?”

“We're just trying to survive here, lady.
More guns are better than a few.”

Joe held up a hand to stop the argument,
although he did agree it was a dumb move. No doubt they were just
looking for supplies, but Shaffer and his friends certainly went
about it the wrong way.

Frank dropped the two incoming corpses with
quick shots to the head. But they could hear the wails now, just
outside the clothing store. One showed up, then another. They were
coming.

Joe's fear started to rise, but he held it in
check. That was simply rule number one in the world of the dead.
Don't panic, and think.

“We won't be able to kill all of them,” he
said. “There's gotta be a back door to this place. Probably corpses
there too, but hopefully not as many.”

The third man with Shaffer and Dillon aimed
his gun and finally spoke. “No. I've got a better idea.”

He fired two times, but he didn't aim for the
walking dead. He shot both Joe and Frank right in the stomach. Joe
felt hot for a moment, a cold sweat forming. They both fell to the
ground.

“Allister, what the hell!” Dillon
shouted.

Denise and Margie were shocked, then started
to raise their guns. They were just a second too slow. Allister
already had his nine millimeter raised at Aaron's head.

“No no, don't flinch. Or the kid here
dies.”

“You asshole!” Dillon shouted. “These are
good people!”

Allister grabbed Dillon by the shirt collar
without taking his focus from Aaron. The corpses were still coming.
There were so many they couldn't see the street behind them.

“This is how it goes now,” he said. “This is
how you survive in this world. Get used to it.”

Aaron watched numbly as the cold, calculating
man led his two companions toward the back. Dillon and Shaffer
looked apologetic, but didn't stop. He wished he knew how to shoot
a gun, so he could fire as many rounds as he could into Allister's
head.

Margie and Denise were tending to Joe and
Frank. Margie was crying. Denise's medical training was trying to
take over. But she knew, here on the floor of an old clothing
store, with no supplies, there wasn't much she could do.

The corpses were fifteen seconds away. Aaron
got an up-close look for the first time. Maggots falling off their
flesh. Rags instead of clothes. Flesh decayed so much that bones
were exposed. They moved with that slow, unsteady gate.

Aaron grabbed the gun from his father's
hand.

“Aaron? What are you-”

He fired at the corpses. The gun felt heavy
in his hand, and his aim was terrible. He fired until the clip was
empty, and didn't kill a single corpse. It wouldn't have mattered
if he did. The store was full of them.

“Get out of here,” Frank said weakly. Blood
poured from his stomach and formed a pool under them.

Ten seconds.

“No,” Denise said. “We're not leaving.”

Joe grabbed her hand. “Denise,” he begged.
“Please, take Aaron and get out of here.”

“She said we're staying, Dad,” Aaron
said.

He felt hopelessness for the first time,
something his father and family had shielded him from his entire
life. The corpses marched for them, and nothing was going to stop
them until they had their warm meal.

Five seconds.

“Come on,” Denise said, determined not to
give up. “We'll drag you out of here.”

She grabbed Joe's arm. He pulled her in
close, so only she could hear.

“I love you.”

She smiled, despite death on top of them. “I
love you too.”

She grabbed one arm while Aaron grabbed the
other. Margie grabbed Frank's wrists. Before they could start
pulling, the undead attacked. They nearly stumbled over Frank, and
two of them took a bite out of his thigh. He screamed in pain and
managed to shoot the closest one in the head, covering himself with
gore and thick blood.

Their time had run out. Margie tossed herself
at the undead mob, trying to get them off of Frank. They swallowed
her up and pinned her down. Three of them fell on top of Denise,
biting her face as her head slammed to the ground. Aaron jumped on
his father to protect him.

Aaron cried as he heard his family slowly
dying around him. Their screams all mixed with his own. He felt his
body being shifted around, and realized he was no longer on top of
his father. He curled into a fetal position and covered his face.
He heard Margie's cries of pain slowly die down until there was
nothing. Frank died while cursing at the undead. Joe was next,
screaming his son's name, followed by Denise, who had somehow
managed to grab Joe's hand while dying.

Aaron didn't know that he was fourteen years
old. His family, his life at the cabin, was all he'd ever known. It
took two minutes to destroy everything.

He kept quiet, waiting his turn. He felt the
corpses moving and shuffling around him. He heard the sickening
sound of skin being pulled from bone. He felt something on his
face, and realized he was laying in a pool of his family's
blood.

But there was something he didn't feel.

Pain.

He didn't know how long he lied there before
he risked opening an eye. Five, maybe ten minutes.

There were corpses everywhere. They stumbled
and fell over each other trying to get to the warm flesh. Aaron
looked at the lifeless face of his father, right before a corpse
reached in and pulled out Joe's tongue.

Tears fell from his eyes. He slowly pulled
himself into a sitting position, not caring that he was sitting in
what was left of his family.

He couldn't think. He just stared straight
ahead, not quite seeing the corpses shuffle around him anymore.
This was the moment Frank used to tell him could happen at any
time, but deep down, Aaron didn't honestly think he'd see.

He was alone.