Liam couldn’t see a thing as the water ran over his lenses. “OK, set it down here,” he hollered once they reached the fence.
Back at the apartment, Christine had found all the long wooden beams, but they were too heavy to lift by herself. She stepped out of the apartment and into the hallway to stand at the edge. Her neck craned to try to watch them put up the first beam, but the rain fell in thick sheets.
She straightened up and folded her arms. She had to bounce on her feet to keep warm. What was taking them so long? She bit her thumbnail and stretched her neck again to see if she could spot them through the heavy rain.
“We have to wedge this side in the ground and this side up under the fence. Then, we should be able to push it back up,” Liam said. He didn’t know if it would work, but they had to try. Liam grunted blindly as he maneuvered the heavy beam on his own.
“Watch out!” Jerry called out.
Wood creaked as the weight of the dead piled onto the fence. The further it leaned, the more the two men could make out of what was waiting for them on the other side—long, boney fingers, bloodied, savaged arms, and torn faces with gnashed teeth.
“Go back!” Liam yelled as he turned to run.
The fence gave way to the cold, muddy ground.
Liam pumped his arms as the rain beat against his face. He didn’t look back, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to know how close the hoard of dead was to him or how many there were. “Christine!” He shouted.
She stepped out into the rain with the axe in her hands.
Liam was only halfway back to the building. “Go back! Go!”
It was hard to hear what he said, but when another white flash of light burst through the sky she saw the mass of bodies streaming in through the fallen part of the fence. The dead expanded outward like a growing pool of blood once inside. The first ones through spotted Liam and Jerry immediately and hounded after them, while others wandered around the grounds, some behind the buildings, hidden away.
“Jerry, come on!” Christine yelled as she jumped up and down to wave him in.
Jerry ran as fast as his legs could carry him. His back sent a sharp, fiery pain down the lower half of his body with every step he took. He looked over his shoulder to see three zombies about ten feet behind him.
His heart beat rapidly in his chest. He swore it was beating against his ribcage. He couldn’t swallow. His throat felt constricted as the cold air and rain rushed down it. He pushed himself to run faster than he thought possible, but his back couldn’t handle it. With an excruciatingly tight pinch, his left leg stiffened and he fell hard to the muddy ground.
“No!” Christine yelled as she rushed out with the axe.
Liam caught Christine around the waist before she could make it to where Jerry laid writhing in pain.
“What are you doing? We have to help him!” she cried out as she tried to push her fiancé off with her elbows.
The dead fell over Jerry as he rolled over onto his back. His screams echoed through the grounds as hands dug into his abdomen to rip out his innards. Red mouths ate away at him with fervor. Blood and carnage dripped from their chins.
Christine crumpled as her tears mixed with the rain on her face. Liam still had her around the waist and held her up from the ground as she sobbed and screamed.
Jerry, still alive, yelled out as rows of teeth sank into his neck and shoulder, ripping away the flesh to expose the tender muscle underneath. As another set tore at his throat, his screaming turned to blood-filled gurgles and then he was silent.
Several bodies made their way slowly to where Liam and Christine stood, bypassing the crowded mass devouring the lifeless body on the ground.
“Go!” Liam yelled as he shoved Christine ahead of him.
XVI.
Christine Moore ran up the stairs of building six with the axe swinging at her side. She heard an agonizing scream from behind her and almost fell. She turned with both hands clutched on the railings.
Liam held on as he was pulled back by ragged hands that gripped at his ankle. One of the mangled dead was on the ground beneath the stairs, blood dripping from its teeth as it snapped at the air. If he let go of the railing, the rotting corpse would drag him down and devour him. If he didn’t do something soon, the rest would come to finish him off.
Christine raced back down the steps to him. With her axe raised high above her head, she took a breath and swung it down to sever the hands from their arms. The thing that was had once been a woman didn’t recoil or writhe from the pain. It didn’t bleed out or even give up. It snapped its jaws and tried to pull itself forward on its two bleeding stumps.
Christine grabbed Liam’s arm and pulled him forward and up the stairs. Once inside their apartment, she slammed the door and locked every single lock while Liam let himself fall onto the couch.
When Christine was done with the door she turned to him. “Are you OK? Are you hurt? Did it bite you? Are you bleeding?” She asked question after question as she touched his head, arms, and torso, working her way down. When she got to his lower legs he stopped her and placed his hand over hers.
Tears filled her large eyes.
XVII.
The muscles in Christine’s face pulled downward as she closed her eyes and lowered her head. Her shoulders shook as she cried hunched over at Liam’s feet. She threw herself onto his knees and buried her face in her arms.
Liam reached a hand out to her shoulder and pushed her back away from him. The hopeless look in her swimming eyes made his throat tighten as he tried to keep himself together. “You shouldn’t get too close.”
“Liam,” she breathed out.
She reached for him again, but he leaned further back into the couch. It was like a knife to the heart.
“I should go. It’s not safe for you. You shouldn’t be near me,” he said as he tried to stand up. When he put weight on his right leg it buckled and he fell back again with a groan.
“You can’t go,” Christine sobbed. “You can’t leave me now.”
He leaned forward and lifted her head up so she would look at him. “You could die if I stay here with you.”
She took a few ragged breaths and her bottom lip sucked in. She tried to stable herself before she spun out of control. How could this have happened? Why hadn’t they reinforced the fence long ago before those things multiplied so tremendously? A shiver ran down her back as her cold, drenched clothes clung to her thin frame.
They’d been living in a false sense of security. She looked around at their apartment, a dim glow from the two logs in the fireplace was the only light source they had. Other than the lack of electricity, everything looked completely normal. It was untouched by the outside world. She’d even gotten the blood stains out of the carpet. Their supplies had dwindled to the bare minimum, so boxes no longer stacked against the wall, but were broken down and placed out of sight in the walk in closet in the bedroom. Anyone who walked in would have thought it was a safe place, that they were back in the normal world. But it wasn’t safe and there was nothing normal about it.
She turned to Liam again and forced herself to take deep breaths as she closed her eyes. It worked. Her heart rate slowed a bit and her hands steadied as best they could. She wiped at her wet face as she sniffed. “I don’t…” she sniffed again. “I can’t live without you, Liam. I can’t.”
“You have to,” Liam said urgently. “You have to survive this and you have to stop me from coming back.”
She shook her head as the tears reemerged. Her blonde ponytail whipped at her back.
“You have to do it, Christine. Right in the head. I don’t want this to turn out like it did for Sally. You have to stop me before I come back as one of those things.” He reached out a hand to her. It was as cold as ice.
“I can’t do it,” Christine said. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“You don’t have a choice! Please. Promise me you’ll do it.”
She looked into his frantic eyes as they stared back at hers, begging for her to say she would end his life.
He was already going to die. She knew it and he knew it. They didn’t have much longer together. Maybe a day, maybe a few hours, maybe less. Neither had any idea how long it took for the bite to infect a person and kill them off. They’d never seen it happen.
Christine thought about Jerry and wondered if he’d gotten back up, if he walked around looking for them so he could devour their flesh and brains. Liam’s eyes urged her again and she gave in. She didn’t want to spend their last moment arguing.
“OK,” she said as more tears fell down her cheek. “I’ll do it.”
XVIII.
Christine helped Liam to the bed and lifted his leg. She was careful not to touch where it’d been bitten. “I should take a look,” she said as her fingers neared the hem of his jeans. It was hard to see what was what through all the blood soaked material.
Liam breathed heavily as he leaned back on his elbows with his leg outstretched. He gave the slightest nod and squeezed his eyes shut. Off came his black sock slowly. It was saturated in blood.
Christine stopped herself from crying, but her heart continued to beat rapidly against her chest. Her thin fingers worked the pant leg carefully upward. Liam’s light leg hairs were matted and tangled.
He sucked in a sharp breath of air and gave a small groan as she raised the jeans over the tender wound. Christine winced when she saw his pained face. “Sorry,” she said with a matching grimace. Once his wound was exposed, she sat back and stared, trying to conceal the horror she felt.
Liam’s eyes were averted to the ceiling as his breathing deepened even more. He couldn’t bring himself to see how bad it was. It didn’t matter. He would die either way.
The flesh had been torn away completely, leaving a hole with ripped strands of muscle hanging out. The brightest blood Christine had ever seen flowed out and onto the white sheets. “Oh, God,” she breathed as she got up and ran to the bathroom. She searched the cabinets in a blind panic.
When she came back seconds later she had one of their first aid kits clenched in her hands. Her fingertips were white from the pressure of her hold.
“There’s no point in wasting anything on it,” Liam said, still looking at the ceiling. “Just wrap it up and leave it.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and unrolled the gauze.
Liam yelled out when it touched the shred of flesh and gaping hole in his leg. With every wrap he lifted himself from the bed and winced. The pain was worse than anything he could have ever imagined. When she was done, Christine climbed onto the bed to lay next to him. He leaned his head back onto the pillow and turned his head to face her. Sweat ran down into his eyes.
“You’re so strong, love.” His voice was soft and strained.
Christine let out a throaty laugh as more tears fell to soak the pillow. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are and you’re going to survive this. I know you are.” Her head turned down and her eyes shut tight. “Hey,” he said sharply. She looked up at him again though her long lashes. “You’re
going
to
make it
.”
She nodded her head and let her eyes close again as she tried to sniff back the tears. “If I do, then I’ll be just like one of them…” Her eyes flickered over the black windowpane. “Dead inside.”
Liam coughed into his hands. It racked his entire body and rattled in his chest. Christine reached a hand out to his forehead.
“You’re warm,” she said, sitting upright.
“Really? I feel so bloody cold.”
She hopped off the bed and stood next to him. They worked together to get him under the thick, gray blanket, which he pulled up to his chin and clutched in his hands. Christine wondered which would take him first, the infection or the loss of blood. She looked down at him and brushed the hair from his eyes. Something was missing.
“Where’s your glasses?” she asked.
“They fell off when I bent down to set the beam on the ground,” he said with a huffy laugh. “Probably why I didn’t see that one crawling by the stairs. Blind as a bat, you know.”
Something so simple, so small, something they never even considered as lifesaving lay somewhere in the mud, trampled on by the relentless shuffling of the dead.
XIX.
As the sun slowly rose over the horizon, it lit up the apartment grounds. The bloodied dead and carnage that strewn the mud and grass basked in the warm orange glow. A robin chirped in the tree right outside the bedroom window. Christine looked over as Liam, who groaned on the bed. He’d tossed and turned all night, sweating under the covers as his fever rose. He constantly shook with chills.