Ghosts: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (9 page)

The finality of the deed wasn’t lost on Glenda as she
slipped a pair of Louie’s 2X sweatpants over her own pair of Levi’s. Holding
the bathrobe open, she looked in the mirror and noticed the sharp ridges where
the magazines she’d taped there bulged underneath. Like a Saturday Night Live
caricature of a hard core bodybuilder, her thighs and calves appeared enormous.
Perfect.
Resisting the urge to stare in the mirror, clap her hands, and
say,
I want to pump you up
, she instead slipped back on the worn Hi-Tec
hikers that hadn’t seen action since last year’s trip to Yellowstone. As she
cinched the leather and nylon items tight the movement caused a thick strand of
sinew to work loose from the robe and fall across the top of her hands with a
wet
splat
.

Gloves,
she thought to herself.

She found the fingerless leather driving numbers, one of
many accessories to Louie’s mid-life crisis, in the closet stowed inside the
authentic
Aberford tweed driving hat which was placed strategically on the shelf above
the camel hair coat he usually donned for their many weekend countryside drives.
She smiled, remembering him in the ensemble. So proud. Yet so goofy-looking. A
Scotsman in English aristocratic guise. An article in a car magazine kicked off
the obsession and in a weeks’ time a restored one-owner Austin-Healy Sprite was
taking up space in their garage, as well as her mind. But she loved Louie so
she learned to love that car. And the getup. And the faux English accent he’d
surprised many a gas attendant with—even the ones who knew him.

She stopped by the bed and ran her fingers through his
matted hair. Scooped a pair of number tens and a second pair of the smaller
number eight needles from the bedside table. The metal was cool and reassuring
against the skin of her left inner forearm as she slipped all four underneath
the National Enquirer taped there.

“Bye, honey,” she whispered. With two fingers extended in a
V she closed his eyes. Cupped his cheek with her palm and let it linger. “See
you on the other side.”

Worrying the chain and gold crucifix around her neck, Glenda
took the stairs down one at a time. Stiff-legged. Robot-like. The turn at the
landing was a little challenging. A slow pivot was all it took to get her
facing in the right direction. There would be no running with this improvised
suit of armor. That much was clear.

Once in the kitchen, Glenda peeked through the boarded-over
window and saw nothing dead in the backyard. So she pulled up a chair and
prepared her final meal in the only home she’d known. And though she was awash
in the stink of death, a dozen saltine crackers and half a bottle of mustard
was necessary to mask the fishy flavor and odor so she could choke down her next
to last can of sardines.

She stuffed the half-sleeve of crackers and remaining tin of
sardines in one of the robe’s pockets. In the other she slipped a manual can
opener and a medium-sized kitchen knife wrapped tightly in a dish towel. The
former she brought in case she found a place to stay the night that hadn’t already
been thoroughly looted. Nothing worse than having an itch you can’t scratch,
she figured. The latter she brought as a decoy in case she ran into brigands
like the ones who used to prowl Huntsville. Give up the knife, and the knitting
needles might go unnoticed. Fifty/fifty chance of that one working, she
conceded. She looked around the kitchen and decided that she had no more
strategizing left in her.
Time to get the show on the road, old broad,
she
thought to herself.

‘
Go on living
,’ is what Louie Gladson told her
shortly before drawing his last breath. ‘
Keep it simple,
’ were his final
words. Words that jogged Glenda’s memory, spurring her into action. She transited
the kitchen and dining room and hooked a right at the arched entry to the living
room and wobbled over to her chair, which was smaller than Louie’s but as a
consolation had a side pocket from which she retrieved a blue book, dog-eared
and bristling with sticky notes. It went into the robe’s other pocket and she retraced
her steps. In the kitchen she took another look between the horizontal boards
and saw the coast was clear. So she plucked the claw hammer from the floor and pried
a couple of boards loose and, with a tear tracing her cheek, threw open the
deadbolt.

***

The Austin’s battery didn’t have a spark. That had been
confirmed three weeks after the dead took over the streets in downtown Huntsville.
And was also the reason Louie was dead. She presumed his demented mind must
have convinced him it was OK to try and start the thing and go for a midnight drive.

Shaking her head, Glenda eyed the Austin with equal measures
disdain and disgust. Why not a reliable pickup? Or a Ford Taurus like every
other couple their age over in Logan and Salt Lake City? He might still be
alive. If not lost and tooling the countryside without a clue to whom he was or
where he was going. At least he died
trying
to do something he loved,
she thought warmly.

Seeing a lull in undead activity in the general vicinity,
Glenda got into character and quietly hinged the back door inward.

Negotiating the steps was a pain in the neck. She had to
take them one at a time in order. Once on the concrete walk she slowly panned a
one-eighty from left to right. Left was clear. Just beds of water-starved dirt full
of long dead flowers. Harkening in fall, the leaves on the lone oak in the back
yard were starting to get tinges of yellow at their edges.

The garage was dead ahead, its door wide open, a useless low-slung
car with a dead battery staring right at her. With two massive headlights atop
its fenders, the burgundy roadster looked wide eyed, like it’d been caught
doing something red handed—or more appropriately, thought Glenda, like she had looked
the day she realized the shit really had hit the fan, a permanent state of
shock parked on her face.

A bit theatrically, she stumbled off the lowest step and
angled for the gate while consciously adding a stagger to her gait. The moment
she rounded the southeast corner of her home the sound of bare flesh on
flagstone reached her ears. A dozen yards downhill, visible just over the scraggly
low shrubs bordering the dogleg-shaped driveway, a female zombie ambled down
the sidewalk, eyes fixed ahead, mouth set in a permanent sneer.

A lump formed in Glenda’s throat, but she didn’t let the
fear overwhelm her.
Be them,
her new mantra, cycled through her head.

Ignoring the dead thing, Glenda passed under the kitchen
window and two dozen laborious steps beyond it the dining room plate glass slid
by in her side vision. Finally she reached the front steps, her first real
test, and descended them with zombie-like precision, tottering and stiff-legging
every other stair until meeting the sidewalk with a spine-jarring final
misstep.

Once again she panned her head slowly to the left, unblinking
eyes locked forward, conscious to keep her features free of all emotion.
Be
them.

The sneering monster stopped on the slight incline, its head
turned stiffly, and fixed its guileless gaze on her. Head cocked, jaw moving
slow and clumsy, like a cow working a plug of cud, it seemed to be sizing her
up just as the last vibration coursed through her shin and exited out the
bottom of her Hi-Tec. The scrutiny lasted all of two or three seconds—a
lifetime for Glenda considering the consequences if the monster saw through any
part of her elaborate facade.

Fixing her own vacant stare on a patch of tall weeds across
the street, she about-faced left and ambled past the driveway and the zombie
wavering there.

When she was but a handful of feet from the first turn it emitted
a low rumbling growl, and in her peripheral Glenda saw the thing’s putrefied
legs from the knees down start to move. The road-worn bare feet with toes
scraped down to bloody nubs made a slow shuffle to the left that emboldened
Glenda to steal a quick little glance. She saw the back of its head, hair all
matted and home to twigs and bugs. A fist-sized piece of flesh had been rent
from the lower back area and there were purple ringed bite marks all up and
down the left arm, which started swinging rhythmically as the creature put one putrefying
foot in front of the other and ambled away in search of prey.

***

Ten minutes later, after another half-dozen benign encounters
on her block with flesh-eaters, two of whom she recognized as former neighbors,
Glenda turned left and, feeling the sun warm on her face and shoulders and hearing
no obvious sounds of pursuit, relaxed and allowed her head to loll and jerk
with each choreographed footstep. Leaving several fire-razed blocks of her old neighborhood
and scores more walking dead behind her, she proceeded east at a glacial pace
towards the car-choked gray stripe of SR-39 shimmering in the distance.

Cade entered the compound and paused in the perpetual gloom
of the foyer. Waited ten seconds. Fifteen. Then from down the corridor came a
greeting from Seth.

“Collecting my thoughts,” replied Cade, stalking from the
shadow and through the T. He stopped and craned his head left, listening for
his daughter’s infectious laugh. Hearing nothing, he approached Seth, whose
hair and beard were in some kind of a race to claim as much open territory on
his normally clean shaven face as possible. In the three weeks since Logan’s
murder Seth had let himself go in the grooming department. His dark brown bangs
now covered his eyes like a funeral veil and an inky black beard encroached like
wild brambles from all points east, west, and south. And barely visible,
protruding from the ragged thicket at each corner of his mouth, the mere sight
of which made Cade want to smile, were two spikes of twisted whiskers forming a
kind of
stealth
handlebar mustache—obviously cultivated in memory of his
lost friend.

“They’re all still in there,” called Seth. “Heard them
playing some music a little bit ago.”

“Music?”

“One of them has an iPod or something. Could have sworn I
heard Blue Oyster Cult.”

“Godzilla?”

“No, better.
Reaper
.”

Ducking his head, Cade entered the communications bunker.
“Excuse me,” he said, reaching in front of Seth. He plugged the power cord and
external antenna lead into the Thuraya satellite phone and arranged it on the shelf
next to the others. Checked the pair of long range multi-channel CBs taken from
the quarry. Saw they were fully charged.

Without prompting, Seth assured Cade he’d keep a close eye
on the sat-phones.

“Figured as much,” answered Cade. “Where’s Heidi?”

“Daymon asked me to take over. They went thataway,” he said,
hitching a thumb towards the back half of the compound. “And that’s all I
know.”

“I feel more comfortable with you here as it is. Any luck
getting anyone to talk to you on the shortwave?”

“Thanks. And no,” replied Seth, absentmindedly twisting one
bar of his mustache. He put a finger on the monitor. Specifying the panel
showing the entrance, he said, “Both gates are closed and, except for Phillip,
everyone’s inside the wire.” Then his eyes gave away the smile under his beard
as he added, “Chief bagged a deer. We’re having
venison
tonight.”

Busy staring at the monitor where a large group of Zs were
shuffling west to east, returning after encountering the fallen trees, Cade
said, “I’m already on seconds ... in my head.”

Seth chuckled. “See you out there tonight for thirds?”

“Probably, Seth,” answered Cade, eyes never leaving the
threats on the road.

A peal of laughter echoed from the left.
Definitely Raven
,
thought Cade.

Then, twice as loud, angry-sounding voices sprang from the
opposite direction. A man and a woman. No doubt about that. Not screaming or
hollering, though. Just an intense conversation filled with lots of emotion, none
of it his business.

Cade nodded to Seth then set a course away from the adult
voices, opting for a tack taking him toward the laughter.

He loitered outside the thin steel door for a second,
listening.

Inside, Raven and the Kids were discussing the age at which
one had to stop watching SpongeBob SquarePants in order to avoid being lumped into
the nerd category.

Someone piped up saying there’s nothing wrong with being a
nerd
.
Name calling is a form of
bullying
.

Knuckles about to deliver a knock, Cade let his hand hover over
the door and smiled because Raven was the one sticking up for others. And there
had been real conviction in her response.
We’re doing something right
,
crossed his mind as he rapped sharply.

All talk ceased.

Cade figured he could hear a pin drop in the corridor.

He knocked again. This time announcing himself.

The door hinged open and Raven was there, smiling, in her
ears tiny white buds each trailing a thin wire. “I thought I asked you to give
that thing back to Taryn.”

“You did,” said Raven, much too loudly on account of the
music emanating from the tiny speakers.

Cade frowned and shushed her.

She added, “And I did. Just listening to a group called the
Clash. Combat Rock, it says here.”

Pulling a bud from Raven’s ear and speaking loud enough to
be heard inside the Kids’ quarters, Cade said, “Taryn’s got good taste in
music.”

From beyond the door Taryn said, “Thank you.”

“Tell her you want to borrow it again.”

Screwing her face up in response to the request running
contrary to the previous order issued by her dad, Raven shrugged, looked over
her shoulder and asked to borrow the iPhone and pair of speakers Taryn had
scavenged from the quarry.

“Phone only,” whispered Cade.

“Forget the speakers,” Raven called out.

Taryn appeared at the door. “What do
you
need it for,
Raven?” And though the question was directed verbally at the petite
twelve-year-old, Taryn’s dark eyes bored into Cade’s.

“For the music,” proffered Raven.

Crossing her arms, the tattoos gracing them forming an
intricate road map of precise line work, Taryn said, “The battery is almost
toast.”

Nodding and holding Taryn’s steely gaze, Cade replied, “
She
will bring it back shortly. Can
she
have the solar charger also?”

Taryn said nothing. Disappeared back inside.

The tension not fully registering, Raven looked up and
mouthed, “The charger? Are we going somewhere?” But before Cade could answer,
the door opened wider and Sasha was there, hands on hips. A tick later Wilson
appeared, towering over her and shooting a questioning look directly at Cade.

Sighing, Cade began to explain himself but was cut short as
Taryn reappeared, handed him the shiny black accessory, and said, “I don’t
need
to know. Keep it for as long as
you
want, Raven.”

Cade made no reply. He took the charger, turned Raven around
by the elbow, and ushered her back the way he’d come, but instead of going to
their quarters Cade had them turn right at the T junction. A few seconds later
they were topside plopped down in the center of the crop circle. Shortly after
that the solar panel was arranged just so and the iPhone was connected and
drawing a charge.