Authors: Jeremy Laszlo
Several of them are too close to the wall for comfort. I look at them as they walk in broken shuffles, moving somberly across the dusty lawn, searching for their escape. Their faces look so disfigured by their transition. Some of them have chewed their lips off; others have lost their noses or ears. They remind me of when I had to do a report on the syphilis plagues in the Middle Ages. How they’re all still standing is completely beyond me.
Even though it isn’t needed, I hold my finger up to my lips, cautioning Lexi before we start making our way across the room. The sliding glass panels of the doors are so dusty and dingy that I’m certain that they can’t see us with their limited vision. As we walk across the room, I wonder what it is that they’re thinking. Some of them are standing so still, with their faces elevated toward the sky or their heads hanging low, staring at the dust. What do they spend their days thinking about? Do they think? I’m not sure they can even be afforded that general kindness. They’re monsters, nothing more.
As we make our way closer toward the door, I stop at the sound that splits through the air like the head of an axe through a log, shattering the trance that holds the shuffling zombies. I hear Charlie wail at the top of his lungs, and so do all of our guests in the back yard. It’s like someone hit a gong and called all of them to dinner. At first, some of them just twitch, twisting and turning as they arrange themselves to face the direction of the sound, pinpointing it like dogs on the hunt. I look at their faces as those who still have lips twist them, pulling them back in snarls and sneers. Some of them cough, trying to get their vocal chords to work again. One of them lets out a bellowing roar that shakes my bones. Poor Charlie, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s just done.
They’re all quivering, shaking with excitement at the prospect of food. I watch them as they all shudder and come to devilish life, moving more animatedly as they start hunting for an exit, an access point to find their prey. Soon, the snarling drives them all into a frenzy.
Chapter Five
Time is not a luxury that we have right now. As I look at the doors, I know what’s going to happen. I feel like I have the clarity of Nostradamus right now, seeing into the future and knowing with unhindered certainty that things are about to get terrible. Although it’s predictable, I suppose that I should have seen this coming much earlier. Maybe I did. Maybe I was too stubborn to accept the inevitable, but here it is, whether I wanted it or not. I stare through the dusty, dirt-smeared windows of the sliding doors in the back of the living room and I feel like I’m bracing myself for a tsunami. I don’t have time. No one has time. Time is a precious commodity that we’ve all run out of. In fact, I think we all ran out of it a long time ago. I don’t even have the chance to look over at Lexi who is in the room next to me, seeing the same thing. I’m sure she knows exactly what’s coming for us, just like I do. Is it even worth drawing my Sig?
The sliding doors shatter as the shuffling zombies no longer retain their Romero-esque personalities. They’ve become monsters. They’ve become something feral and fast. I watch as the first of them punch through the glass, head first and skidding across the carpet, slamming into debris and junk littered across the room. They’re cut up, lacerated by the glass and bleeding everywhere. The smell of blood and the sense of agony and struggle draws the others. They look to the house and the shattered sliding doors where their fallen brothers and sisters are waiting for them. The first three through the glass doors are the first to die. I watch as those behind them clamp onto their ankles, dragging them over the door frame, cutting them more on the glass shards still embedded into the frame. I watch as the fallen few shriek and roar, betrayed by their comrades. In a matter of seconds their cries are drowned out and cut short by the sounds of the feeding. It doesn’t take long.
I can feel Lexi’s hand in mine, squeezing my hand tightly and reminding me that I’ve had my palms sliced up by glass already. I don’t mind. The pain is just a reminder that I’m still alive and that she’s here with me. I don’t feel so abandoned with that reminder. I stare as the freaks start coming through the breach in the wall. They’re free from their prison now and as they enter the house, it gives us a few blessed moments while they try to adjust to the darkness of the cavernous home. With Lexi next to me, I feel like there’s nothing we can’t stand against, but I don’t want to test our luck. Not yet.
We’ve been in a few houses now in this subdivision, and they are pretty much the same. I’m certain I can readily recall the way out. We only have a hallway and a few rooms before we’re at the front door. I look at Lexi and squeeze her hand back, turning to head for the door. I know the way out of here. I know how to save us. I know that we can get out of here before they get a hold of us and kill us both. Before five have even entered the room, we’re out of the living room.
It takes just one corner for me to realize that I was mistaken. I look at the wall and realize that it’s not supposed to be here. We’ve gone the wrong way. I look at Lexi and feel the sinking dread deep down inside of me. This is not good. My heart starts pounding and I feel the terror welling up inside of me, spilling over, out of control. We’re not going to survive. I had one chance to act and I made a fatal error.
We’re trapped in here with those things. They’re coming for me and I’m stuck inside of this house with them. They’re coming for me and they’re going to rip me apart, tear me to pieces and they’re going to eat my sister here with me. I feel the pounding of my heart quickening, drowning out everything. I’m not going to survive. I reach behind me, feeling for the handle of my Sig, hoping that it will magically give me courage, but when I feel it, all I can think of are the four bullets in the magazine. Four bullets, that’s enough for me to end my life and take a few of them with me. I look over to Lexi. I can’t make that call for her. I can’t take her life for her. She has a gun. She can do that herself. I feel the terror rippling through my body, shattering every last fiber of my existence. I’m not going to make it. The truth settles over me and instead of calm, I feel only dread.
Slicing through my dread, I can hear Greg shouting something outside. Through the walls, his voice slithers into my ear and I feel my pounding heart stopping entirely, vibrating at a level with hummingbird wings. I can’t even feel it anymore. My breath is locked in my throat, unable to escape with me. I look to the direction of where Greg should be. I want to jump through the walls, turn into a ghost and escape to him. I want to be with him right now and be long away from these terrible things. I want to be free. God, I wish I could understand what he’s saying. I look at Lexi, hoping that she caught it, but she’s not paying attention to me right now and I can’t blame her. Why would she waste time worrying about me right now? Death is literally upon us.
The sounds inside the house are drowning out everything. All I can hear are the moans and groans of the hunting creatures that are tearing apart the house they’ve infested as they seek us or a way out. Right now, I think that they’ll take either. I can hear Greg honking the horn and I suddenly realize that he’s trying to lure them out. Or at least, I think he’s trying to do something heroic. Maybe he’s just shouting a late warning to us. Right now, it’s hard to tell. All I know is that there are a ton of creatures back the way we came and we don’t have much of an option for escape.
Lexi pulls my hand. There’s no time to think right now. It’s time for action. I feel Lexi pulling me away and I’m heading with her. There’s nothing here but death if I don’t move my feet. I feel something inside of me forcing me forward, forcing me to act. I made a bad call, but right now, we might still have a chance. There’s still a hallway for us to go down and there are doors, so that means there has to be hope behind one of those doors. I follow after Lexi, hoping that she has a better judge of direction and salvation than I did.
We expect that there’s going to be bedrooms, obviously, but none aside from the master bedroom we visited earlier have yet been forthcoming. There has to be at least two other bedrooms in a house of this size. We move as silently as possible and as quickly as we are able through the hallway to find the first doorway. Lexi grabs the handle, twisting it and pushing open the door and finding that I was exactly right. I’m sure that she was expecting it as well. Looking over the bedroom, Lexi finds just the exit we needed.
On the far side of the room, a window sits on the wall, large enough for us to slip through and get out of the house. This is our chance to escape. This is our chance to get away and find safety from all of those things out there. I look over my shoulder as I silently close the door, listening to the latch click as I can hear the things already coming down the hallway, sniffing and skulking as they go. They’re in hunting mode. I look at the curtains wafting in front of the window and pray that it’s not jammed shut or anything like that. If it opens, then we’re out of here. Heck, even if it doesn’t slide open, I’m willing to pull out my pistol and blow a hole through the glass and climb out. It would be worth one of my four bullets.
Lexi has her gun trained on the door, silently giving me the order and the opening to go and investigate the window. I rush toward it, wondering what we’re facing because there’s no light coming in from the outside. Maybe we’re facing the neighbor’s house or we’re facing the fence. Either way, it’s a window and we’re going to get out of here. I feel that flicker of hope inside of me that I know to be more than a little dangerous. Hope is unbridled optimism and that’s a lie. It’s dangerous. I have to remain calm. I have to remain confident that we’ll get out of here and I’m going to need my head for that.
Throwing open the curtains, I feel my hope immediately burning away as I realize why there’s no sunlight or light of any kind coming in through the window. Whoever was in this house decided to board up this one window and not any of the other windows on the house? I shake my head. Damn it. Why did we have to pick this room? Couldn’t we have picked the other door? Couldn’t we have gotten a little bit of a break? I look at the plywood covering the window and realize that all hope isn’t lost, it’s just another roadblock that we’re going to have to overcome. I look at it, wondering what it’s going to open out onto. Is this going to throw me right into the middle of the back yard where a dozen of those things are still eating their friends?
Lexi turns and faces the window when I turn back to look at her. There’s no way we’re getting out of here without bringing those creatures in the living room down on us. I know that they’re already out there in the hallway, hunting us, listening for us. If we bang once against that wooden barrier, they’ll know where we are and they’re going to come for us. We can’t win that fight. I look at Lexi and before I can whisper something to her, I hear the doorknob squeak.
I look at the faux brass knob turning and I feel the familiar sense of dread seeping through me, permeating my entire core. Oh God, they’ve found us. I watch the door swing open and the once man standing there. At first, he’s just a shadowy figure standing in the doorway, scanning the room with eyes that don’t quite work the way they used to. As he searches the room, the creature takes a step forward. Lexi and I don’t move. For some reason, I can only think of Jurassic Park, praying that these things can only see movement. I pray that stillness will trick this thing into thinking that we’re not here. I look at the monster as he takes another step toward us, the light coming over him. Whoever this guy was, he was wearing basketball shorts that are now completely stained and tarnished by the creature’s current lifestyle.
He looks gaunt, emaciated by the conditions that he’s come to know. As he looks at me, his eyes look like there are milky cataracts growing over them. His teeth are yellow and blackened by the rot and decay of blood and other horrors stuck in his teeth. His hands and forearms are blackened by blood that has caked dust and ash to what remains of the flesh there. He reaches out for us, leaning forward to charge.
I don’t give him the chance. Before he can let out his infernal roar, I raise my Sig and aim for center mass, squeezing the trigger in the blink of an eye. The first round punches through the monster’s chest, the second blows open his face, hurling him backwards against the doorframe. Blood splatters across the wall and the doorframe, covering the walls. I look at his ruined body, finally brought to the end that it has been searching for—for God only knows how long. The sounds of the gunshots send shivers down my spine. There’s no going back now. There’s no escaping that way. Every one of those bastards in the house heard those shots and they’re going to be gunning for us in a matter of seconds. I look at Lexi who is already working at getting the screen out of the window. There’s a crumpled up cot jammed behind the main bed just below the window.
There’s no time for Lexi and her calm, take things gently approach. I turn and slam the handle of my pistol against the window, shattering it in my first blow. I watch as the fat, jagged shards of the window crash into the sill and onto the carpet, ringing the dinner bell again. Turning away from the window, Lexi lifts her pistol and puts a bullet through the second zombie to try and get into the room. The sound of the shot makes me jump slightly, but I only feel the adrenaline kicking in. No more cowering and muttering
oh me, oh my
, to myself. We have to act and right now, this window is our only way out of this damned house, so I’m going through it.
I use the barrel of my Sig to clear out the large shards of glass that might catch our heads or hurt us on the way through the window. I knock all of it free, listening to the approaching snarls and shrieks of the approaching monsters. They’re all encroaching on our position, but thankfully there’s only one way into this place and right now, Lexi has her gun trained right on the doorway. All we have to do is get past the plywood. Taking a step back from my work, I look at the wooden barrier before giving it a kick that shakes loose the last pieces of glass waiting to fall from the frame. The plywood doesn’t give hardly at all; in fact, I can’t even tell that it has given any. Recovering, I kick again, watching as it slightly budges and I feel the encouraging feeling of success seeping through me.
Lexi squeezes the trigger again, putting a hole through yet another zombie. I watch as the shuffling zombie slowly drops to its knees, clutching its throat as blood boils out between its fingers. Its jaws snap, as if the blood coming from its own throat is making it more ravenous. The creature topples, falling backwards over its dead brother. It comes down with a crash in the hallway, drawing others to feed on it, maddened by the scent of blood. A third tries to get in through the doorway, but Lexi aims and takes another shot as I kick at the plywood once more. Looking over my shoulder, I see that the bullet took the top of the creature’s head off. The bodies are stacking up, which is nice for buying us time, but it won’t last long. They’ll still want to feed on us if we don’t get out of here soon. Fresh meat, I presume, is preferred over the bodies of their own kind. I kick the window again.
“I’m out,” Lexi says to me and I know that it’s time for us to switch places.
I ignore the door and Lexi immediately holsters her gun and heads for the window. I raise my Sig, ready to kill any of the intruders. As I hold my Sig ready, Lexi immediately goes to work on the window in a way that I didn’t before. She kicks the frame, breaking the cheap metal and shattering more glass. Slamming her weight against the plywood, she grunts as she works, adamant that she’s getting us out of here. I’m grateful that she has a better hand at this than I did. But I’m not certain that we’re making good enough time. She’s noisy and already I can see the shadows coming down the hallway.