Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (16 page)

25 ARE WE THERE YET?

(back to top)

Yussef began to whimper that he was
hungry. Alexis urged him to hold on as long as he could.

“
We need to get somewhere
safer,” she insisted.

“
There are some snacks in
the back I believe,” Abdul said.

The other children then realized that
they too were hungry, and in moments the SUV was full of crying
hungry children.

“
Stop crying!” Carrie
yelled.

“
Don’t yell at them like
that,” Alexis scowled at her.

“
Then keep those fucking
brats quiet! It’s hard enough living like this without having to
deal with them.”

“
You’re way out of line,
bitch, and if you keep it up you won’t have to worry about the
friggin’ zombies because I’ll tear your throat out by
myself.”

Chris started to cry again, and then
so did Leela. The yelling scared them and confused them.

Carrie turned to her, “I’d like to see
you try you skinny little--”

Abdul backhanded Carrie across the
face, “That is enough. Shut up or get out. When we stop you can see
about riding with the others.”

“
Bastard,” she hissed,
pressing a hand to her face, “how dare you.”

“
Stop it!” Stacey yelled,
almost at tears herself. She sounded as if she’d yelled at a man
hitting a woman before.

He glared at her, “Shall I pull
over?”

She said nothing more.

Alexis had never seen a woman get
smacked by a man like that, at least not in real life, and it
shocked her. Carrie deserved it, and if Abdul hadn’t done it Alexis
was prepared to do worse. It must’ve shocked the children too;
because they had quieted down a bit since it happened.

Stacey sat quietly, looking at Abdul
in a different light. Her father and mother fought all the time.
Her father had hit her mother a few times, her as well, but only
when they fought. Most of the time they were happy. She missed her
mother and father, even if her father was mean
sometimes.

Alexis shifted the children aside and
rummaged through the supplies in the back till she found some
snacks for the kids to munch on. What she found was far from a
meal, but it was enough to turn their crying into
munching.

“
Chew slowly and take your
time eating, okay?”

They nodded in unison, but seemed to
inhale the food.

“
Think we’ll be stopping
soon?”

“
I doubt it. We’ve been
moving too well to stop. I know it’s uncomfortable for all of us
now, but the longer we can do this for, hopefully the better we’ll
be in the long run.”

“
Agreed, but try telling
them that,” Alexis said.

“
Just stay strong, we’re
closing in on the state lines and night is drawing closer. They’ll
want to stop and set up camp. I think we’d all agree it’s a bit too
dangerous driving these roads at night with all the debris on
it.”

“
Too bad this truck doesn’t
have a DVD player so I can keep them distracted. I think that would
help a ton.”

“
I bet it would. When we
set up camp later maybe we can give them something to do. Collect
sticks or something. A task could prove distracting.”

“
That sounds like a
blast.”

“
It would get them moving,
and give them something to do.”

“
I know, just saying is
all.”

***

“
Jon, now that you’re up,
let’s talk about how we’re going to cross the state
line.”

“
Well, Scott,” he scratched
his head, “I didn’t think that far ahead, at least not with any
specifics other than north.”

“
You’ve got to be shitting
me. That was the entirety of your plan? We went a long with this
out of the hope you knew where you were going, that there was an
idea, a destination, a fucking clue.”

“
Easy man, I had some vague
ideas, but to tell you the truth, I didn’t see any easy way. Or a
clear way to get across considering how shitty the roads have been.
I was thinking maybe we could take 287 into New York, or
Connecticut, or maybe find a boat and cross the Hudson, you know,
fucking whatever presented itself.”

“
Than you should’ve said
that. You got me worked up now. So you want to head into New York,
or shoot for Connecticut? 287 can take us to either or, actually we
have to go through New York either way, but who knows what the hell
that mess will look like.”

“
Don’t care. Eddie
suggested northeast, trying to stick to the coast. I like the sound
of it, but can we even do it?”

“
That would mean going into
Connecticut, which gives us fewer options. The most direct way I
think is 287 and onto the Tappan Zee bridge, unless we can find a
ferry or boat to cross the Hudson. I’d rather keep our vehicles,
though, but taking the bridge just sounds like a nightmare. I doubt
we’d even be able to get to it.”

“
Let’s give it a shot at
least. Even if we can’t do it we can still follow the Hudson up and
go up and around. Head over to Palisades Park and take 87 into
Albany.”

“
Maybe we can camp out in
the park for a day and rest up,” Judy suggested.

“
I’m down for that. Might
be a good place to scavenge for supplies. They have a boat dock
there too, I think. It’s starting to sound better than the bridge
now.”

“
Yeah, but we should stay
focused. We have a destination in mind, anything else is a
distraction. The sooner we can get someplace safe, the sooner we
can scavenge and stock up and fortify wherever we end
up.”

“
Then keep driving. Let’s
see what the Tappan Zee has in store for us.”

“
I hate bridges,” Judy
said.

Dawn nodded in agreement, “yeah, me
too.”

Janice thought about the bridge. She’d
only been over it a handful of times and remembered how anxious she
would get being on it. The lanes were narrow and everyone seemed to
speed over it. She wondered if they would chance walking over it if
they couldn’t get by in the vehicles. The bridge could be a good
place to die.

She pictured herself walking over it,
falling further behind from the others—she was older after all, who
would think anything of it. The lanes were narrow and sure to be
full of cars and trucks, maybe even debris. They would get close to
the peak of the bridge. The group would splinter off. There would
be too many distractions and everyone be looking forward rather
than behind. Then maybe a deader would lurch out of a truck, or
crawl from underneath one and grab her. She would scream, but she
wouldn’t do anything to stop it, she wouldn’t even move. Just close
her eyes and let the fucker have at her. Goodbye cruel world, hello
paradise.

26 HEART OF THE
MATTER

(back to
top)

Sarah fought Ben with all she had, but
what she had left wasn’t much. Ben didn’t so much as flinch with
any of the blows Sarah was landing on his face. Her knuckles
reddened, her wrist ached, and her strength waned. Ben laughed it
off and threw her onto the bed with such force she smacked into the
headboard.

The dead things stood in the room
almost motionlessly, swaying in place gently.

Ben lunged on top of her and she
screamed louder than she ever thought possible. It was useless,
futile, and Ben knew it. He smiled a sickly grin. His lips were all
ready chapping and shriveling. He was starting to look dead, which
made any expression on his face infinitely more disturbing and
unnatural.

“
Come here
sweetheart.”

“
Fuck you!”

“
How’s this sound. If you
go along with this and act like you want it I’ll be kind and kill
you quickly. If you want to fight me and buck me the whole time,
I’m gonna take my time. I’ll kill you so slowly that you’ll wish
you were never fuckin’ born.”

“
I won’t give in to
you.”

“
That’s your choice, but
know this: it doesn’t fuckin’ matter. I offered you mercy but if
you want to suffer, then suffer you will.”

He grabbed her by the hair. And began
to lick at her neck. His tongue was dry and felt like sandpaper.
His breath smelled like rot and when he went in to kiss her she bit
his lip and tore a chunk of it off.

Ben didn’t scream in pain. He only
smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason, girly.”

She chewed the lip; hoping whatever
kept him alive would kill her before he did.

The realization hit him almost
immediately.

“
You cunt! Give me that
back!”

He grabbed her face, prying open her
mouth, but the bitch already swallowed the two-inch flap of his
lip.

“
Fuckin’ a girly. Guess you
found a way of dying quicker, eh?”

Ben felt deflated, and Sarah almost
triumphant.

“
Still don’t mean shit. I’m
gonna make it hurt till yer one of us.”

Then he punched her in the face,
drawing blood and sending a jolt of pain across her teeth. He
pulled out a knife and flipped it open. It was no bigger than the
size of his palm, but it looked sharp, and when he held it up to
his face and smiled it might as well have been a
chainsaw.

He grabbed her by the throat and
savagely cut her clothes off. Scraping, gouging, and slicing her
with the knife as he did so. The more she fought the harder he hit
her back. She was losing steam. The energy to fight back was
depleting. Was it the dead flesh in her guts working it’s magic?
She didn’t know, she didn’t really care. She just wanted it over,
and maybe if he hit her enough times she’d black out. So, she
kicked him and hit him again. Enraging him. He gave her what she
wanted and punched her again. This time breaking her nose and
making her two front teeth loose and numb.

She wanted to feel numb all over. She
found the strength to fight more. Ben knocked her two front teeth
down her throat and made her whole mouth numb. She gagged and
screamed but she still didn’t pass out from the pain.

Ben began to pull his pants down. He
willed himself to get hard, but failed miserably. He tried to push
it in soft, but with the bitch squirming the way she was it would
be impossible. He punched her several times. The face, the body,
her thighs and her groin. His blows felt hard every time. Never
softer, always the same intensity. He fought the urge to stab her
and be done with it. He wanted to stretch it out. To really make it
agonizing. Then he thought of something else he could do with the
knife. He held it alongside his dead dick and began to ease it into
her.

Her screams were unlike any he’d heard
before. The pain took her breath away. Each thrust was a new hell
and a new level of pain she’d never thought possible. It didn’t
take long before she finally passed out from it, but when she awoke
the pain began again.

The dead filled the room. Mumbling
nothings, wanting to groan and grunt, to pull and prod at the wound
that was Sarah’s womanhood. They wanted to rend her flesh and eat
her innards. Pluck out her eyes and tear her throat out, but some
force kept them at bay.

Ben ran the knife all along her body,
wiping the vaginal blood all over her face. She whimpered,
defeated, and dying slowly like a tiny white mouse in a snake’s
cage.

The knife went in deep. Agony atop
agony. The dead thing that was Ben only seemed to smile wider. He
could feel her slipping away from him, though. Whatever dark shit
was in his blood was in hers and it was starting to take shape. He
could see it like an aura, smell it, and taste it in her
blood.

She would be one of the dead, not like
him though, like the others.

She felt it too. A burning inside that
was different from the physical hell she’d been in. It felt like
every nerve ending was on fire. Like her guts were turning inside
out. She couldn’t wait to be done with all of this. There could be
nothing worse, could there?

Ben straddled her. Sitting on her
stomach. He lifted the small knife high. Sarah looked at him,
barely able to focus, and didn’t seem to care anymore about the
pain and the promise of more. It was almost done. All of
it.

He brought the knife down into her
chest—between her breasts. He began to cut the flesh out. Digging
in deep with the knife, prying the muscle from the bone. Her
screams were nothing more than a reaction, muddled, and distorted.
Her lungs were filling with blood and he was stuffing the skin and
sinew into her mouth. He violently began to stick her with the
knife, making a hole in her chest. Her sternum was proving to be
laborsome for the small knife but he almost had it. Then after
several more relentless blows he pulled her heart out and shoved it
into her mostly toothless mouth, but she was already too dead to
notice.

Moments later her eyes opened, but
Sarah was gone and whatever remained, started eating her
heart.