The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel (21 page)

Since I couldn't scream, I tried kickin' my legs but that made it feel like my muscles were bein' ripped in two so I just ended curling up into this little ball and holdin' my stomach, hopin' that the pain would go away.

Mr. Carl was still talkin' but his words were all messed up now, too but I knew he'd started throwin' stuff at the wall cause I could hear the crashes as he broke stuff.

And then I really did start throwin' up and it seemed like once I started I couldn't stop. It was comin' outta my mouth and my nose and stung really bad and I wanted to lift my head but couldn't do it. So I laid there with all this puke around me and every time I would stop throwin' up for a second I would open my eyes cause it hurt to keep them squeezed shut so tight.

My throw up looked kinda like foamy water only there was these bright red streaks in it and the more I vomited the redder the puke got and it was all thick and sticky.

By this time, I couldn't hardly move at all. I tried to see if maybe I could crawl backward so my head wouldn't be laying in all that throw up, but my legs didn't wanna listen to my brain and when I tried to use my arms the only thing I could do was wiggle the ends of my fingers. And even that hurt so bad that I just stopped tryin'.

Mr. Carl was kneelin' beside me and he kept makin' the same set of noises again and again and then he started shakin' me. I tried to look at him t' see if he was finally gettin' ready to kill me but it was like this real thick fog had somehow rolled into the church. I could see his hands comin' outta the fog but everything else was like shadows and stuff.

And I started gettin' really, really tired right about then. It was like all that throwin' up had taken up all my energy and all I wanted was a nice, long nap. Mr. Carl put two of his fingers on my neck for a bit and it's hard to describe how it felt. It's like I knew his fingers were there only it seemed like everything was really far away. Like it wasn't really my neck at all, but someone else's.

But that didn't even really matter. All I wanted was to just go to sleep. To just close my eyes and hope that maybe when I woke up I wouldn't be sick and it wouldn't hurt any more.

And I remember how the darkness kinda slowly closed in around me. How everything just felt farther and farther away the darker it got. Until finally, there wasn't anything other than the dark.

Me and the blurry people are still in the woods and it's started rainin' on us only no one really seems to care. The rain is comin' down really hard too and lightning keeps flashing every few seconds and the thunder booms so loud I can feel it in my feet. We keep walkin' even though it’s all muddy and some of 'em keep falling down and tripping over old logs and stuff.

And I still got that feeling like I'm being pulled. Everyone else seems to be heading in one direction and part of me wants to follow them. But it’s like I don't really have no control over my own actions and I start breakin' off from the others and walkin' toward the left.

The other people around me kinda stop for a second as they watch me start t' walk away. A few of 'em even turn and start to follow me, like I'm the new leader or something. Once they start following, the others turn around and they begin walkin' with me too. And I don't think they can feel the pulling like I do; I think they didn't really have nowhere in mind that they were going so my way was just as good as anything else.

We cross this big road and there's all these wrecked cars all over the place only they look like maybe they wrecked a long time ago. But we really don't pay much attention to 'em and just keep walkin' until we're heading down this little hill. The mud and all the rain makes it really slippery and I end up falling and rolling all the way to the bottom where a tree finally stops me. Only it didn't hurt or nothin' when I hit the tree so I just stand back up and start walkin' again.

That tugging feeling is really strong now and it feels like my whole body is just being pulled along. I want to walk faster but it’s like I can't. All I can do is take these little baby steps that don't even really make me lift my feet all that much.

And I see this little cabin up ahead, all by itself out here in the woods. It's really old and run down and I can hear the door bangin' as the wind blows it and I can also tell that it's that place that's been pulling me all along.

Lightning flashes and even through the rain I can see someone layin' inside. They're not blurry like us and I know this means that they'll be warm and that they can make the hurting stop for a little bit.

My legs feel like they want to run toward the cabin and that warm person but they can't. So I just keep takin' those baby steps and the door of the cabin gets closer and closer so slowly that I don't think I'll ever get there.

But I hafta. I hafta get there, hafta get that person inside just like we did with the lady in the checkerboard shirt. It hurts so bad and I just want it to stop. I just wanna feel their warmth in my belly and on my chin and hands. So I keep walkin' and the others keep following.

We'll be warm soon enough. Even if it's only for a little bit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: CARL

After Josie died, I reckon I went a bit crazy. Up until then, I'd always been pretty darn careful in my dealings with the dead. If the odds looked like they were stacked against me then I'd try to skirt around the freshies and rotters whenever I could; I tried to learn from my mistakes, to constantly improve the technique of keeping my ass alive.

I suppose, on some level, I'd just stopped caring about what happened to me. I kept making my way toward that little church only because that's what I promised Josie I'd do. But it seemed like every stinking, rotten face I saw along the way was like a match tossed into a puddle of gasoline. I'd see a group of corpses staggering along and everything just flared up so quickly that I could almost hear a whoosh and feel the heat of the flames wash over my soul. All I could think of was Josie, of Jason and his mother, Watchmaker, the little girl in the forest, and all the friends and family I'd lost along the way. Their faces flashed in my mind like a slide show of suffering.

And I blamed those damn zombies for all of it. It was like these creatures suddenly embodied every horrible tragedy that had ever touched my life and I wanted nothing more than to crush their ugly fucking faces beneath the heel of my boot, to hack limbs and feel their cold, putrid blood oozing across my hands. A shot to the head was too kind for them, too easy. I wanted to make them suffer, to rip them apart with tooth and nail if necessary, to actually feel their bones crack and break....

I'd found a lawnmower blade in the barn when I was looking for a shovel to bury Josie with. Also found some duct tape and I'd ended up wrapping the silvery stuff around one end of the blade until it bulged out and formed a handle of sorts. And this makeshift weapon became the sword of an avenging angel: a dark angel who tore through the countryside and burned with righteous anger, cleaving a trail of destruction that marked his path with signposts of arms and legs and headless torsos.

I can't reckon I can rightly say how many of those bastards I left lying in little chunks. Enough so that my shirt and jacket became so stiff with congealed blood that it seemed as if they'd been dipped in glue. Enough that I had to sharpen the blade at least twice a day and was continually keeping my eye out for more tape to patch up my handle.

But even then it was never enough. I wanted to wipe each and every last one of those god forsaken nightmares off the face of the earth. And when the last one had fallen, when the world had been cleansed of their filth, I would raise my blade to the sky and shout at the top of my lungs:
Is that the best You got? What now? Bring it on! Just You fucking try me, You sanctimonious bastard!

Of course, that day never came. In the end there were simply too many of them and I was so damned tired. Hatred takes a heavy toll on a body: it saps the strength from you so slowly you don't even realize you're reacting a fraction of a second slower than the day before. You don't notice that your lawnmower blade isn't sinking into the skull quite as deeply as it used to. You have no clue that all you really want is a deep rest and an end to all the torment and anguish that gnaws within you like a pack of famished rats.

But I made it pretty damn close, didn't I? I reckon about eighty or ninety more miles and I would've been there
.
Still, maybe it's for the best that I got myself bitten. What did I really expect to find there anyway? Some sort of absolution? Some kind of forgiveness? Well, maybe I never really deserved it anyway.

I mean, who the hell leaves a little boy to die alone? It doesn't matter that he was fading fast anyway. I should've stayed with him up to the very end. Hell, at the rate the sickness took hold after he ate the flesh from that dead freshy it wouldn't have taken long. The last time I felt for a pulse it was so shallow and weak that for a moment I thought the boy had already turned.

To be entirely honest, I really didn't know what to do. I was scared, sad, angry, and defeated all at the same time. If only I hadn't left the damn backpack behind or had taken the time to raid that grocer before entering the church. If I'd only put a little more fucking thought into my half-assed
rescue
or never left the boy alone to begin with....

I'd done nothing but destroy every life I'd touched since this damn thing had started. Every idea I had seemed to have a way of backfiring on me. So yeah, I threw me a little tantrum in that church. Anything that wasn't bolted to the floor ended up flying through the air and smashing against the walls: song books, candle holders, pews... I tore through that building, cussing at The Man Above, tears streaming down my face, lost and confused.

I'd snatched this picture off the wall of Jesus with all these little children clustered around his feet. I held the gilded frame so tightly that the edges started cutting into my fingers and I pressed my face up so close that my spit peppered the glass as I yelled. I can't rightly remember exactly what I was shouting but it was something about how it wasn't fair, how this wasn't supposed to happen to kids, and that I didn't know what the hell He wanted out of me.

After a bit, I threw that picture so hard that I kinda stumbled over my own feet as I let it go. I fell to the ground and heard the shattering of glass at the same time my body thudded against the floorboards.

My head shot up and I saw that the picture had flown right through one of the stained glass windows and the stench of the crowd outside filled the room like air rushing into a vacuum. I picked myself up and stood directly behind the boy, who was moaning so softly now that it sounded more like a wheeze.

I looked at the bloody vomit that caked his Power Rangers t-shirt, at the way his veins seemed so dark against his pale skin.

Pulling my pistol from my waistband, I leveled it at the back of his head. The barrel was mere inches from his sweat drenched hair and I knew I should pull the trigger. That I should end his suffering and give him the same gift I'd given his mother.

But I couldn't do it. God knows I wanted to. My brain was telling me to pull that trigger but my body was in the midst of a full blown mutiny. All I could do was stand there and cry as I thought of that little girl in the forest.

Mister, I....

I couldn't kill another child. I just couldn't. So instead, I turned tail and ran. I scrambled back up that ladder and shimmied across the church roof just like I'd planned. Into the branches, then from tree to tree, and then finally dropping to the forest floor. And I simply walked away, trying not to think of the little boy who had utterly depended on me. The boy who was now taking his final breaths utterly alone.

I don't know how long it's been going on, but the rain is really pouring down now. I can hear it slapping against the roof and the wind is slamming the door against the wall as cool wind gusts into the inside of the shack. The breeze causes the exposed nerve endings in my side to scream in agony and I grit my teeth as I close my eyes.

I listen to the patter and think that maybe it's time to leave all this behind. I've lived long enough to hear that final storm and that's all I really wanted. Maybe now I can know peace.

The pistol feels so heavy that it takes every ounce of concentration I have just to lift it. But isn't this how it always was in the books and movies? Our so-called hero with the barrel of a gun in his mouth, a single round in the chamber, ready to usher his way into death?

I open my eyes to take one final look at the world and see that dark silhouettes are shambling through the doorway. Looks like I reached this decision not a moment too soon.

A flash of lightning illuminates the shack in electric blue and for a moment everything is as clear as day. I can see the decayed and peeling flesh of the rotters, the way their wet clothes cling to frames so frail and withered that it’s amazing that they can still stand at all. And I can also see that the one out in front, the one leading the pack so to speak, used to be a little kid.

Another flash of lightning right after the first and I see the small rotter is wearing a tattered t-shirt that's splotched with bloodstains. But I can just make out the Power Ranger logo and it takes only a fraction of a second for memory to overlap with reality.

The lightning fades and I can hear the scuffle of feet against the floor. So close now that I can smell the rot and mildew.

The barrel of the pistol floods my mouth with a metallic taste, like sucking on a penny.

I try to tell myself to just do. To pull the trigger and end this fucking thing.

But I can't. It's like I'm suddenly paralyzed and this thought keeps going through my head. What are the chances that out of all the rotters out there this particular one just happened to find me?

Lightning again and the creature that used to be Jason is only a few feet away now. There's no recognition on his face, no emotion what-so-ever. Just that empty stare of the walking dead.