The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel (6 page)

I knew what had happened, that one of them had almost had me, and wondered if it was still holding my shirt as it chased me. But I didn't want to look back again, didn't want to know how close they were now or take the chance that I would trip again.

I had started scramblin' up the side of a hill when I saw a little cave up ahead. It was a lot smaller than the one Mommy and me had slept in but I thought it was big enough for me to get into but not enough for them to follow.

As soon as I got to the cave, I kinda dove into the entrance like a baseball player slidin' in to home base headfirst. It was so small that I had to kinda wiggle 'cause the rocks were scrapin' my sides and my back but I just kept crawlin' forward.

If I coulda, I would've crawled right down to the very center of the earth. But, instead, I felt this hand grab my ankle and it was colder than any hand I had ever felt before, so cold that I could feel it all the way through my sock.

And then it was pulling me backward, back toward the entrance and I knew the moment my leg was outside it would all be over so I grabbed onto this rock with all my might and tried to pull myself farther back into the cave.

The monster was really strong and my fingertips began feelin' like they were about to snap right off and I suddenly felt a warmth in my pants and smelled pee. But even that smell wasn't as strong as the dumpster-like stink of the monster behind me.

My arms began shakin' real bad and I kept holdin' on to that rock and tryin' to pull myself in the other direction.

Then I felt another hand pullin' at the bottom of my pants leg and I knew that maybe I would be able to keep holding on if just one of them was pullin' on me. But I didn't know how long I would be able to stay in the cave once all three of 'em began pulling.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled at 'em. “Go away!”

But my yells only seemed to make 'em tug harder and next thing I know my fingers slipped from the rock and I felt myself being pulled backward, back toward the entrance of the cave and the three monsters waitin' outside.

CHAPTER TEN: CARL

So there we were, trapped in the car: I looked over at Doc, ready to tell him how it had been a pleasure knowing him and that I wish we woulda met before the whole world turned upside down. But he had that look he sometimes got. His eyes darted from zombies making their way toward us to the road beyond them and I could almost sense excitement starting to rise in him.

“I got an idea, Carl. You still buckled in?”

“Yeah. What's up? What you got in mind?”

Doc took the little cross that dangled from his neck and lifted the chain to his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment before kissing the pendant.

“It's the bottom on the ninth, Carl. We're down by one run and got one man on. No balls, two strikes, two outs. If I don't hit a homer on this pitch, it's all over.... ” With his eyes still closed, Doc reached for the ignition one last time. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “Please.... ”

The original freshy from the bridge was close enough now that I could see the rage in its eyes, that burning hatred that seemed to fuel its existence.

Leaning out the window, I pulled the pistol from the glove box and took aim. Two squeezes of the trigger and one sulfuric-smelling cloud of smoke later, the zombie's head dropped with a wet smack to the concrete below.

Doc turned the key and the car rumbled to life; but it was a life sort of like the ones most of those things out there lead: sluggish, nothing more than an shadow of its former existence really, and destined to succumb to the ravages of wear and tear in a relatively short period of time.

“Hot damn! I think we can avoid those rotters.” Doc shouted, “But we gotta do something about the freshies or else this car starting doesn't mean jack.”

I could tell he wasn't so much talking to me as working out his thoughts, so I stayed quiet and let his mind work.

“You pick off those freshies quick as you can, Carl. If your aim is good and this works out the way I think it will, we just might stand a chance.”

Before I could respond, Doc threw the transmission into drive and stomped his foot on the gas. The car lurched forward and, for one sickening moment when I felt as though my stomach had just plummeted into some bottomless abyss, I was positive it was about to shudder to a stop again. The engine coughed and wheezed, sputtered, and then roared to life again.

We were speeding toward the next freshy as it continued its mad dash toward us, the distance closing with each passing second. Leaning slightly out the window, I tried to steady my hand and pulled the trigger.

Rather than shattering the damn thing's skull like I had intended, the bullet slammed into its shoulder, causing it to spin around for a moment like some bizarre ballerina.

“Damn it, Doc, this car's shakin' too bad.”

The knocking from the engine was now so loud that I could barely hear the sound of my own voice and that dang corpse was so close that I could clearly make out the blood splattered Nike logo emblazoned on its shirt.

Doc slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing like a band of demons loosed from the gates of hell as the stench of burning rubber filled the air. Still leaning halfway out the window, I drew a bead, held my breath for a fraction of a second and pulled off another shot.

This time I hit my mark and couldn't resist letting out a whoop as the god-forsaken thing slumped to the ground. Part of me wanted to take a moment to cherish the small victory, but I knew there were still two more barreling toward us, intent of exacting their rage before the rotters, who were just now beginning to shamble across the bridge, ever had a chance. Two more shots rang out, both as steady and true as if they were guided by the hand of God.

“That's it for the fresh . . .”

But Doc was already laying on the gas again, his eyes narrowed into mere slits and jaw set in an expression of grim determination.

“Hold on tight, Carl, you hear me? Hold on!”

The crowd of rotters loomed before us like a wall of cadavers, packed so tightly together it was hard to see where one body ended and another began.

“We can't break through 'em, Doc! There's too many!”

The car thumped slightly as it bumped over the little ridge of asphalt where road turned to bridge. Fifty yards away now and I could smell the stench, sweet and greasy and sickening all at the same time, overpowering even the odor of exhaust and scorched oil, becoming trapped in my hair and clothes and nostrils.

The side of Doc's mouth turned upward into a slight grin.

“Through? Who the hell said anything about
through
?”

He jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right and we were suddenly racing toward the waist-high wall of the bridge. I opened my mouth, to cuss or scream or maybe just to make some wordless sound of fear; but before the breath had even left my lungs, our car smashed into the wall and we were flipping, the rear end lifting up and over, forward momentum carrying us over the little wall with the screech of metal on concrete vibrating through my teeth.

And then we were falling, toppling, road maps and empty soda cans tumbling like weightless astronauts through the compartment.  After a few seconds, my entire body felt a jolt like it had never known. Pain flared through every joint in my body simultaneously and I tasted blood, warm and salty, as I inadvertently bit through my lip. Everything still rolling now, but punctuated with bangs and crashes that whipped my head back and forth, pain shooting through my neck and shoulders.

We ended up upside down and I sat there for a moment, blinking and trying to make sense of exactly what had just happened, wondering where that high pitched ringing that was suddenly in my ears was coming from.

“Move!”

Doc had already slid free of his seatbelt and was scurrying through the twisted remains of the driver's side window, kicking free the little clumps of safety glass that still remained. Though it hurt like hell to even breathe, I somehow found the strength to follow him and was soon crawling across grass and staggering to my feet. Doc had already regained his balance and had turned to look back toward the way we'd come, one hand pressed tightly against his side as if he were hugging himself with a single arm.

I turned to look as well. The rotters on the bridge, in their single minded pursuit of the living, had done the same thing as the zombie on the overpass. We watched them falling and toppling through the air, a seemingly endless waterfall of decaying flesh as they spilled over the side; their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds, the snapping of bones so loud that it was almost like the constant crackling of a fire hidden somewhere in their midst.

Doc slowly shook his head as if he were looking upon a mystery of nature.

“Crazy fuckin' zombies... ”

  I felt like an idiot standing there, grinning at my friend as wave after wave plummeted toward the ground: but the sun was warm, the birds in the forest behind us were chirping, and we were alive, by God,
we were alive
!

“New rule, Doc.” I said as I spat blood from my busted mouth. “Number twenty-two: Stay the hell out of the cities.”

Doc started to laugh then and I soon joined in, slapping him on the back as we began trying to salvage what supplies we could from the fallen remains of our once-proud chariot: I thought again how the sun was warm, the birds in the forest were chirping, and we were alive... if only for another day.

It was only later, as we limped through the woods with our supplies jangling and clanking in the “backpacks” we'd fashioned from a piece of tarp and bits of cord from the car's trunk that my mind turned to the past. Maybe it was the way the sunlight dappled through the canopy of leaves overhead, the way the shadows danced over the forest floor as the wind rustled through the branches; or perhaps it was the smell of honeysuckle and pine mixed with that old vegetation smell that's almost like mildew but not quite.

Whatever the cause, I grew quiet as we trekked through the wilderness. At one point in my life, I probably would have been appreciating the beauty of the leaves that had just begun turning into the brilliant yellows and oranges of fall. I would have found a sort of solace in the gurgling of the streams we leaped across and the way the squirrels scampered up the sides of trees in an almost corkscrew pattern.

As it was, though, my thoughts and emotions were as jumbled and twisted as that wreck of a car we'd left in our wake.

I was tired; so tired that I just wanted to lay down on the forest floor and sleep for a thousand years. A dreamless sleep, preferably, where the faces of those I had known and loved, or even those I had simply met in passing, didn't haunt me with visions of a past that could never be recovered. And yet I kept walking, kept putting one foot in front of the other for reasons I myself couldn't begin to understand.

After what must have been nearly forty minutes, I cleared my throat and glanced over at my companion. But it was only a quick look. I knew I would never be able to hold his gaze while I told the story I was about to share.

“Doc,” I finally said, “I ever tell you about the time I shot a kid?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN: JOSIE

I had read about people looking down the barrel of a gun: how time seems to slow down and they look back over the course of their lives, flashing back to childhood or perhaps a wedding or the birth of a child; sometimes they even notice the smallest details of the weapon pointed at them, from the darkness of the bore to the smudged fingerprint on the barrel. In real life, however, it wasn't like that at all.

In fact, it was all over so fast that I only had enough time to throw my hands up as if believed I were Wonder Woman and my bracelets could deflect the bullet. At the same time, there was a sharp crack and a puff of smoke rose like magic from the pistol.

There was no time to think a final thought, no time to beg for mercy; there was only the blast of the gun immediately followed by something that almost sounded like a gnat whizzing by my head.

My muscles had tensed in expectation of the shot and for a moment I couldn't understand why the burst of pain never came. My hands scrambled over my body, desperately searching for the blood I was sure had to be oozing from the wound but coming up clean time and time again.

Doc let out a long whoop and threw both of his hands straight into the air, bouncing on the tips of his toes as a smile spread across his face.

“Son of a bitch, Carl... one shot! Who da man? You da man!”

Carl brushed past me and I turned in bewilderment, feeling like a person who'd walked into a theater halfway through the movie. A thousand thoughts raced through my head and I felt as though my entire body sighed as the certainty that I had not been shot took hold.

Carl had made his way to the side of the silo and I tried to remember if the body had been lying there before. Didn't Doc say they had killed two of those things? Or had he said
a few
?

The corpse was lying on its back and I could see blood seeping into the snow, radiating out from its head like a crimson halo. It was dressed in a ratty, blue bathrobe with a single bunny slipper adorning one foot; the other was bare and I could see black, swollen splotches on the toes and ankle.

“Freshie.” Carl called back, his voice sounding distant and muffled by the blanket of snow surrounding us. “Ain't been dead more than a week I reckon. Maybe two seein' as how cold it's been.”

He crouched and began rummaging through the creature's pockets.

“If there's any more around here,” Doc shouted back, “that gunshot is going to bring them running. We need to get going.”

“Hot damn! Nearly full pack of smokes here. Lighter too.”

Carl pocketed the cigarettes and undid the loose knot in the robe's belt. Then he rolled the thing onto its side and slipped one of the beefy arms out of the sleeve.

Doc squinted in the glare of the sun and scanned the horizon.

“Come on, Carl. We gotta get a move on!”

Carl came running back, his boots crunching through the icy crust, and the robe cradled in his arms like a baby; the fallen zombie was left naked and face down....   For a moment I almost felt sorry for the thing. It had once been someone's son, perhaps a husband and father. It had worried about the same things we all used to: bills, the cost of gasoline, terrorism. Now the last shred of dignity had been stripped from its body and it found true death in the same manner it had originally came into the world: cold, naked, and alone.