Authors: Megan Berry
Silas stops suddenly and aims his flashlight down on the ground, and Hank lets out a hoarse yell. I peek around his shoulder, wondering if I need to start shooting, and see a zombie down on the ground. It was a female police officer once, but now she is a deadhead who’s somehow managed to get herself trapped underneath the gate. Her snapping teeth and top half of her torso are on our side, and the rest of her is invisible on the other side of the gate. I’m not sure if she pulled herself under there herself, or some poor bugger slammed the gate shut on her, trapping her there.
Silas doesn’t mess around. He brings his large steel-toed boots down with a resounding crunch on the crown of her head. He grinds his heel into her head again and again, until her rotting flesh gives way and her skull caves in under the pressure.
Hank grips my shoulder with bony fingers that feel like they are a pair of vise grips, and I have to bite my lip to keep from letting out a squeak of pain. Hell, Silas would probably shoot him dead where he stands.
“How do you two do this?” Hank asks, and Silas shrugs as he swings the gate open to reveal that the other half of her body is actually not on the other end of the gate. All this zombie has left is a ragged stump where her legs were chewed off all the way up to her pelvis.
Hank stops to vomit, and I feel bad for him, remembering the first day when all this stuff started happening and everything seemed so gross. Though the guy did just eat his cellmate, so I’m not really sure where this falls on the grossness scale for Hank.
The waiting area is still empty, and I count my lucky stars. Silas sees Hank leaning heavily on me, and he walks over and yanks him off without so much as a please. I half expect him to toss the other man to the ground, but Silas helps support his weight instead, and I’m proud of how far Silas has come.
I stare at the heavy steel door that leads back out into the hallway of doom, and I feel my guts quiver at the reminder of what we had to do to get here. I think about warning Hank about the bodies we left on the other end of the door, but Silas is already pushing the door open, and I bring my gun up in case we find any more unwanted guests.
The hallway is black and just as terrifying as before, and Hank balks, but Silas brings his flashlight up and forces the smaller man to step through with him. I bite my lip until I taste the tangy, metallic taste of blood on my tongue and follow them through, shutting the door quietly behind us and immersing us back into the stifling black.
Hank whimpers, and I hear Silas shush him angrily. “Buck up,” Silas whispers.
Even though I know he isn’t talking to me, I pretend he is and try to strengthen my resolve.
Since we’ve already cleared this area, we make much better time and reach the heavy duffel bag we left in front of the break room much faster than we first found it.
I try to heft the bag up since Silas is helping Hank, and I do get it up, but the weight makes my knees want to buckle. I take three staggering steps and then set it down. I’m as useless as Hank with the weight of this bag.
“We are not gonna be able to bring all this stuff, and Hank,” I tell Silas. By the look in his eye, I know he’s seriously debating leaving Hank behind.
“Okay…” Silas says, his eyes scanning the hall, and I’m kind of not following.
“Okay, what?” I prompt, and his gaze finally settles on me.
“We don’t need to go all the way back through the building. We came in through a window, we can go out through any window.” Silas pokes his head into the break room, and Hank winces at the gory scene before us. “This window will do fine,” Silas says, pulling the shade up and revealing a window that isn’t covered over with heavy metal bars. Silas raises his axe to smash out the window.
“Wait!” I call over to him, and he turns to me with a frown.
“I’m all for getting the hell out of here, but what’s the plan?” I demand, and Silas frowns more deeply.
“We’ll have to leave Hank and the guns here and go get the truck—they’re both too heavy for us to support,” he decides.
“You and I are going to find the others?” I ask, wanting clarification, and Silas shakes his head.
“You should probably stay here with Hank,” he tells me.
“Why don’t you stay here with Hank, and I’ll go find the truck?” I question, but Silas is shaking his head before I even finish my sentence.
“You’re not going out there alone, it’s too dangerous,” he tells me, frowning when he sees the grin on my face.
“Exactly, Silas. I’m coming with you,” I tell him.
“Jane, I’m a much better shot than you,” he reminds me, but I just shrug it off.
“There’s a lot of zombies out there, we’ll be safer in pairs,” I tell him. Silas shrugs, and then nods towards Hank.
“What about him then, wouldn’t he be safer in a pair?” he asks, and I know he doesn’t actually care, he’s just looking for a way to keep me in here. I let out a very Silas-like snort.
“Nice try. Hank will be the safest one of us all.” I remind him as I walk over to the only other door in the room, knowing it’s most likely either a bathroom or a closet. I pause to listen for any sounds and hear a faint scuffling. I force myself to pull the door open anyway, with my gun at the ready. A lone zombie turns slowly and opens its mouth to growl at me, and I put a neat bullet hole right in its forehead.
I quickly scan the closet and relax a bit when it’s clear. I grab the zombie by its boots—which seems like the safest choice, germ wise—and drag the biter’s corpse from the closet, leaving behind a trail of black goop. “Zombies can’t open doors,” I say, turning around and motioning for Hank to come forward. “You’ll be safe in here until we get back,” Hank hesitates in the threshold of the closet.
“I just spent two weeks locked in a cell, I’m a little claustrophobic,” he admits to me, and I hesitate. It does seem cruel to make him endure this.
“Do you want to live or not?” Silas snaps, obviously sick of wasting time.
Hank nods, “Of course.”
“Then get in the damn closet,” Silas snaps.
Faced with the dark scowl on Silas’s face, Hank steps inside. I hand him my flashlight and another granola bar, hoping it will help reassure him.
“What about a weapon?” Hank asks, his voice going all high and squeaky when Silas is about to shut the door.
Silas mutters something illegible, pulls one of his many knives off his belt, and hands it to Hank. “Not a gun?” Hank asks, clearly disappointed, and Silas rolls his eyes.
“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” Silas asks, and Hank thinks for a minute before shaking his head.
“Try not to stab yourself,” Silas tells him as he slams the door shut and walks back over to the window with a shake of his head. I glance at the closet one more time, feeling a small twinge of guilt at leaving Hank, even though he does have the easy part, and then I join Silas by the window.
Silas wraps the head of his axe with a dishtowel that he finds on the counter next to the moldy donuts, and he smashes the glass out. It’s a bit quieter this time, though the glass still tinkles as it hits the window frame and the ground.
Silas carefully pokes his head outside to make sure the coast is clear and then jumps out, which I take to mean it is. I climb up onto the sill, and Silas turns around and grabs my waist, lifting me down. I stand in the grass, blinking in the bright sunshine, my eyes instantly locking on a group of six zombies that aren’t all that far away from us.
“I thought it was clear,” I demand of Silas, making sure to keep my voice low. Silas shakes his head.
“We’d be waiting a long time for that, Blondie,” he says, grabbing my hand and taking off at a jog. The zombies are slower than us, so we race right by them, not bothering to take them out. I worry for a minute that they might get in through the broken window and get Hank, but the windows are a good ways off the ground, coming up to my waist, and I’ve yet to see a zombie that is limber enough to make that climb.
Silas is practically dragging me along, and my legs are starting to burn from the fast pace as we reach the end of the building. We peek around the corner and come face to face with a zombie. He was just standing there, but as soon as he sees us, his horrible dark eyes light up, and he takes a swing at Silas. Silas, not wanting to risk the pop of his gun, uses his axe to split his skull and then peeks around the corner again, this time with a bit more caution.
“How is it?” I whisper, and Silas shrugs.
“As good as it’s going to get,” he admits, and I don’t like the sound of that at all. I feel his hand tighten around mine, and I know that he’s preparing to make a mad dash again.
We round the corner at a breakneck run, and I almost dig my heels in when I see all the corpses dotting the lawn. As if he can read my mind, Silas gives my arm a rough yank like he’s warning me not to screw around. Like I have so many times already, I put blind faith, and my life, into Silas’s hands and keep pace as we sidestep zombies and narrowly avoid groping hands and jagged, germ-infested fingernails.
Silas lets go of my hand, raises his gun, and shoots some of the zombies that are blocking our path. I might not be connected to Silas anymore by touch, but I stick to his side like glue. I no longer have a problem with how fast he’s running.
The landscaped grass turns into the paved parking lot out front, and my heart sinks as we stop for a moment, both of us breathing hard and looking around.
“Where’s the truck?” I ask with trepidation, and Silas shrugs. I didn’t really expect him to know. We’ve both been inside this past hour—I taste stomach bile when I think about what could have happened to the others in that timeframe.
Zombies are converging on us from all sides, and Silas raises his gun and starts shooting a path. He pauses just long enough to shout at me. “We can’t stay here, we’ve got to keep moving,” he says, his accent becoming thicker with his fear, and I don’t have a lot of hope for us if Silas is scared.
Silas takes off for the small opening he has just cleared, and I force my shaking legs to keep up, my mind warring with twin fears: We are going to die out here. And, what happened to the others?
My fear for the others is temporarily pushed to the back of my mind when a zombie manages to grab onto my backpack. I let out a hoarse cry as his teeth sink into the canvas material, and Silas swings his axe. It goes whistling by my ear and lodges in my attacker’s neck. Black goop leaks out—it no longer sprays like our blood—and little droplets hit the back of my neck when Silas pulls the axe out.
Zombies are starting to close in on us again, getting closer and closer, and then I feel the zombie wrap his arms around me, his fetid breath on the back of my neck, and I know my end is near… “Just run Silas!” I scream at him, knowing that if he doesn’t go like right now, he won’t be able to. Silas swings his axe again, and this time he hits his mark. The zombie goes down, his teeth still clamped on my bag, and Silas’s arms, gripping me around the waist, are the only thing that keeps me from following him down.
I hear a piece of my backpack rip, and then the dead weight is off of me, and Silas is urging me back into a run, shooting into the crowd like a mad man. I’m not a very good shot yet, especially under all of this pressure, but I bring my gun up anyway and start firing into the crowd at random. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and take some of these fuckers out with me.
Silas and I make a push against the zombies, madly shooting our way towards our rapidly closing escape route. My stomach hurts; I’m so afraid of a ripping, tearing death. I try not to think about it and just focus on trying to survive and not get bit, but it isn’t an easy task. There must be fifty zombies gathered here, all of their attention riveted on us, and more zombies wander in with each passing minute.
The zombies in front of us close rank quickly, more popping up to fill the empty spaces made by those we take down. There is nothing left to do but retreat, which would be a great plan if there weren’t zombies behind us too. They form a tight circle around us, and that circle keeps getting smaller as they stagger closer.
“I have two bullets left!” Silas yells to be heard above the raucous of the dead, and I nod grimly. His meaning is crystal clear. Even though we’ve never talked about this outcome before, I don’t want to be ripped apart, and I don’t want to come back as one of those things either.
“Do it!” I yell back as tears fall freely down my cheeks.
Silas pulls me into his arms and holds me tightly against his body for a second before leaning down and pressing a kiss to my tear-soaked lips. He lingers there, much longer than a simple goodbye kiss might warrant, and I’m thoroughly shocked. I don’t kiss him back at first, but then after a couple of seconds I find my lips moving against his. He pulls away from me, his dark eyes burning with something I can’t even begin to name.
“I always liked you, Blondie,” he murmurs in my ear as he presses his pistol to my temple. I try to give him a half smile to make this easier on him, and completely fail. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”
His words hurt my heart, and I wish that I was strong enough to do this so Silas doesn’t have to. “It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him, and it’s true. I would have been dead long before today if it hadn’t been for Silas.
The zombies blocking our path suddenly go flying to the side like pins at the bowling alley as the nose of the Ford forces its way into our midst.
“Holy shit!” Silas shouts as he snatches his pistol away from my head, looking sick about what almost happened. “Get in the back!” he yells as he pushes me hard, urging me towards the truck. He picks me up and manually throws me into the back of the truck just as he’s tackled to the ground from behind by a zombie.
“No!” The scream is torn from my throat as I watch the zombie latch onto Silas’s arm and begin to gnaw.
“Just go, Jane!” Silas yells at me, his eyes pleading with me to listen. His words are almost the exact same thing I’d said to him a few minutes ago, and he hadn’t left me for dead.
I jump out of the back of the truck, stumbling when I hit the ground hard, and slam my gun into the back of the zombie’s head point blank, pulling the trigger. Silas is showered with little bits of blood, bone, and brain matter as the zombie slumps down on top of him. The other zombies are so close that it won’t be more than another couple steps before they reach us. I start firing into the crowd as Silas jumps to his feet and joins me, firing until his magazine runs dry and we’ve knocked the zombies back enough to allow us to climb into the back of the truck.
I climb up on my own this time to be sure Silas will have enough time to get in. I can hear Ryan firing out his window too, but my whole world is focused on surviving right now. As soon as we are in the back, Ryan jams the truck in drive and takes off like a shot, mowing down zombies left and right.
“Hold on to the tie down straps!” Silas yells out, showing me where to grab the rope and wind my wrist through so I won’t get thrown from the truck. I shift uncomfortably on the top of the boxes and bags we have loaded in here, and I pray that we will be alright, but I know for certain that one of us won’t be.
I can’t even see because I’m crying so hard. I only know we are out of the thick of things when I no longer feel the thud of zombie bodies bouncing off the truck. Ryan speeds up as he aims the truck out of town and cranks it to a stop once we’ve passed the Welcome to Watseka sign. I lift my head when we come to a stop, and we are once again out on the open road where we can see for miles in all directions. There are a few zombies off in the distance, but it will take them a long time to reach us.
As soon as the truck has stopped, I’m at Silas’s side, trying to take a look at his bite as gingerly as I can. “Are you guys okay?” Ryan demands, jumping out of the truck and running up to us.
“Silas got bit,” I sniffle, tears still streaming down my face.
“Blondie…” Silas starts to say, but I break down. I don’t think I can handle another goodbye. “Jane!” Silas yells at me, giving me a rough little shake, and I look up at him.
“I’m okay,” he tells me, and I blink.
“What do you mean? I saw you get bit,” I argue with him, my heart starting to swell with hope, but I brutally tamp it down. This could just be Silas playing it tough.
Silas pulls off his gore-soaked vest and strips his shirt off to reveal that he’s wearing some sort of black arm guards going from his wrist to just above his elbow. “What in the hell is that?” I ask, not sure what I’m seeing.
“It’s paintball armor,” Ryan answers instead of Silas, a grin splitting his face, and I’m stunned.
“The bite didn’t go through?” I double check, my mind spinning. Silas gingerly peels off the Lycra-padded sleeve to check it out. His arm is sweaty underneath the sleeve, and there is a large bruise from the zombie’s jaw, but nothing broke the skin. Silas sags in relief, and that’s when I know for certain that he wasn’t sure his padding would work either.
I’m so relieved, I reach out and slap him. “I thought you were going to die!” I yell at him, feeling immense relief. I reach out and slap him again.
“What was that for?” Silas demands, and I give him an angry look.
“When were you going to share your little zombie armor idea with the rest of us?” I yell, and Silas glares back, refusing to be cow-toed.
“This was my own paintball gear, from before the outbreak, and we haven’t come across any places that stocked it. I checked the mall, they didn’t have it.” His answer makes me settle down a little. I glance up and see that Natalie has gotten out of the truck and is staring at us with tears in her eyes, clutching her swollen belly.
“It was too late?” she asks, and I glance at Silas—crap!
“Hank’s still alive,” I tell everyone, and Natalie blinks in surprise.
“Then where is he?” she demands, her face changing from despair to hope to anger in a matter of seconds.
“We had to leave him back at the cop shop…” I start to say, trailing off at the look on Natalie’s face.
“What?” she demands, her voice raising an octave.
“He was too weak to walk. We’ll have to go back for him with the truck—and a bag of guns,” Silas says, taking over for me.
“How could you leave him like that?” Natalie demands, and I begin to feel a prick of anger. We were almost killed trying to rescue this guy!
“If we’d brought him with us, he would have been dead back there. If you think you could have done a better job, you would have been dead too. You weren’t in that building, and you should thank your lucky stars you weren’t,” Silas snaps, obviously feeling a little pissed at how ungrateful she’s being. Natalie blinks at us, and the anger melts off her face.
“I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing her belly. “It’s the baby, the hormones make me crazy,” she says with an awkward chuckle.
“I think everyone’s emotions are running high right now,” Ryan interjects, trying to diffuse the situation. “Is he in a safe spot?” he asks, and I think about the closet we shoved Hank into, though there isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to tell crazy, preggo Natalie that. Silas and I look at each other and then nod to the rest of the group.
Ryan catches our glance and looks suspicious about what exactly we did to the guy, but like us, he doesn’t want to risk setting Natalie off. “Then we’ll let the zombies settle down and go back.” Ryan decides, but Silas shakes his head.
“No offense intended, Natalie, but this guy seems like a bit of an idiot,” Silas says baldly, and Natalie winces. “I don’t think you have that much time to waste before he’s gonna decide we’re all dead and set off on his own.”
“Silas might be right,” I have to agree. Even though I just met him, I can see Hank doing this—he definitely didn’t like going into that closet—and we never did discuss a timeframe.
“The truck is faster than the zombs, we can be in and out in a matter of minutes,” Silas decides, once again taking over the rescue mission. “Ryan, you’re driving again. Take us around to the back of the building, and you’ll see two windows broke out, you’ll need to head to the farthest one. If everything is clear, Blondie, and I can be in and out.”
Ryan is already shaking his head. “I don’t think Jane should go back, you almost bit the big one last time,” he says, and I feel hurt by his lack of faith in me.
“Jane can handle it,” Silas interjects, surprising the hell out of me. “Besides, she already knows what we’re doing once we get inside. It would be a huge waste of time bringing in a new person—plus, you know we can’t trust her to drive,” Silas adds in just as I was beginning to feel charitable towards him. I shake my head at him as we all hop back into the truck. Ryan, Sunny, and Natalie are squeezed into the front seat; Silas and I are in the back. This way we won’t have to open numerous doors and risk letting zombies inside to get at Sunny.
We speed back into town with Ryan at the wheel, driving far more recklessly than I’m used to. At high speeds, he goes up on curbs to avoid zombies, races across lawns, takes out mail boxes, and hits the occasional zombie. The front end is already dented in from when he saved us earlier—so I guess he figures, screw it!
We reach the building quickly, and a lot of the zombies are still hanging around where we left them, jostling each other around like a nest of stirred up hornets.
“We aren’t going to have a lot of time,” Silas tells me as we zip around them, the truck tires tearing up the overgrown lawn. Ryan passes the first window we broke and keeps going until he screeches to a halt outside the second window where we encounter a bit of a hold up.
The group of six zombies we passed earlier is now scratching around the window, and I wonder how they can possibly sense Hank tucked away in the closet. Silas and I burst out of the truck, and even Ryan gets out and starts helping us clear the window. I walk up to the closest zombie and put a bullet in the back of his head, making his brains blow out his forehead.
“You came back!” I hear Hank yell from inside the room and frown. No wonder the zombies are so excited, the moron wasn’t in the closet anymore.
“Shut up you idiot!” I hear Silas yell back as he cleaves a zombie through the skull with his axe. Ryan shoots the last two. Then Silas picks me up and throws me up on the window sill, and I pull myself into the room.
“Get going,” I tell Hank as I push him towards the window. He lands, not very gracefully, into Ryan and Silas’s arms, and they toss him in the truck. Ryan gets back in the driver’s seat—none of us trusting a bunch of strangers alone in our running truck with Sunny. Silas hops lightly through the window, and I help him push the heavy bag out onto the ground. He winces when it drops with a dull thud.
“I’m sure your precious guns will be okay,” I tease Silas as he hops out of the window. He turns to me with a grin and pulls me down from the window by my waist, setting me down so that we can both lug the enormous duffel bag and toss it into the back of the truck.
Zombies are rounding the corner of the building already, so we don’t have time to tie it down, but if Ryan takes his driving down a few notches from the Fast and the Furious level, then its weight should help keep it from falling out—at least till we get out of town.
Silas holds the door open for me, and I slide in next to Hank, wincing when he bumps me as he reaches up front to hug and kiss Natalie.
“Everybody hold on,” Ryan tells us unnecessarily as he takes off again, cranking the wheel, dodging zombies, and jumping curbs until we are once again out of town. We pull over next to the inaccurate Welcome sign. Natalie and Hank get out and embrace each other, kissing on the mouth. I gag a little and look away. It’s not that their kissing is gross, but Hank had been eating his cellmate, and I know for a fact he didn’t have time to brush his teeth!
I turn to Silas, who also has a grossed out look on his face. He looks at me and shrugs before climbing into the back to strap down the guns.
I feel a pair of arms wrap around me from behind and just about jump out of my skin. I do jump out of the arms, swatting them away and spinning around with my gun up. Ryan looks shocked, and I quickly put my gun away. “I’m so sorry!” I exclaim, feeling guilt at the wounded expression on his face. “I just had a zombie do that exact same thing to me today, and it’s made me a little jumpy,” I admit, and the hurt melts off his face, replaced with a worried expression. “I’m alright,” I reassure him before he can ask. Thankfully, I was lucky today, and it’s nothing a hot shower won’t solve.
We pile back into the truck, and I end up in the backseat with Natalie and Hank as they play tonsil hockey with each other. As gross as it is, it’s better than ending up pressed up against Silas or Ryan. My mind is spinning from Silas’s confession when we thought we were going to die, and that kiss… I’m not sure what I’m feeling, but I would be lying to myself if I denied that his kiss had thrilled me. It could have just been the adrenaline rush from thinking I was about to die too, but I think there was a bit more to it than just chemical reactions in my body.