Apocalypse Z (A Zombie Novel) (13 page)

Tami shot him a stern look and said, “You know, you should have waited at least one more day.”

“No, today is the day. If no one wants to help me, then I’ll do it on my own.”

Tami sighed. “Yeah, you already tried that and look what happened to you.”

Lisa pursed her lips and asked Mark, “What is she talking about? What happened?”

Mark lowered his eyes and remained silent. Lisa looked over at her. Tami flinched and took a small step back. With a firm tone, Lisa asked, “Tell me what happened!”

Tami swallowed hard and said, “He fell.” She looked over at Mark. “It took everything I had to pick him up off the floor and get him back into the bed.”

Lisa looked around at everyone. “And nobody bothered to tell me this?”

Jeff was at the kitchen table and said, “Sorry, but I thought you knew.”

“And when did this happen?”

He turned in his chair. “Yesterday morning, just before I came to your room.”

She gave Mark a hard look. She started to say something to him, but stopped. She asked Tami, “You picked him up by yourself? Why didn’t you get anyone to help you?”

Tami took another small step away from Lisa before she answered. “Because everyone was asleep.”

Lisa thought and felt some relief as the weight on her chest seemed to lessen a bit. She still didn’t completely trust Tami and there was a chance she might have feelings for Mark. Lisa was tempted to tell him, but there was still the chance he might reject her, and that fear kept her silent. Calmly, she said, “Tami, if you ever need any help with him, I want you to come and get me.” Making it sound more like an order, than a request.

Tami nodded and said, “Okay.”

Lisa sat on the couch next to Mark, but he didn’t look up. She finally spoke, “Please, don’t ever do anything like that again. Next time, ask for help and I’ll help you.”

Mark sat there for a few minutes before he asked, “Alright, can you help me out to the barn?”

Sheryl objected. “Not so fast. Before you go out in that dirty barn, I want to change your bandage and wrap it.”

While Sheryl changed it and put a wrap over it, Lisa went through the clothes they had gotten the day before. She found a pair of jeans she thought might fit and gave them to him. After she helped Mark back into the bedroom to change, she waited outside the door. When he was ready, he called her back in so she could help him outside. She started to giggle when she saw him standing there. The jeans did fit around his waist, but they were too short and set four inches above his ankles.

Lisa helped Mark out to the barn where he was going to work on a generator Jeff found under a tarp. When they got there, Jeff was finishing a small cross made of 2x4s. He looked up at them as they entered and set it off to the side, then followed Mark over to the generator. Lisa looked down as she walked by the cross and noticed he had painted Todd’s name on it.

She sat on a bale of hay and watched them as they worked. Jeff started with the engine and Mark on the wiring. Lisa laid back on the bail and listened to Mark and Jeff talk to each other while they worked. Mark instructed Jeff on how to clean the carburetor and put it back together. They hoped to get it hooked up to the pump so they could at least have running water in the house.

As they talked, she thought she heard a noise in the hayloft above her. She watched through the cracks of the boards for any kind of movement. It looked like there might have been a shadow up there, but she wasn’t sure. Staring at it for a while, she thought the shadow looked like it was moving.

She looked over at Mark when he asked her to hand him an extension cord that was hanging on the wall. She stood up and brushed the loose straw from her back and her hair. When she glanced back up to the loft, she saw a blue-white eye looking between the boards down at her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jet stood by the window looking out back while she fidgeted with her sword and wondered where the zombies that attacked them yesterday had come from. She heard someone walk up behind her and saw a reflection in the glass. Turning, she saw Amy standing there. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked.

Amy just said, “Yeah, I’m hungry.”

Amy followed her to the kitchen and sat at the table. Jet warmed a can of vegetable beef soup on the stove and put it in a bowl. Amy watched as Jet set it on the table in front of her. She blew on it as she stirred it around and asked, “Jet, what am I supposed to do now? I don’t have any family left. My parents are gone and it was just me and Todd.” She sighed. “Now, it’s just me.”

Jet realized she had asked that same question after her parents had taken her over to stay with Dedee and Lisa. She tried to explain it to Amy the same way Lisa did to her. “Well, Amy, you’re not by yourself. You have me, Dedee, Lisa, Mark, and Jeff just to name a few. We’re all your family now. We might not be related by blood, but we care about each other, help each other, and we’re there when you need us. Lisa, Dedee, and you are my sisters. I’m not alone and neither are you.”

Dedee came in and sat down next to her. “That’s true. I consider you a sister. Don’t you remember the barbecues we had together? And remember why you came to our house that day your parents didn’t come home? You said it was because we were like family to you.”

Amy sat there and thought. “Yeah, I remember that. Cause, you guys are like family.”

Sheryl ran through the front door and into the kitchen. “Something’s wrong out there, I just heard Lisa screaming inside the barn.

They jumped when they heard gunshots coming from outside. Jet grabbed her sword and Dedee her bat; then they started to run for the barn.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Shit!” Lisa said as she jumped back and drew her pistol. She pointed it up toward the hayloft. “There’s something up there. I just saw it looking at me.”

Both Mark and Jeff instinctively drew theirs and pointed them the same direction. Mark asked, “What was it?”

“It’s one of those zombies; I saw it looking down through the cracks.”

“But I thought you and Jeff already cleared the barn?”

“We did, bro, twice, and there wasn’t anything in here. I checked the loft myself.”

Mark stretched to see up over the edge. “I can’t see anything. Are you sure you saw something?”

“Damn it, Mark, I saw the stinkin’ eyeball looking right at me.” She returned her pistol to the holster. “Cover me, I’m going up.”

“Wait! Jeff, go up with her. But give me a second to move closer to that ladder.” Using the workbench for support, Mark worked his way over. “Okay, now you can go.”

Lisa started to climb the home made 2x4 ladder attached to the loft, cautiously taking it one step at a time. She would stop and listen for any sound or movement before taking the next step. Just before she got to the top, she stopped and whispered down, “When I get to the top, I’m going to peek over.”

Before she could look back up, a hand reached out and grabbed onto her wrist. She screamed and tried to pull her arm away, but the grip was too tight. In the struggle, she lost her footing and hung in the air by her wrist. Jeff grabbed her legs and Mark took careful aim at the floor of the loft next to the ladder. With her right hand, Lisa pulled out her pistol and held it out around the ladder. Simultaneously, Lisa and Mark started to fire at the loft floor.

As splinters from the wood planks fell, the hand let go of her wrist and drew back into the loft. Jeff was able to steady her enough so she landed on her feet. A dark black liquid began to pour down through some of the bullet holes onto the ground below. Lisa rubbed her wrist and said, “Damn that hurt!”

The barn door swung open, Dedee and Jet ran in. Sheryl, Amy, and Tami followed. Jet looked around with her sword drawn back and ready as she asked, “What happened?”

Lisa pointed up to the loft. “Zombie.”

There were still sounds of movement from above as Lisa said, “Damn, is that thing gonna die or what?” She sighed. “I’ll go up and finish it off.” Taking the first step of the ladder, she felt a pain shoot from her right ankle up to her hip. She cried out, “Shit!” and pulled herself against it. “I think I hurt my ankle when that thing dropped me.”

Dedee and Sheryl helped her from the ladder and over to the bale of hay so Sheryl could look at her ankle. Sheryl saw it was starting to swell a little and had Tami go back to the house and bring her a wrap.

Jeff said, “I’ll go up.”

Jet put her hand on his shoulder. “Please, be careful.”

He nodded and started up the ladder. He slowed just before the top and looked down. He saw Jet right next to the ladder, looking up at him, and she smiled. Amy and Dedee were watching and he could see the tension in their eyes. Slowly, he peeked over the edge onto the loft. It was there by the edge, about a foot from his face, and it hissed at him.

He jerked back and almost fell from the ladder. He pulled himself back up and peeked over again. It hissed, but it didn’t move. It was flat on its belly with some serious gunshot wounds to its upper torso and neck. Jeff pulled his pistol and pointed it at the forehead. He fired and the round punched through the frontal part of the skull, jerking its head back. The weakened neck tore as it flipped over, the back of its head rested on its spine with its eyes looking up at the roof. Black pus flew from the neck and splashed on Jeff’s hand and pistol.

“Crap!” He looked down at Jet and said, “Step back.” The goo flew from his hand as he flung it around. He looked at his pistol and said, “Damn! And I just cleaned it too.”

Dedee and Sheryl helped Lisa into the house. Sheryl said she would have to stay in bed and off her ankle for the next two days. Jeff and Tami helped Mark into the house. By Sheryl’s instruction, he was to be put in the same room as Lisa, and that Dedee, Jet, and Amy would have to share Mark’s old room. When Lisa saw him being placed in the bed next to hers, she smiled and quietly thanked Sheryl. Sheryl whispered in her ear that she had two days and not to waste it.

“How many days you got?” she asked with a smile.

“Sheryl said two, maybe three. She said I almost tore a stitch, but I don’t see it.”

“Well, at least we’ll have each other for company.” She glanced over at him and noticed he smiled.

“That’s true; I guess a couple of days won’t be so bad.” He sat up in the bed and looked over before he asked, “Wait, you don’t snore do you?”

She laughed. “No, I don’t snore.”

He said, “My right leg is good and your left is good. Put the two of us together, we make one complete person.”

She rolled over, watched him for a minute, and wondered if he was hinting at something. In a softer voice, she said, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jet watched Jeff put the engine back together, then she helped him carry it out. Opening an old rusty box next to the pump, he carefully spliced the wires from the extension cord into it. He had to pull the rope several times before the engine popped and came to life. Jet plugged the cord into the side of it and waited. A few seconds later, the engine revved up a bit and the pump clicked on and started filling the big silver tank.

It didn’t take long before the tank was full and the pump shut off. Jeff smiled as he turned the generator off and unplugged the cord. He stood back and said, “Now, we have running water and a propane water heater. That means hot baths and showers for everybody.”

Jet jumped with excitement and gave him a hug. When they got back in the house, they went to see Mark and Lisa. Jeff told them about the generator and hot running water. He also told them he double-checked on the zombie they killed out in the loft. It appeared an infected person climbed up there and turned after they had already cleared the barn.

Jeff needed to go out and check a different house up the road for gasoline and food. Mark told him to take Jet along, Lisa added that Tami should go too; she felt three people would be better than just two. Reluctantly, Tami got in the van with them and they headed east this time.

Jeff pulled into the first house they saw on the long country road. They checked around the outside and entered the house through the open front door. The living room and kitchen were clear so they proceeded down the hallway. Tami stood in the living room while Jeff and Jet checked all the bedrooms and hallway bathroom. They too were clear.

Jeff pulled a sheet off the bed in the master bedroom and threw some clothes from the closets and dressers on it. Setting it on the living room floor, he got another and went into the kitchen. Jet grabbed all canned goods she could find, including eight boxes of macaroni and cheese, and put them in the sheet. Jet and Tami carried them out to the van while Jeff stood watch in the front yard.

Jeff pointed to a large metal shed behind the house. “We need to check for some gasoline.”

They started for it and stopped when they heard a loud thunderous roar coming from the south. They all looked up as six F-22 Raptors flew over, heading north. They could hear the windows of the house and the metal on the shed rattle as they passed. Within seconds, the planes were only dots on the horizon.

Jet looked back down in amazement and said, “Those must be Air Force. I haven’t heard a plane in weeks. What are they doing?”

Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know, but they sure were in a hurry.”

Returning to the task at hand, they approached the shed. Jeff peeked around the corner into a large open bay. He raised his rifle and waved for Jet and Tami to follow as he entered. Jet kept her sword in front of her ready to strike in any direction while Tami held her pipe over her right shoulder like a bat.

Farther inside, Jeff saw two tractors and a flatbed pickup. He heard something from behind; he turned and saw one sneaking up on Tami. He yelled, “Tami! Behind you!”

She turned and shrieked. One very large zombie stood there staring at her. It was every bit of six feet tall. Tami threw the pipe at it; it hit its chest and bounced off, falling to the ground. She just stood there screaming as it reached out and grabbed her by the throat. Pulling her closer, it opened its mouth to bite into her forehead.

Jet ran and stepped up onto an old wood picnic bench. Leaping into the air, she flew toward it and swung her sword at a downward angle as she passed. She caught the zombie just under the tip of the nose and sliced all the way through to the base of the skull. As she landed, she hit a barrel with her hip and knocked it over.