As The World Dies Untold Tales Volume 3 (15 page)

Today she would finally bring her nightmare to an end.

Today would be the end of everything.

Chapter 2

Sacred Duty

The grocery store was very old, built in the fifties. The parking lot was to the side of the building and filled with abandoned cars. The front windows and doors faced the street. For days Emma had been watching the shadowy figures moving about inside. She often wondered who they were and knew she would soon find out.

Upending an empty milk crate, she knelt behind it and reached for the first hunting rifle in line. The Remington had been her grandfather’s and its familiar weight was strangely comforting. It was the gun she had learned to hunt with when she was just a little girl. After several deep breaths, Emma steeled herself for the task at hand.

Lifting the rifle, she rested it on the crate and peered down the attached scope. Her hands were shaking slightly, but the crate helped steady her. Taking another deep breath, she focused on the glass doors. Someone inside had locked them, probably in a futile attempt to keep the dead out. Instead, they had sealed everyone inside to face their doom. No matter how many times the walking corpses inside trudged past the entrance, the automatic doors remained closed.

Exhaling slowly, Emma fired.

The glass door on the right shattered into sparkling shards and collapsed like a waterfall to the ground. She took aim again, fired. The left door crashed in a sparkle of glass. Stomach in knots, she pulled the towel the rest of the rifles were laid out on closer while making sure the bucket of shells was close at hand. After several agonizing minutes, a lone shuffling figure drifted out of the darkness of the grocery store and stepped into the beam of sunlight illuminating the entrance. Gray, mottled, and rotted beyond recognition, it groaned. Shifting shadows beyond it announced the coming of the rest of the dead.

Emma waited.

When the first few zombies wandered into daylight, shifting around on their stiff legs in confusion, she finally aimed and fired.

The next few minutes were a blur.

Aim.

Squeeze the trigger.

Watch a zombie die.

Aim.

Squeeze the trigger.

When she clicked empty, she grabbed the next rifle in line, intent to keep the zombies from scattering too far. There were far more than she’d thought. The zombified townspeople fought with each other to escape the store, drawn by the sound of gunfire. Emma waited until they were in the street before firing. She didn’t want them clogging the doorway.

A figure filled the empty entrance, tall and still muscular, even in death.

Emma cried out. Covering her mouth with her hand, she shrank down behind the milk crate. Tears stung her eyes and made it hard to see.

It was Stan.

Which meant...

The scream of grief that erupted from her was terrifying. Madness flared in her mind and the world swung around her as she collapsed onto her side. The rifle slipped from her hand. Lying on the dirty roof, she sobbed in despair. The empty hole inside her threatened to swallow her whole and reduce her to nothingness. Yet, she couldn’t let herself fall away into the abyss.

“Get up, Emma,” she whispered. “Get up!”

Struggling to regain control of her trembling limbs, she climbed to her knees. Jerking the roll of paper towels from the bag where she kept her hand sanitizer, sanitary napkins, and toilet paper, she yanked off a wad of paper and pressed it to her eyes. Forcibly swallowing her screams, she gritted her teeth.

She had a job to do.

A sacred duty.

Selecting the nearest loaded rifle, she sank into position and peered through the scope she had attached to it weeks before in preparation for this day. Stan’s gruesomely decayed face came into view. It was difficult to see his once handsome visage beneath the nightmarish wounds and rotting flesh, but she was too familiar with the set of his shoulders, the line of his body and the heaviness of his brow to not recognize him.

Tears obscured her vision. Dabbing at her eyes again, she bit the inside of her mouth in an attempt to rein in her emotions.

The pain helped.

Taking aim again, her finger quivered against the trigger.

“Goodbye, Stan.”

She fired.

There was no sense of triumph when the corpse of her ex fell to the hot asphalt The dark red halo around his head brought no peace. In spite of all the betrayals and the anger that resulted, Emma mourned the man who had been a good father to their son. Even if he had been a jerk, he had loved Billy, and in a weird way, loved her, too.

More zombies spilled out of the open doorway, moaning, their heads craning, seeking out fresh human flesh to devour. Blinking the tears from her eyes, Emma continued to kill the monsters that had destroyed the world and her life. Her world had narrowed to the dark entrance of the grocery store and the horrors it revealed. Close to hyperventilating, she found it harder and harder to breathe. Dizzy, she tilted her head back to drag in a deep breath. It hurt, feeling like it rolled downward into her lungs like a boulder. Wiping the sweat from her face, she returned her focus to the task at hand.

The grocery store doorway was hauntingly empty. The zombie bodies piled in clumps on the street were covered in flies and a vulture landed to pluck at one of the corpses.

“C’mon,” she whispered. “C’mon. Let’s finish this.”

Yanking the gloves off her hands, she flexed her numb fingers. Again, she peered down the scope. The doorway remained a black hole. Biting her bottom lip, she waited, stomach in knots.

The vulture sprung into the air, having lost interest in the rotting zombie flesh. It must be a young bird. Buzzards and vermin avoided the rotting zombie bodies. Something was so horribly wrong with the rotten meat of the zombie corpses that even the scavengers avoided it. The shadow of the big bird washed over her as it arced away to find another meal.

Emma refocused her attention on the grocery store entrance.

Her breath caught.

Out of the darkness came the glow of blue and red lights.

“No,” Emma whispered. “No...”

Vision blurring, she lowered her head, squeezing out hot tears. “Oh, God.”

This was the inevitable end to her quest. She had known it all along, but at last the time had come.

Wiping her eyes with her trembling fingers, she internally chastised herself. This was her sacred duty. She had to do this. It was only right. Lifting her head, she nodded to herself and the fates.

She peered down the scope.

For a split second she saw Billy smiling and waving at her, his gleeful brown eyes shining with love. Her little prince. Her little angel.

And then the small zombie was before her.

One small hand still clutched the pink bear. The Spiderman shoes glowed with each footfall.

Again her vision grew hazy, unable to endure the sight of his missing tummy, his ruined cheeks, his mottled limbs.

“Mommy loves you, Billy,” she whispered, forcing herself to focus, to aim.

She pulled the trigger.

The little corpse fell silently to the ground.

Screaming, Emma rose to her feet, hands clenched at her sides. All her fear, rage, and pain flowed out of her, echoing through the dead town.

The heavy soles of her boots whacked against the street as she strode swiftly toward the small figure on the ground. The pistol in one hand was a cold comfort. The soft bed sheets in the other were her torment. Threading her way through the corpses, she barely glanced at their shattered heads. The
Toy Story
sheets fluttered in the wind, streaming behind her like wings.

Reaching Billy, Emma knelt beside his body. With her gloved hands, she carefully adjusted his arms so he’d be hugging the teddy bear. Slowly, she rolled his tiny body into the bed sheets he’d loved so much.

A low moan drew her attention to the grocery store.

A zombie with very little left of its legs crawled toward her.

Lifting the pistol, she fired, killing it instantly.

“Time to go home, Billy,” she said to the small wrapped figure.

Numb with grief, Emma lifted his body and carried it to the truck she had parked nearby.

Inside the pharmacy, a customer and the pharmacist banged on the glass door as she passed. They could rot in there forever for all she cared.

Emma was done.

Chapter 3

The Horde

The tequila burned all the way down her raw throat. Emma rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. The fresh grave looked so small beside those of her grandparents. Small plastic toys decorated the edges of it. She’d considered trying to make a cross, but instead had set his bronzed baby shoes at the head of it.

No one would ever know about Billy, or care about what happened to him.

Only Emma.

The grieving mother swallowed more tequila, already feeling it rushing through her limbs to numb her. She didn’t want to feel anymore. It hurt too much to even think.

Turning, Emma staggered to the Airstream. She had lived in it since the outbreak. It was much sturdier than the manufactured home that was slowly rotting away. Emma and her grandfather had installed burglar bars over the small windows and it felt much safer than any other place. Climbing the steps into the Airstream, she shut the door behind her and secured it. It was hot and sticky inside.

Emma took refuge in the small bedroom. Reaching up, she yanked on the rope her grandfather had rigged to the generator on the roof. It sputtered on and the fan in the corner whirred to life. Swallowing more tequila, Emma pulled her pistol from her waistband and laid it on her pillow.

The sky outside the small barred window was purple and pink. She’d always loved Texas sunsets. It was her last and it was breathtaking. Wiping her tears on a sheet, she forced more tequila into her already flushed body. A few more draughts and she was certain she’d have the nerve to finally take her leave from the dead world.

Stomach burning, she lay down and curled around the pillow that wore one of Billy’s t-shirts. It had been her only comfort throughout the long months. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could still detect his sweet baby smell.

Though she thought she had shed all the tears she could cry, a strangled sob escaped her. Within seconds, her body was wracked with gut-wrenching, soul-screaming cries of despair.

Not being a heavy drinker and having
not eaten, the tequila hit her system like a hurricane. Still clutching the pillow, she passed out.

***

The ground was shaking.

With a soft moan, Emma stirred in total darkness. Around her, everything was rattling under the onslaught of what felt like a continuous earthquake.

Pushing herself upright, Emma stared into the murk filling the Airstream in confusion. The generator was off, the fan silent, the lights off. Only thin streams of moonlight slipped through the barred windows.

The gun was no longer on the pillow. It must have toppled off when the earthquake started. Yet, this part of Texas wasn’t prone to earthquakes. The entire trailer continued to shudder, objects in the kitchen tumbling from the counters, pictures dropping off the hooks, furniture banging against the walls.

Still drunk, Emma slid to the edge of the bed, her head protesting every movement.

A low rumble grew in volume beyond the metal haven.

Was this a tornado?

Bracing herself against the rocking, Emma narrowed her eyes as the beams of moonlight began to flicker. Her numb, drunk brain sluggishly began to piece together what she was hearing and seeing. With a gasp, she slid to the floor, lying beside the bed.

Hard thumps banged against the Airstream. The rumble became the moans of maybe thousands of zombies.

Emma wedged herself as much under the bed as possible. The fan fell over with a sharp clatter. The cacophony of the zombie horde escalated. In the dark, she searched for her pistol, her hands sliding over the objects that continued to fall around her and skitter across the floor.

After over a year of hunting the zombies, she knew they would ignore the Airstream as long as they didn’t know she was inside. Their hunting was based on sight. Dragging a sheet off the bed, she pulled it over her body. The back window was low enough that a tall zombie might see her inside if she wasn’t careful. Remaining covered, her fingers sought out her pistol.

The hard strikes of the ruined bodies colliding with the Airstream were now so numerous it sounded like hailstones hitting the exterior. The reek of the dead poured through the screened windows, making it hard to breathe. Enveloped with fear, Emma struggled to not let the scream lodged inside her throat escape. She had to find her pistol. If the horde broke into the Airstream, she didn’t want to die in their horrible grip.

The Airstream let out a loud metallic screech, then started to list to one side. Biting her lips to keep from crying out, Emma slid along the sloping floor as the old trailer slowly rolled off its cinderblock foundation. The structure groaned as it lodged against the large pecan trees it sat nestled under, resting at a slant. Emma banged into the wall as the bedding showered down on her and the mattress slid off the frame, pinning her.

After a struggle with the heavy mattress, she finally managed to climb out from under it and away from the window that now revealed the gnarled roots of the tree threaded through the dark earth. Climbing onto the mattress, she dragged the sheet after her. Breathing heavily, she stayed still as the zombie horde continued its parade. The thumping and scraping noises of their passage left her quaking in terror and she was glad she hadn’t eaten anything all day. Her intestines twisted inside of her as her stomach roiled.

It felt like hours that she laid perfectly still, her muscles screaming for her to move. She had given up finding her pistol. The interior of the Airstream was in shambles. The rifles were near the front of it, which would mean moving past the much bigger windows where she might be seen. It was better to just stay in one spot and hope the zombies kept moving.

To her surprise, she must have dozed, for suddenly the room was much brighter. The full moon shone through the window that now faced the sky, illuminating the ruins of the bedroom. The tramping of hundreds of feet still thundered through the night, but they sounded further away. Cautiously, she slid forward on the mattress, then felt something hard pushing into her hip.

It was the pistol.

Wrapping her fingers around it, she stared at the metal glinting in the light from the moon. It was cold, hard, and deadly. She considered thrusting it into her mouth and firing. Yet, there was still a tiny bit of her soul that clung to life. Inebriated it was much easier to wallow in despair and let it carry her into oblivion. Sober, that tiny bit of spark of life fed hope into her heart and mind.

Yet, there was no hope.

Billy was dead.

Making sure her body was covered by the sour-smelling sheet, Emma remained still, clutching the pistol to her chest. Listening to the rasp of her breath and watching the rise and fall of the sheet with her exhales, she mourned her dead son and the ruined world.

In the morning, once the zombies had passed, she would drink the rest of the tequila and leave the nightmare behind.