Cage The Dead (3 page)

“I need to get to a vehicle to go check on Adam!” Gaia whispered in an excited tone.

“First thing’s first. I need to get this shoulder to stop bleeding and we need a safe place to rest,” Nick said, adjusting the rifle over his shoulder again.

“Well, there’s at least a dozen cars over there,” Gaia said, pointing to the smaller lot. A few cars peeled away in the distance, horns blaring and smoke pouring up over the tree line in the near distance.

“Accidents all over the place, probably.”

“We need to cross the open area there to get to a car,” Gaia said. “There are tons of those zombie things over there, though,” she added, nodding toward the lot across the street. “Where the hell are they coming from?”

“Three busses full of parents and teachers from a school showed up here not an hour before everything went to shit. I guess they never told you?” Nick said, soaking a section of torn cloth with water from his canteen, rinsing it out, and then wrapping it several times and tying it around his shoulder as best he could.

“Well, I was off the last three days,” she quipped, helping him to get the makeshift bandage secure. “So that way is no good, we can maybe make the lot over there,” she said pointing to the closer, smaller lot.

“Sure,” Nick quipped with a slight shake of his head. “All we gotta do is get past them.”

Gaia was crestfallen upon seeing this newest group of zombies barring their path.

A half dozen kids—or at least they were until recently; young boys and girls in all, and undeserving of this fate worse than death—took up station wandering about to their immediate right, just north of the lot, which was in the southernmost section of the grounds.

They looked around as if they sensed her and Nick’s presence, though she didn’t know how. They didn’t seem as though they were alive, not breathing, and she wondered again about the one she’d seen earlier sniffing the air. But, they couldn’t possibly have a sense of smell.

Could they? There was no way.
They did not draw air into their lungs.
Of course, the counter argument would be that once people are dead, they stay dead. So, she guessed, anything was possible.

She saw it with her own eyes, recalling having watched one of them—a dead woman—come back to life.

There was certainly something perverse happening here.

“What are we gonna do?” Gaia asked Nick. “We can’t go anywhere!” the pair sat there, looking around, looking for a way out. There was a tree line thick with shrubbery and fencing behind them, zombies to the right and the left that would see them if they made a break for it.

“Take my knife,” Nick said, unstrapping his belt and giving it to her. On the belt was a huge sheath that held a knife that measured at least the length of her open hand. “Just in case.”

Gaia reluctantly took it and nervously fitted the belt around her thin waist, the weight of the knife causing the belt to hang low on her right hip. She unbuttoned the safety strap and removed the knife, staring at the steel edge. She shook her head.

Gaia had used knives before, and had done—or at least aided in—many an emergency veterinary surgery on a wounded animal. She didn’t shy away from gruesome scenes or events, but neither did she look forward to them.

“I’m going to distract them, make a break for a vehicle.” Nick looked at her with determination in his green eyes. He rubbed his beard and leaned in, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“I don’t know, Nick. It seems—“

“Crazy? I know. But, you need to find Adam and I…I have nothing. Never had.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“Look, we don’t have time to argue. Besides, I don’t know if this wound is gonna heal without stitching it up,” he said, craning his neck to stare at this right shoulder. He grimaced and sighed. “No arguments.”

Nick took a step toward the zombies on their left, and one of them shifted its vision their way, as if it had heard Nick move. He froze, most likely second-guessing his suicide mission. But, it was too late. The zombie-kid rushed toward them, nearing the brush just as a visceral roar burst through the silence, echoing through the area.

And that was followed by another.

Gaia turned her gaze upon a pair of North American grizzlies that had escaped their enclosure, making an entrance in a way that only a seven hundred pound predator could. She watched with delight as one swipe from a massive paw sent a zombie head rolling away. The second grizzly swatted another and cleaved one in half with a ruthless attack, its top and bottom halves falling in separate directions.

She heard Nick grunt, bringing her focus back to him as the zombie, unswerving in its focus on the two of them, was met with the butt of Nick’s rifle. Chunks of gore from the side of its head fell away and it stumbled backward under the brutal strike. Nick fell to one knee, as the effort was too much for his wounded shoulder to take.

The zombie rolled over and began to right itself, but Gaia was upon it before she even realized what she was doing. Her knife was in her hand and she fell over the zombie, driving the blade through its skull.

It immediately stopped moving.

When he glanced up at her, he whispered something that Gaia could not understand. She bent to one knee and extended her hand. “What?”

“It’s Oscar and Grace,” he mentioned thankfully.

“That’s just good timing! They saved our asses. Now let’s move while they’re distracted!” Gaia said, as she helped Nick to his feet.

The pair ran quickly across the vacant space and found themselves among the abandoned vehicles. Gaia stole a glance back to the grizzlies and was delighted to see that the pair held their own against the zombies, of which only one remained.

She and Nick surveyed the vehicles and found the closest ones were all locked. In Gaia’s peripheral vision, however, she noted a trio of school buses parked next to one another, neatly positioned in a row.

“There! The buses are probably not locked and its high enough off the ground that nothing can peek inside the windows,” Nick mentioned. But as the pair made for the buses, Gaia stopped them again as she noted shuffling pairs of feet in between. She held her pointer finger over her mouth, indicating for Nick to remain silent and then she waved her hand for them to back away. They began to slowly back out and then heard the sound of what had to be a vehicle coming closer as the noise grew louder. Gaia wanted them to be moving before the zombies heard and reacted to what was happening. Several of them emerged from between the busses and Nick, injured and out of breath, removed the rifle from his back and leveled the barrel at the coming pair of zombies.

The sounds of the vehicle grew closer still until Gaia, standing beside Nick and removing her knife again, saw headlights coming their way. Her heart sang as she recognized the arrival of Adam’s Mustang GT coming into view.

The pair of zombies there, focused only on she and Nick, did not regard the vehicle until it was too late. The pair of zombies met with the front end of Adam’s prized car, the grill and headlights smashing under the impact as the pair of zombies were caught in its wake. One flew up and onto the windshield, cracking it under the impact, while the second flew away from the passenger side of the car, gore and body parts flying everywhere.

Gaia felt the wet sensation of blood as it sprayed both her and Nick. The vehicle came to a stop and the zombie rolled from the hood and onto the gravel of the lot.

It shuddered as it hit the ground, its bones shattered under the impact, and yet, it still tried to rise again. Gaia was terrified. Before it could move again, however, Nick stood over it and stomped the zombie’s skull with his boot as the head exploded under the repeated impact.

“Nick!” Gaia yelped, gaining his attention. “It’s dead,” she mentioned with wide eyes. Once he acknowledged her, she spun and raced to the driver side door, which clicked open. Adam, breathing heavily, smiled meekly back at her. She immediately recognized that he was not well.

As he unbuckled his seat belt, he stared up at Gaia and forced a smile. “Hey there. Guess the airbags don’t work,” he said, forcing a modest smile. Something was not right with him, she knew immediately.

“Oh my god! Are you okay!?” she asked, leaning over him in the driver seat and hugging him. She pulled him in tight and could not help but brush against him, recognizing at once that his skin was notably warm to the touch. “Adam, you’re burning up.” He looked back at her and drew in a deep breath, nodding.

“I feel like hammered shit,” he admitted, frowning. “Something’s wrong. But I wanted to make sure you were okay. Phones aren’t workin’ either, right?”

She shook her head at his question and then felt overwhelmed as a myriad of emotions flooded her mind and body. A tear ran down her face at the common love that the two of them shared.

Gaia heard something in the distance, grunts and such that could not have come from human or animal. She counted three more of the zombie-children racing toward their position.

“We need to get to the bus there,” she said aloud, looking back to Nick and then staring into Adam’s baby blues. “C’mon, sweetheart. We have to go.” Adam stumbled out of the car and, holding her hand, ran after—or rather was pulled by—Gaia, who dragged him along after her.

The trio made their way across the lot and arrived in unison at the center bus. Three zombies sprinted after them, recklessly slamming into the side of the bus, and thankfully slowing their pursuit. As Nick made it inside, he paused and waited for her and Adam to enter. Gaia shoved Adam ahead of her and into Nick’s waiting arms as he aided the stumbling man into the bus. Gaia bounded in after him, just as the first zombie appeared from around the corner.

She felt the breeze generated by a swipe as the closest zombie reached for her. She panicked, tripping up the three steps and felt a hand on her right leg. She closed her eyes and kicked with the opposite foot, finding the resistance of a body, her heel connecting with the jaw of the undead abomination.

But the grip was unrelenting.

“No!” she screamed, flustered by the fact that this thing was mere seconds away from tearing flesh from her leg. She heard another shot that rang out loudly and she felt the grip on her leg loosen and give way. She felt hands on her, pulling her in and heard the bus door close.

Gaia opened her eyes to see Adam standing over her, a gun in his hand, his arm shaking to steady it before collapsing onto his rear end. Nick was now behind her, leaning against the door, keeping the remaining zombies at bay.

“Holy shit,” she mumbled, swallowing hard.

“Nick needs…help,” Adam said, collapsing against a seat. He looked terrible.

“Gaia! The latch!” she jumped over Adam’s legs and stumbled down the steps to throw the latch on the side of the door. As she did, the glass in the door shattered and a hand grasped Nick’s arm.

Gaia ran back up and looked around, seeing a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and swung it down onto the attacking zombie’s arm. It snapped under the impact and Nick stumbled backward into Gaia.

“You all right?” she asked Nick, who nodded, backing his way up and into the driver seat as probing arms continued to reach for them. “How about you, Adam?” He nodded meekly, handing Gaia his gun.

“I only had one bullet left.”

“It’s okay, sweetie. You saved my life.”

“We got more company coming,” Nick said, trying to stand as he peeked out the front window.

“How?” Gaia asked, her eyes falling over the horizon where she saw more of the zombie creatures heading their way.

“The sound of the gunshot?” Adam offered as an explanation. “I think that they are drawn to noise. When I started up the Mustang, a buncha’ those assholes came runnin’. It’s only a theory.”

Gaia stared into his eyes and saw that the familiar blue was surrounded by a sickly red color.

“I don’t feel good. I’m hot and then cold. I got a bad feeling about—“

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine.
You’re
gonna be fine,” Gaia interjected, the sounds of the zombies trying to enter the bus contradicting her very sentiment.

“We’ll need to get rid of these two, I’d say,” Nick mumbled, also still weakened by his shoulder injury. He had lost a good deal of blood, Gaia saw, staring at the torn fabric covering the bite wound, which was soaked with crimson stains.

“Yes, and then I need to take a good look at your wound more closely,” she replied, glancing around as she stood. She unhooked the clasp on her belt, reaching for the knife handle, but stopped as her eyes fell over a lengthy and weighty-looking crowbar. She picked it up and lined the business end up with a zombie, placing a hard thrust through the zombie’s neck.

It gurgled subsequently, uttering a few dreadful noises after Gaia retracted the bar, but continued trying to force its way into the bus. Its sheer strength was beginning to buckle and bend the steel of the door. The one behind it, not smart enough to work in conjunction with its fellow undead monstrosity, pushed against the first.

Gaia immediately repositioned her strike and thrust it through the creature’s eye this time, where the steel easily penetrated the fleshy housing and the creature slumped motionlessly to the ground. She waited for the other one to climb over its fallen companion and repeated the procedure.

“Everyone get to the back and stay quiet,” Gaia said, watching the half dozen zombies outside, still searching for the source of the sound. The trio quietly slinked back toward the center of the bus, took seats and waited.

Gaia could hear the sounds of movement outside the bus, but after what seemed an eternity of remaining still, the noises dissipated. She dared a surreptitious glance outside and saw nothing and no one around.

“Okay, I think they are gone.” But, before she could even shift in her seat, she heard the meager sound of repeated banging on the window right beside her.