Dying Days 6 (9 page)

If Darlene had been with us she would've defeated the smombie
, Bernie thought. Maybe Darlene was a protector. Wasn't there always a good faction of the monsters in every TV show and movie? The old guard opposing the creatures even though they were also the same species? They'd changed their wicked ways and wanted to help mankind. Maybe that was the deal with Darlene.

Bernie decided she'd find Darlene and ask her. Worst-case scenario Darlene killed her. Best-case she had a guardian angel watching over her. It was worth a shot. As soon as she could get safely out of this trunk.

In the TV shows and movies, the zombies groaned as they shuffled along, making it easy to hear them coming. The reality was more horrific, as they never made a sound.

Could she chance opening the trunk and seeing if the coast was clear? She had a horrible thought of the trunk popping open and ten zombies surrounding the trunk, all those rotting hands reaching for her. She'd be unable to close the trunk again, dying a horrific death inside a car.

She tried to remain calm and think reasonably. If she stayed in the hot trunk, she'd eventually die of dehydration, hunger or fear.

It was time to move.

Bernie opened the trunk a crack, the sound of the latch disengaging like an air horn. She was sure every zombie within fifty miles had heard it.

When she pushed it open a bit so she could peek around, she didn't see zombies in her vicinity, but the view was obstructed because of how little she could see from the trunk.

Bernie threw caution to the wind and opened the trunk, fighting against fatigue and cramped legs to get out as quickly as she could.

A zombie, about twenty feet to her right, was walking the other way and somehow hadn't heard her.

There were so many zombies walking in random directions but none had turned in her direction so far as Bernie stretched her legs, fearing she'd get a cramp if she started to move.

Which way had Darlene actually gone? The obvious choice was her taking I-95 north, which was only a few feet away. If she followed the main road she could hopefully see any zombies coming at her like they'd done when they moved south, looking for a sanctuary that didn't really exist.

Darlene had told her about Daytona Beach and the smart zombie ruling over the people. She didn't want to be a slave even if it meant protection. Or did she?

She wondered why she needed to find Darlene anyway. What if she was wrong and Darlene was a wolf in sheep's clothing? Bernie would be powerless against such a creature.

A nearby zombie turned and started to head in Bernie's direction without making a sound. If she hadn't been paying attention, the zombie might've gotten on top of her and taken her down.

Bernie began to walk quickly. She needed to pace herself even though her heart was hammering and her instinct was to flee as quickly as her feet would let her.

I can out-walk a zombie
, she thought.
I just can't get around too many of them or I'm in trouble.

The ramp heading south was packed with zombies, all being funneled through the abandoned cars. She could see more up the onramp and over the bridge. There was no way she'd be heading south from this point.

Bernie turned, gauging how far away the approaching zombie was and seeing with dismay several of his friends had now joined in, and decided to head back to the corner of Route 1 and take it south instead. The path would go through business areas with more chance of zombies and being ambushed but maybe she'd get a few miles down the road and I-95 would reconnect and she could use the major highway.

Even a city controlled by a zombie was better than being out here in this. Every step you never knew which way to run or if the enemy was at the next intersection. And they were always there, waiting to rip you apart.

Bernie knew she had a few hours to go before it would be too dark to continue so she wasted no time, jogging to her left and away from the zombies beginning to crowd the street.

An abandoned Dunkin Donuts, glass shattered and drive-thru window on the ground, gave her somewhere to circle behind and out of sight. Most zombies gave up when they didn't see you anymore, continuing on their path.

Ted had been a master at leading the zombies away from their group, putting them on another path. Bernie remembered someone questioning the logic of it in the beginning. Why not take the time to put the zombies down instead of letting them continue their quest for the living? Were they potentially shoving the zombies in a new direction, right in the path of another group?

Ted's argument was simple: they didn't have enough ammo to put down every zombie in their way. There were too many, and one slip and you'd be dead. The risk wasn't worth the reward. Besides, how did anyone know if another group hadn't put these zombies in their path to begin with? They were just paying it forward for the next survivors. With any luck, no one down the line would die, or they'd have the resources to kill the zombies.

By the time Bernie got around the Dunkin Donuts and through high weeds in the field behind the building, most of the zombies had seemed to forget about her.

She had to move slowly and stop every few feet to make sure a zombie wasn't wandering in the field, which had weeds higher than her head in spots.

Maybe she could circle back to the office and gather the group's gear. It was a morbid thought but, if she didn't do it, someone else would. She was heading back to it, anyway. A quick detour and she'd be there and then on her way. She'd only managed to run a quarter of a mile before she'd gotten into the trunk of the car.

Zombies were heavy as she walked across the parking lot and onto Route 1 but they were far enough apart to not be a problem. Bernie hurried across the road so she didn't attract any more than she needed and kept jogging until she rounded the corner of the building.

She stopped to catch her breath before peeking around.

Two members of her group were ripped apart outside, body parts littering the sidewalk in front of the office space.

It was three doors down but there was nothing to hide behind. What if the zombie was still inside? It hadn't been that long since the massacre.

Bernie moved to the other side of the road to get a better angle. If he was still around, hopefully she'd see him before he was alerted to her presence.

The parking lot also gave nothing to hide behind, which was frustrating.

Bernie tried to make as little sound as possible as she walked, careful not to kick or step on anything. The weeds were slowly taking over the parking lot, the grass growing a few feet into the asphalt and between multitudes of cracks.

She positioned herself so she could look inside the office. The front door was wide open and the glass had finally been shattered. She could see the blood covering the rest of the windows, handprints streaking and someone pressed against it on the other side.

Bernie couldn't move.

It was too dark inside for her liking. The zombie could be only a few feet in and she wouldn't be able to see him until she crossed the parking lot. The glare of the sun overhead wasn't helping, either.

A strong laugh resonated from inside the building.

The zombie who'd snuck into their midst and killed everyone stepped outside and laughed again.

"I'll make this easy on you, pretty lady. Yes, I'm still here. No, everyone else is dead. Yes, you're next," the zombie said and began strolling towards Bernie.

Chapter Twelve

Darlene didn't know if it was motherly instinct, the Lich Lord blood in her body or something else, but she knew she was on the right track and getting closer to her son.

She didn't know how many months ago she'd followed this same path heading south, but it looked like it hadn't been serviceable in a hundred years. The trees on either side of I-95 had begun their slow crawl to join in the middle, with small trees sprouting between the cracks in the asphalt and the medians choked with weeds so high Darlene could barely see on the other side.

Even if she had a vehicle, there was no way to drive further than a few feet, with so many potholes and abandoned cars in the road.

There was a body in front of her, an older man with a torso ripped apart and scattered across three lanes. His one attached hand still held a pistol. Darlene pried it from finger bones covered with a thin layer of cracking flesh but it was empty. She put it in her back pocket. You never knew when you'd find ammo, and she could always use it to barter or fake her way out of a fight.

She remembered once hearing a statistic about there being more guns than people in the United States, like one hundred fifteen guns per one hundred people. Something crazy like that. Obviously, not everyone was walking around with a gun or two and she figured Texas and a few other places had more per capita, but Florida should have some. So far ammo and weapons were still tough to find, and the obvious places like gun shops and Walmart were cleaned out early.

Darlene wondered how other countries had fared. Was this a worldwide epidemic, or had other countries simply closed their borders and written the United States off? What if North Korea was even now attacking the West Coast and taking over chunks of our land? Foreigners might be killing the remaining Americans and taking all of the resources that were left.

She needed ammo and food.

Her backpacks had been left in the office park and the group had already split up her things. She supposed none of it was really hers anymore. Finders keepers was the way of the world now. As long as she had her Desert Eagle, she'd make due.

Zombies wandering in the area ignored her and she didn't have the energy anymore to take the time to destroy each of them. Could she really make a dent in the zombie population? It seemed like the smarter zombies were doing the job for her anyway.

Her focus needed to be on moving forward and finding her baby.

Darlene wondered when the last real meal she'd had was. The snacks in the office had been great but she hadn't eaten much more lately. Her fear was she didn't need food anymore, or sleep, and she was even now turning into a monster. As much as the power and the talents would do her well, all she wanted to be was human. What if she turned into something akin to The Lich Lord and gained not only superhuman strength and crazy powers but his bloodlust and megalomaniacal mindset?

She thought about all of this and more as she kept walking, using the abandoned cars both for cover and landmarks to keep heading in the right direction.

Every now and then a zombie would inadvertently get too close and she'd put it down but there was no fun in it anymore. She was invisible and they weren't much of a threat individually anyway.

The only way she could change the world would be to find her baby. Nothing else mattered to Darlene.

An eighteen-wheeler, overturned in the median, offered shade for a few minutes. The doors to the cargo area had been ripped off and scattered.

Someone had placed a mattress and furniture inside, perhaps to live for awhile.

Darlene had her Desert Eagle out, scanning the area for movement. If someone was still living in the truck, they'd have spotted her a mile away.

The back of the truck was packed with more furniture, stacked high and some still in boxes. It was a furniture delivery truck someone had come upon and made the most out of it, although living in the center of a highway wasn't the best spot.

If it was up to Darlene, she would've moved the furniture into the trees on either side of the road and set up a camp instead of being so exposed.

It was the quickest way to die, and as she got closer she saw she was, unfortunately, right.

It looked like at least three bodies just past the mattress, but it was hard to tell with so many parts and so much dried blood.

Darlene decided not to explore. She didn't think finding supplies was worth seeing the faces of the dead so close and personal.

Had these people been ambushed inside the truck as they were setting it up, trying to find a semblance of order and home? Darlene hoped whoever they were they had been dead before their brains had had a chance to comprehend they were about to die.

Darlene wondered why she was feeling so nostalgic and worried about the world around her lately. She knew part of it was her missing baby but the other part was the death of John and everyone else she knew. Not just her father in Maine but everyone she'd met in her lifetime before and after the world had turned upside down.

"Suck it up, Cupcake," she said out loud, something her father used to say when she was a kid and whining about how unfair her life was. Major events for a five year old like not getting to stay up past bedtime or getting a second helping of ice cream.