Dying To Live & Fighting To Live-Book One and Book Two (Zombie Overload Series) (16 page)

His mouth is now on
my stomach and that makes me recover enough to finally move. But not
fast or strong enough. I feel pain in my stomach and scream. He lifts
his head. Suddenly, I hear a gun go off close to me and his head
jerks back and then bangs down onto my stomach, again knocking the
breath out of me. I look up and see Will hanging out the window, gun
in his hand.

I lay there just
trying to breath again. And feel the sharp pain in my stomach. The
pain that is going to end my life. I start sobbing, thinking of my
kids, my husband, my parents, grandmother, brothers, sister and
in-laws, and all their kids. I'm not going to live to see them again.
I'm not going to make it through this. I pray that someone here will
be able to kill me. Maybe Jake can. I hear my husband calling for
help and I feel like I'm going to pass out from the shock. I see all
of the adults move in sight above me. I see Ash sticking his head out
the window. None of them look very concerned. None of them know.

The weight of the
old man is finally lifted from me and Jake and Will help me stand. I
immediately cover my stomach where he had bit me. It hurts so bad!
Again, it hits me that I have to die, soon, before I hurt one of
them. I stare at them as they talk about the shoot-out. Stare at them
as they laugh to ease the tension of the drama. Stare at them as they
tease me about letting an old man get the best of me. If they only
knew how much of me he had gotten. Finally, they all stop talking one
at a time and just stare at me with baffled and questioning looks as
I stare at them with a serious expression, not joining their laughter
or reacting to their teasing. I just stand there. Hand on my stomach
and staring at them.

I see my mom's eyes
go to the hand on my stomach and she gasps. Her eyes fly to mine. I
see the men look at Mom, then me. Finally, they understand. Dad turns
and walks down the road, his body tight with anger. Jake drops his
head and walks into the trees. Mom starts crying and drops to her
knees. Will screams in anger and flings his arms around me, holding
me tight and sobbing. Me? I just stand there. Staring. Staring at
nothing.

Finally, Mom gets
herself back together, and considering she's the only one capable of
doing so, takes control. She pries Will off of me and removes my hand
from where it is still covering the bite. I let my arm drop in
defeat. I hear Mom gasp so I don't even need to look to see how bad
it is. I feel her yank my military fatigue clear up to my neck and
then silence. Shit. It's bad.

What I hear next
scares the hell out of me. Mom is.....laughing! She's freakin'
laughing. What the hell? She must be in shock. She must have damn
well lost her mind! Jake hears her and comes running back, his eyes
suspiciously red. Will is staring at my stomach, saying nothing, but
his mouth is starting to twitch. I can't believe these people! I know
I should look, too, but I'm scared to. Jake reaches us and stares at
what I hope is my stomach and not my boobs. Yanking my shirt down, I
glare at all of them. I watch as Jake goes over to the corpse that
bit me. He kneels down and taking his knife, pries the stupid things
mouth open. I stare in shock.

He has no teeth!
Looking down at my shirt, there's no blood. Lifting my shirt back up,
I bend my head and look where he had bitten me. No. Not bitten.
Gummed me? Well, shit! But man, it still hurts like hell. But no open
wound.

I can now laugh,
too. With relief, joy, amazement, and for the total irony of the
whole thing. Who could get so lucky?

"Hey!" We
hear a shout and all of us stop and look around in surprise for the
unfamiliar voice. Finally, remembering the whole reason we had
stopped, we walk to the truck that had been surrounded by the undead
earlier. As we walk toward it, we see no one inside, but a man in a
high squeaky voice is still yelling.

"Hey! You all
gonna help me or stand around laughing like a bunch of damn morons?"
Yeah, that's it, Dude. Piss us off.
You're making us really
want to help your ass now.
I approach the driver's side window
and lean in slightly. Jake presses his chest against my back, leans
over me, and aims the gun inside. It's dark now and hard to see in
the even darker interior of the truck but I finally spy the man,
curled on the floor in a fetal position, arms wrapped around his
legs.

"Is it safe?
Are those stinking pieces of shit gone?" He squeaks out. I tell
him that yeah they are gone and he can get out. I move around to the
other side of the truck and the others follow me. The door opens and
he jumps out. No, really. He
jumps
out. The guy has bright
curly red hair (more orange than red), freckles that cover every bare
piece of flesh, skinny as a toothpick, and maybe five feet tall. My
youngest is taller than he is!

I look at the
mammoth truck then back, uh, down at him. Then I repeat those looks.
I feel my mouth twitching and the laughter stuck in my throat, almost
choking me because I am doing my best to keep from letting it out. I
look at the others, hoping to take my mind off the need to laugh and
see that they are having the same problem I am. Of course, us looking
at each other blows that all to hell. We all burst into
uncontrollable laughter. Jake and Will bend over clutching their
stomachs, Dad walks off shaking his head, his laughter floating back
to us. Mom just walks away, back to the vehicles and the kids. I
notice the shake of her shoulders and I know she's laughing, too. I'm
one of those that once I start laughing, I can't stop. No matter
what. I may even laugh so hard that I snort a time or two, which, of
course makes me laugh even harder.

I see the little guy
through tears that are streaming from my eyes. He's mad. Jumping up
and down, pumping his fist at us. That makes us laugh even harder.
His face flaming bright red. I can't understand a word he's saying
because I'm laughing so hard, but I can still hear the squeaky tone
of his voice. Suddenly, I see a flash of orange come at me. I
straighten and take a few steps back, my eyes widening. He raises his
fist at me and takes a swing. Next thing I know, he's flying to the
ground a few feet away. He screams and cries, holding his arm in pain
from the fall. His left eye already swelling. I look back up and see
Will stalking toward him and then bending down with his hand clenched
into a fist and pure anger on his face. I rush to Will and grab him.
I pull him away, which is hard as hell to do when he's that mad. I
tell him it's ok, he can't hit him again or he may kill him. Will
grabs my arm and pulls me to our vehicle. He shoves me into the
passenger seat, points his finger hard at my face, and tells me to
keep my ass in the truck.

I salute and in a
quiet voice say, "Yes, Sir". Of course, I'm not stupid, so
I wait until he has his back to me and can't hear me. I know why he's
pissed. This isn't the first time I've stepped in a fight between him
and another man. He tried making me promise never to do it again, but
I couldn't make that promise. I did tell him I'd
try
not to,
but I'm not very good at doing what I'm told, especially when I think
I'm right. Which is most of the time.

I watch him make his
way back to the little guy who is now on his feet and throwing out
every insult he can about me. But before he can get close, Jake steps
in front of Will, putting his hand on his chest and talks intently to
him. I can't hear what's being said, but I think anyone can guess
that Jake's trying to keep Will from killing the little dude.
Finally, Will shakes his head hard and walks back to our truck. He
flings himself into the driver's seat and doesn’t say a word. I
figure it would be safer to keep my mouth shut for now.

Everyone walks
closer to the vehicles and I can now hear actual words. Jake is
chewing the guy's ass for coming after me, especially since we were
all
laughing at him. Jake also tells him he survived the
zombies but almost got himself killed by a pissed off husband.
Eventually, the orange-haired man walks over and climbs up on the
sidestep of our vehicle.
I didn't laugh.
Wanted to, but
didn't.
He looks at me and apologizes. I tell him it's alright
and I'm sorry I laughed at him. He smiles at me and tells me it's ok.
He probably would have laughed, too. We weren’t the first and
probably won't be the last.
Now I feel bad.
He looks over at
Will and apologizes to him, too. Will tells him he will let it go,
this time, but he’d better never raise a hand to his wife
again.
You get 'em, Baby!
He nods at Will, then jumps of the
truck.

We all get back out
and stretch and let the kids move around a bit. The men walk around
with their guns watching for any danger. Mom brings Kaleb to our
truck where I'm changing Grace, and changes his pull-up and clothes.
We take a small container and add water to it, using it to clean
Grace and Kaleb as best we can and then we clean Grace's bottles and
Kaleb's sippy cups. I start my truck and turn the heater on full
blast. I place Grace back inside in her carrier after I feed her,
wrapping her in her blanket, so she will stay warm.

Mom has made a fresh
container of water which she and I use to wash our faces before
calling my boys over to do the same. Finally, Mom and I take over
keeping watch for the men who splash some of the cold water on their
own faces. Will comes up behind me and wraps his arms around me as
I'm keeping watch. He tells me that the little guy's name is Sam and
his truck had run out of gas. Then he tells me he's not so bad once
you get to know him and that he's coming with us, riding with Jake
and Greg. I nod, lean back, and raise my face to his and kiss him. He
holds me tight, telling me how damn scared he was when he thought I'd
been bit.
Him? Hell, shoulda been in my shoes!
I smile to
myself, and we just stand there, watching around us, holding each
other. He cups my chin and raises my head back up, kissing me again.
I smile up at him and as I'm turning my head back around, I see Jake
staring at us with an expression of pain on his face. I stop turning
and look back at him, wondering why he was looking at us like that.
He locks eyes with me for a few moments, then turns and walks away.
Puzzled, I watch him as he goes. Eventually, I assume it was because
maybe he has come to care about us and thinking I had been bit, upset
him a little, too. Turning away, I lean my head back against Will and
sigh.

Everyone finishes
their washing and stretching kinks out, and the men push Sam's truck
off the road. Everyone loads up and we continue down the road.
According to the GPS, we should be able to get back on the main
highway within ten miles. We are hoping the roads are clear enough to
make it to my grandmother's in Darling, Mo. Mom had informed me that
she has been calling her and my siblings on a regular basis.
Translation-every five minutes. My grandmother is obviously scared,
who isn't? I feel awful knowing she is alone especially during all
this. I feel an intense urgency to get to her as fast as possible.

My grandmother and I
have always been very close. I hate that she lived so far away from
us and we had actually planned to move closer to her in a year. I
call her Ma so try not to get confused between her and my mom. The
rest call her Grandma or Nana. She's in her early 70's. Sweet and
gentle. I am her first grandchild so I'm extra special. Seriously.
Ask her.

We turn west on
another gravel road that is supposed to lead us to a small town, and
then the highway is just on the other side. No people, dead or alive.
No vehicles. Nothing but the road, trees, and us. Now, I thought the
other road was creepy but at least it had other vehicles,
something
,
besides this.

We can't drive very
fast, because of the road itself, but also because we can't see much
in front of us easily in this pitch black with only our headlights to
guide us. I keep feeling like I'm being watched from out there. I
strain my eyes trying to see any movement in the trees. I think I
do
see something a few times, but I write it off as my eyes playing
tricks or it's just the leaves and branches moving. I shiver at the
total eeriness of it all.

Soon, we see a small
beaten, weathered sign announcing we are entering Mesa, Mo.
Population 610. Looking around as we move slowly through the town, I
realize things can get a lot creepier than the tree-lined road we
just left. It truly looks like a ghost town. The main street doesn’t
even have a paved road! It's dirt-packed with a layer of small rocks
imbedded into it. The buildings are all old-time like you'd see on a
western movie or TV show. They are covered in dirt and dust. The
paint and signs are dull and faded. Every one of the buildings are
small and attached to each other on each side of the street. On my
right is, in this order; a grocery store, pharmacy, doctor's office,
dentist, community building and mayor's office. On the other side; a
butcher shop, hardware store, police station, bar, (
how
convenient)
and a beauty shop. At the very end of the block, I
can see a service station with a single gas pump on the right, and on
the other side, a small two-story Bed and Breakfast. I just know any
moment now, I'm going to see ladies in long dresses and bonnets
strolling along the boardwalk in front of the buildings. Maybe a man
thrown through the bar's doors,
(I seriously think it should be
called a saloon.)
with a group of men following him out, watching
the ass beating about to come. I can also imagine seeing two men
standing in the middle of the town, prepared for a duel. Horse
buggies and lone horse riders wandering the old roads. And to make it
so much better, there is now a low moving fog surrounding the town. I
can see maybe two blocks, which seems to be the entire length of the
main street. Totally. Frikken'. Creepy.