Four (Their Dead Lives,1) (13 page)

“It’s fine.”
 

“Hey, you know those people who have trouble controlling the volume of their voice?” Jerry started. “Well, I have a condition similar to that. My legs, I can’t control their speed sometimes.”

What am I doing in this car?
Everyone else checked their phones and of course, no one had service.
I should be with Alec, Kale, and Scot. We need to reunite, again.
 

“Let’s keep going, Jerry,” Sadie quickly said as she grabbed the back of his seat.

“Well, I would, but I need gasolina. We don’t have another mile in this thing without it.” Jerry tapped the gas gauge and then eyed Jeff. “Tough guy have any suggestions?”
 

I do.
“Stay put. I’ll make sure it’s clear.” As quick as his response, Jeff stepped out of the car.
 

Kelsey called for him, “Homer.”
 

Without responding, Jeff went for the pumps, sneaking up a sidewalk leading from the main street to the gas station.
 

“Don’t die! I really want to know why you’re called Homer,” Sadie yelled from the back.
 

Back in high school, Sadie used to intimidate him and his friends. It wasn't so much the way she'd dressed—all gothic like—but if you ever got on her bad side, well, you didn't want to be on Sadie's bad side.
 

In the gas station, Jeff crouched down to check the first body. A man with an enormous brown beard and plaid shirt lay face down, unmoving. He searched for a pulse. Nothing. A crow bar was right next to the dead body. Jeff grabbed it and stood, examining the food mart. Several long cracks crept across its glass doors but they still stood intact. Lights flickered eerily inside. He checked the other body, a younger man wearing thick-framed glasses. No pulse.
 

At the food mart, Jeff stared through the glass doors, not entering for fear of being cornered
.
He turned back to the pumps.
 

The gas station was on a street corner at the top of a steep hill. Nothing else was nearby, except for Green Hills High School, a couple of miles away.
Go Panthers!
he thought to himself. He used to play on the school’s water polo team, even smiled at that memory.
 

The night was crisp, and a breeze meandered down the streets. Trees across the road swayed back and forth.
Seems clear.
 

Jogging back to the pumps, he signaled the sedan with one hand while holding the crowbar in his other.
 

Jerry’s sedan crept into the station and pulled up next to the first pump, right in front of Jeff. Jerry, ready to hop out, forgot to unbuckle his seatbelt. It yanked him back and he squirmed and whined until it came lose. Finally on his feet, he fixed his shirt to hide his protruding belly. He looked at Jeff. “What?” he snapped. His cheeks jiggled. “It’s heft, not fat.”
 

Jeff shrugged. “I don’t care.”
 

“We can’t all be a Ken doll like you!” Jerry stomped and snagged the pump.
 

Jeff didn’t want to be a jerk and he felt bad, so he offered, “You can wait in the car. I’ll finish up.”
 

Jerry swung away from the gas pump with a smile on his face, but his smile vanished when he looked past Jeff’s shoulder. He gasped and choked in fear. “Je-Ho-Jeff!”
 

The man with a large beard had risen. Blood seeped out his pale face, just below his eye.
 

“I thought he was dead!” Jerry cried.
 

“Get inside,” urged Jeff.
 

“Jeff!” Kelsey alerted from inside the car, her voice muffled.
 

Next to the Jeep, another body had slowly come back to life.
 

One from the front, one from the side. Both mine.
 

The first zombie’s beard tickled Jeff’s skin. Its eyes were bloodshot and its jaw was locked open. Hands shot forward, hoping to grab Jeff. He swung the crowbar immediately, and its curved end impaled skull. A stream of blood ejected as the creature collapsed. It groaned hollowly a couple times then died while on its knees.
Fully dead.
 

Jeff yanked the crowbar out, kicked the body to the ground, and went to face the next undead man that had stood on the other side of the car. Gone.
Where?

The girls screamed from inside the sedan, yelling for their friend.
 

Jerry shrieked. The undead man reached for him as he held the nozzle of the gas pump. Jerry kicked outward, struggling to deflect the man with his flailing legs. The man grabbed his shoe and Jerry tugged, fighting to break free. “He-help!”
 

Teeth sank into Jerry’s shoe as he pulled the gas nozzle from the car and slammed it against the undead man’s head, repeatedly. The teeth had ripped open the tip of the shoe. “My Sketchers!” Jerry dropped the nozzle, bent down to examine the damage to his sneakers.
 

The undead man lunged again.
 

“Jerry!” the girls screamed from inside, banging glass.
 

Jeff leapt over the car, sliding on the hood like a cop from one of those TV shows, movies, any pieces of fiction. He landed next to the pump in time to see Jerry’s dead eyes staring up into the night. The undead man continued to chomp at the poor guy’s chest, pulling out meaty chunks of Jerry while ignoring Jeff.
 

Jeff raised the crowbar over the man’s head but paused when he heard the thuds, the moans.
 

It was the sprinters, from up the hill, the opposite direction from where the survivors had arrived. Resurrected corpses stampeded through the dark.
 

Indulging in a long, deep breath, Jeff slammed the crowbar into the undead man’s skull, interrupting its feast on the dead Jerry.
I’m sorry I wasn’t faster.
 

Sadie screamed inside the car while Kelsey was eerily quiet.
 

Five sprinters made their way down the street before entering the gas station.
 

“Stay inside!” Jeff yelled at the girls. Sadie yelled back at him, banging her hands against glass and crying at the sight of Jerry’s half-eaten body.
 

Stepping away from the sedan, Jeff braced himself for a fight to the death right outside the food mart. He took a swinging stance, raising the crowbar like a baseball bat, and stared down the five sprinters heading for him. A pack of dead high school teens. The closest one, leading the group, wore a track jacket that was torn open, revealing a gaping bloodied hole in its rib cage.
 

Track Jacket moaned at Jeff. It was loud, almost a roar.
 

Jeff roared back and charged. He swung the crowbar around as Track Jacket smashed into him.
 

Track Jacket flew to the side, slamming against the Jeep; its head crushed into pieces.
 

Having lost his balance, Jeff tumbled over as four other sprinters caught him. The night spun in every direction when he crashed to cement. Raising the crowbar, Jeff used it to deflect the next attack. A sprinter lunged on him, its teeth snapping viciously. This one wore a beanie. Beanie’s teeth crunched against the metal of the crowbar. It was larger than Track Jacket but Jeff managed to throw Beanie off. He rolled across the cement several times and, in the process, lost the crowbar.
 

Jeff pushed off the cement to his knees at the same time Beanie lunged. Using only his hands, he caught the undead teen and they both fell on their sides. The three other sprinters regained their footing and were only yards away; Jeff knew he was doomed.
 

The door to the food mart swung open. An old man stepped out and fired his rifle. A sprinter’s head blew open in a red shower.

Beanie groaned over Jeff, salivating for him. Its face was moldier, more decayed than the others. Jeff threw a punch at Beanie’s head and felt its skull crack beneath his fist. He threw another punch to the same spot and this time, his hand broke through bone, and his fingers skimmed brain. Jeff grabbed chunks of grey matter and released a thunderous yell as he performed his first hemispherectomy.
 

Another shot rang through the night, the bullet missing the last two sprinters. One zombie went for the sedan and the other flew past Jeff, targeting the old man at the food mart. A bullet sang, serenading the corpse’s head, dropping it at the old man’s feet.
 

The final sprinter slammed its fists against the window of the sedan, its glass cracking right in front of Sadie’s eyes. She froze in the back seat while Kelsey spun around in the front seat to face the threat.
 

Jeff rose, wiped at his face; a chunk of brain clung to his cheek.
Keep it together.
He stumbled about and found the crowbar.
 

The last sprinter’s head caved in easily.
Anything is easy after you pull out a brain using your bare hands.
 

“You must get inside, now,” the old man called from the food mart. “More are coming.”
 

Jeff fought for air, for a moment to breathe. “How do you know?”

“Because I fired this,” the old man said, indicating the rifle.
 

Before Jeff could respond, before he could catch his breath, he heard them sprinting through the darkness. He yanked Sadie’s door open.
 

Kelsey got out on her own and fled to the food mart, but Sadie froze. She looked at Jeff with a vacant stare.
This is not the time to go into shock.
He touched her arm and gave a light pull, but she was locked in place.

“Hurry!” The old man tugged Kelsey behind him and she fell into the food mart, all the while he kept his rifle raised.
 

Sprinters came from every direction: the road where the previous five came, up the road from where Jeff came, and a few from behind the food mart.
 

Jeff spun around. Surrounded.
 

The food mart is no longer an option.
The old man knew the same and vanished from his sight with Kelsey, locking the doors behind him. Kelsey screamed as she was pulled into the store.
 

I will return for you, I promise.
Jeff slammed Sadie’s door shut, jumped over the front seat, slid under the steering wheel, then lunged to close the front door, just as sprinters collided with the vehicle. The engine came to life and glass shattered over Sadie as she huddled in the seat.
 

Slamming the car in reverse, Jeff crushed several bodies beneath its wheels. There were thuds everywhere, and mouths dripped hungrily for him and Sadie. His hand, so full of sweat, slipped on the steering wheel, but he kept driving, ramming anything in his way.
 

As he made his escape out the gas station, as howling corpses clawed at the sedan from every direction, Jeff hoped his friends were better off.

ALEC

We’re dead.
 

Nicole’s scent usually calmed him but nothing could ease his mind as those dead things clawed at the office door. He and Nicole stood together at the back of the office. As for the six other people in front of them, Erica burrowed into Tommy’s arm, Brian loaded his shotgun, while Deputy Miller checked his remaining ammo, and Kale and Howard were cuffed, helpless, and useless.
Still drunk like me.
 

Moans, growls and thuds pressed against the door. The hinges creaked and its wood bowed inward.
 

“We need a way out,” Miller told Brian.
 

“No shit.” Brian circled the office, frowning grimly, but soon formed a smile.
The air vent!
One shotgun blast broke the grate open. “Everyone in!” he commanded.
 

A piece of wood from the door frame snapped, flying into the office and smacking Kale in the face. “Dammit!”
 

Brian stayed close to the door as a zombie tried to squeeze its head in the new crack. It hissed at him and Brian screamed back. A pump, a blast, the face vanished in a splatter of blood, along with a chunk of the door. There was no sight of the rest of the bar, only a sea of rotten flesh fighting to swarm their refuge. “Alec, lead them out. You remember the way to the roof, yeah?”
 

Alec nodded. Though they were drunk the one time they ventured into the vents, he recalled the path easily enough. He touched his brother’s shoulder and their eyes connected for a brief second. “Be right behind us.”
 

Brian nodded, giving a quick affirmation.
 

Alec heaved himself up in the vent and ensured that Nicole was right behind him. Although tight, the vent had enough room for his broad shoulders to slip through. It was a short crawl. A few turns later and he kicked open the grate covering the exit to the roof. The night, cold as ever, was filled with the haunting moans of the walking dead.
Undead. Zombies, mothereffin’ zombies.
As the chilly air cooled their skin, Alec grabbed Nicole, his fingers tight on her shoulder, and pressed his lips to hers.
Our last night, perhaps.
“I love you,” he said firmly.

“I love you.” Her voice was just as strong.
 

Erica came out next. Tommy followed. Kale squirmed his way out, his hands bound behind his back. Alec reached in and helped his friend maneuver. Howard came next, assisted by Deputy Miller, and finally...Alec waited to see his brother’s face.
 

Brian. Where is Brian?
 

He grabbed Miller’s shirt, forgetting he was a man of the law. “Where’s my brother?”
 

“He was holding them off; he should’ve been right behind—”
 

Alec shoved Miller aside and climbed back in the vent.
 

“Wait!” Nicole rushed forward and grabbed his arm before he lowered all the way into the vent.