Life Among The Dead (2 page)

Becka turns off the water and steps out of the shower onto a pink bath mat that matches the toilet seat cozy. She wipes the steam off of a full-length mirror and admires herself. She loves to look at what puberty and cheerleading has done for her physique. She is svelte and sleek like a cat. Every aspect toned to tight perfection.

She often compares what she looks like now to how she once looked. She was a late bloomer in junior high; flat chested, face all bumpy. She was made fun of a lot by all the guys who now want her. The only ones who were ever true to her are down in the basement. They are her only real friends. Sadly no one outside the trio will ever know.

She wraps her long black hair in a towel as she thinks of her fake friends, her vapid cheerleader pals. She hates them. She hates their backstabbing, two-faced ways and their cattiness. She hates the stupid things they say with their primitive brains.

The smell of Becka’s clothes makes her nose crinkle. She realizes as she puts the garments on, she could never wear them around her faux friends.
No way, only around my boys.
The brilliant nerds she adores, who can speak fluent Klingon, and make her feel special.

3

The solitary soldier continues his trek along west 8th. The pain in his side has evolved into a sharp stab, inhibiting his speed. Glancing back Dan figures he should be all right as long as he just keeps a safe distance from the cloud of zombies that tail him. The man looks ahead hoping to find a spot where he can hide.
If I can just drop off their radar, maybe they’ll pass me by.

Lush hedges border an upcoming driveway. The strip of asphalt services house number 32 according to the black numbers on the mailbox. A red balloon hovers, tethered to the box by a thin string. Dan crouches below the greenery as he heads to the house. His hand goes to the knob and he is relieved to discover the front door is unlocked. He doesn’t hesitate as he slinks into the home.

The dead bolt is immediately thrown and he secures the lock on the knob. For an added measure of assurance he slides the chain lock into place. Dan is on his knees staring at the door. He can hear their moaning. It’s getting louder as they approach. To the right of the door is a large window shrouded by a heavy beige curtain.

Apprehensive fingers lift the thick fabric, trying carefully not to be seen. A small gash of light is made, a sliver that he peers through. The two zombies he had avoided earlier by the paperboy have entered the yard.
They must have seen me come this way.
Dan thinks while his stomach knots up.
They’re looking for me.

The figures pause on uneasy feet. Their bodies sway as they slowly look around the yard. Dan can see their slack lifeless faces. One is a man, half dressed. His neck is bandaged with gauze that his blood had soaked through.
He must have been getting ready for work,
Dan thinks, noticing the left side of the guy’s face is covered in a dried lather of shaving cream. The other figure is a woman wearing jeans and a tee shirt. Her right forearm is gnawed to the bone.

The gaze of the undead passes the window and Dan ducks down. His chest aches with tension as he listens for them. He strains his ears to detect what is happening outside, expecting to hear them at the door any second. Clawing and moaning, looking for food.

The cowering soldier steels himself, gathers his courage and holds his breath like it is his last. He forces himself to look out again. His fingers work the fabric over the window creating a small porthole for him to see from.

His vision is obscured. Before he saw light, now all he can see is a shadow. It takes him a moment to realize it’s one of them standing before the thin pane of glass. Dan freezes as he looks at the body. It’s the man. His back is to the house. The soldier feels a wave of relief wash over him.

On the road, beyond the loitering zombie, Dan can see the horde passing by. The dead man on the lawn is watching the procession. He slowly begins to move, heading off to join the others. Dan watches him depart. The half dressed man has only a pair of pajama bottoms on. Not only was he bitten on the neck, it appears his right calf was also some cadaver’s breakfast. The gray cloth is in tatters and stained red, most of the muscle is gone. The wound causes a pronounced limp. Dan knows the hobbling isn’t from the pain,
they don’t feel pain.

All he has to go on is theory right now. Dan and his men found out by trial and error that only headshots will put them down for good. Body shots slow them, but not much. The virus, or plague, or whatever the hell is causing this, is transmissible by bite. You get bit, you turn into one, and you eat flesh. Just like the movies. Dan wishes this was just a movie.

4

Derek is fairly confident that he knows where they had left off before being side tracked by the debate. Now he has his head on the table while they wait for Becka to return. Stevie stares at the white dimpled panels of the ceiling as he absently rolls a pair of 20 sided dice on the table. Becka appears at long last. Her hair is wet and her shirt clings tightly to her damp body, accentuating her curves.

“
I know where we are…” Derek starts to say, but he notices Becka has an expression on her face that tells him something more important is going on. It is a haunted look.

“
Hey Becka,” Stevie starts to ask. “Did you hear something earlier? Like a loud popping sound? Could have been a car backfire, or a gunshot?”

Derek notices his friend’s ordinarily pretty face set in a mask of shock, like she had just seen a ghost. “Are you alright?”

“
No. I mean, yeah. Come upstairs.” She turns and heads up without any more explanation, or even waiting to see if they follow.

No explanation is needed. The boys spring to their feet and follow the cheerleader up the steps. In the upstairs hall they see her briefly in the kitchen as she rounds the corner heading into the dining room. She leads them to the window that looks out to the street. Becka waves them in close to her, lowering her head in a secretive pose.

“
I was upstairs,” She begins to tell them in a whisper. “I heard the popping sound you guys heard. I was already going to take a look, to see that crash we heard earlier when I came back through…” she lets her voice trail off and just points to the window.

Stevie takes the cue. He creeps to the window and lifts the bottom of the white vinyl shade. He sees hundreds of people walking along the street. From the left of his view to the right.

“
That is odd.” He admits. As he continues to watch he starts to see just how ‘odd’ it is. He takes note of the way people are dressed; bed clothes, business attire, one woman is completely naked. He notices they all walk in a drunken stumble and share the same lifeless expression. What really strikes him as peculiar is that most of them are wounded and bloody. He sees a paperboy crawling along with the others, one of his legs is gone, only a bloody stump. “Jesus Christ! This is really fucking odd!”

Derek watches his friend leave the window, his face now set in an expression like Becka’s. Fear. It’s his turn to look. He creeps to the window and lifts the bottom as Stevie had. He doesn’t know if he wants to see whatever it is that has creeped his friends so much. As he crouches to view the street via the slit he made, the shade’s recoil is triggered sending it up towards the ceiling out of his hand. It flaps loudly as the mechanism’s force causes it to spin on its rod.

Derek freezes, mesmerized by what he is seeing.
Have I fallen asleep?
He asks himself. He wonders if this is the result of exhaustion and too many scary movies. He remembers laying his head on the uneven card table.

“
Get down.” He hears Becka say from a million miles away as his brain struggles to analyze this impossible equation. He is pulled down next to his friends on the floor. His hand lands at the baseboard right onto a carpet tack. A brief flash of pain and he knows this isn’t a dream. His mind is brought into the frightening daymare that is unfolding in his neighborhood.

“
They’re coming.” Becka says, peeking over the window sill. Her voice is choked with fear. “What do we do?”

“
Basement.” Stevie says, already crawling back to the kitchen. Derek grabs his ankle.

“
No,” he commands. “Upstairs. Move!”

The trio race to the stairs and scramble up to the second floor. The three childhood friends can hear moaning coming from below and the sound of hands slapping against glass and wood.

In the hall Derek hops up to grab a dangling cord as his friends shift nervously from foot to foot. It takes him three attempts until he gets a hold of it and uses his weight to lower a panel from above. It opens revealing a collapsible ladder built into the house’s structure that leads up into a dark space above them. The ladder won’t unfold.

“
It must be rusted. We have to boost each other.” Derek says, placing his back to the wall and lacing his fingers together between his knees.

“
Becka.” He says and she steps into his hand with her bare feet. She extends herself up to the defunct ladder while Derek heaves her upwards. She leaves his hands and is groaning as she hauls herself the rest of the way up.

Downstairs, glass is breaking. Shards of the windows fall to the carpeted dining room floor tinkling against each other.

“
Boost me Stevie, and then Becka and I can pull you up.” Derek says.

Stevie complies. He puts his back to the wall as Derek had and helps his buddy reach the ladder. From his vantage the skinnier boy can see down the stairs. He’s relieved to see nothing yet. The moans are much louder now that the windows are broken. More glass falls, crunching under unseen feet.

Stevie looks up and sees Derek is struggling to pull his weight over the edge of the hole. Becka is trying to pull him by his belt the rest of the way. Derek makes it and the two disappear into the opening.

A look to the stairs reveals shadows being cast by unsteady figures. The heavy thumps of bodies falling into the house through devastated windows can be heard. The moaning fills the air.

“
Come on, Stevie.” Derek yells down. The stranded boy looks up to see his crony hanging down as far as he can face first. One hand is outstretched the other desperately tries to maintain a hold on the aging wood of the ladder.

The boy jumps up and latches onto the offered hand. Both have sweaty palms and he slips right out of Derek’s grasp, falling to the floor with a thud.

“
Again.” Stevie hears from above as he gets to his feet. He is about to jump once more when the stairs creak. He looks to the sound and sees slack faced figures slowly climbing up to him. Their moans vibrate the walls. The boy franticly looks up to the crawlspace, his eyes meet Derek’s.

“
Come on.” Derek says calmly.

Stevie wipes his hands across his shirt and lunges up to meet his friend. He gets a grip on Derek’s pudgy fingers with both hands. He slides a little but refuses to let go.

“
Climb!” Derek yells with a voice full of strain. Stevie kicks his legs until he locates the wall. He starts to walk up the off white surface as Derek pulls. Becka aids the portly rescuer by pulling back on his shoulders.

Slowly Stevie ascends to the ladder as a handful of figures start to fill the hall. He looks down at their dead faces; their hands reach for him trying to grab his skinny, dangling legs. He can feel fingertips graze the fabric of his pants as he clings to the useless ladder. He manages to get his right knee onto the lowest of the rungs. His other limb is ensnared in a viselike grip before he can get it up.

The thin boy screams as an icy cold hand slips its emaciated digits under his pant leg. Stevie thrashes against his assailant as he is dragged down the wooden ladder. He fights to kick free, struggling to maintain his hold on the splintered wood. He screams out in terror, unable to jerk his leg free before he loses his grip.

Stevie hovers in space the center of a tug-o-war between the living and the dead. Derek has the smaller boy by his armpits. He and Becka redouble their efforts to raise their friend. The frigid hand loses the battle.

The three exhausted teens fall backwards into a cloud of white insulation. They just lay in the soft cottony piles, not daring to move.

5

Able to breathe easy, Dan sits in the dim foyer of number 32. He knows he should inspect his new surroundings before declaring the place safe and dropping his guard. He forces himself to stand. His rifle is in his hands as he proceeds through the house.

It’s very quiet. He is in a living room furnished with modest do-it-yourself fare. He sees a couch facing an entertainment center and a couple of recliners. Two lamps cast an orange glow upon everything. He doesn’t care about the décor; he just wants to know nothing is moving.

Dan feels uneasy. He has a tight, tingling sensation in his chest he hadn’t felt since he was much younger. He had broken into an old barn near his uncle’s place out in Newcastle on a dare. He knew the place was abandoned, and it wouldn’t hurt anyone, but it was still off-limits. The act filled him with a sense of dread. He hates the feeling.

The soldier continues his slow trek across the worn beige carpet that probably used to be white. His black leather boots step around children’s toys as he scans every angle. Blue steamers hang from the ceiling, tickling the top of his shaved head.