Life Among The Dead (6 page)

He drags her along the floor desperately trying to keep his flesh out of her mouth’s reach. The phone is still in his hands ringing; its cord dangles like a child’s jump rope. He hurls the receiver at her head. It bounces off her skull without fazing her. A voice can be heard:

“
Your call cannot be completed as dialed…”

Inch by inch Dan and the fat zombie make it to the door. He enters the dining room, holding the wall and door as he positions the woman’s head against the door jam. It takes all of his might before the deceased woman loses leverage. The soldier has both hands on the window between the rooms, straining to get out of her grasp. She finally loses her grip.

His newfound freedom sends Dan flying into the china cabinet. A cascade of porcelain falls with a crash to the hardwood flooring. The hutch itself rocks back and forth before toppling with a thud.

Dan lies on his stomach next to the fallen cabinet. Fearfully, he looks towards the front door. Through the gap he can see the undead pedestrians have paused, now fixated on the house. Slowly they start to move towards it, drawn by the noise. He lets out a groan of despair as he pushes himself to his knees. The soldier’s leg is ensnared once again when the large woman wraps her hands around his boot.

Dan turns in time to see she has engulfed the toe of his shoe in her mouth. He kicks and rolls but he can’t free himself from her gnawing teeth. The soldier shimmies to the wall and starts to batter her head against it with a series of savage kicks.

“
Get off me you bitch!” He yells out of desperation. After a barrage of blows she finally falls limp. He wriggles his boot free; her mouth remains open in a silent scream. All of her teeth have been knocked back in excruciating angles.

He hears the moaning getting closer and knows they are at the door without having to look. He runs into the kitchen, hopping over the portly corpse. He heads straight to the side door expecting to just fly out and jump the fence, but through the small window he can see the dead clog the alley.

The zombies are in the house. The soldier catches sight of them through the opening between rooms. He can’t panic.
The back door is open,
he recalls, running to the swinging door. It doesn’t move. Dan’s face rebounds off of the wood. He shoves at the door, but it isn’t going anywhere.
It’s her.
He thinks.
She is lying in front and it won’t swing out.
At the bottom of the door Dan can see a roll of her fat is wedged in the space underneath.

There is no handle to pull, only a flat brass plate to push against. He tries to use his fingernails to gain purchase around the metal, but they aren’t long enough. He had just trimmed them the night before.

The dead pollute the living room. A few of them fall into Couch Canyon and are trying to scale the other side.
There has to be something,
he tells himself as his eyes dart around the kitchen. He has his M-16 in his hands but only one shot.

He takes a look at the island and formulates a plan. Moving to the granite topped alter he slips in the occupants blood and almost ends up on the floor. He grabs the counter for balance. The soldier is behind the structure facing the dining room. He lowers his body placing his shoulder up against it. He shoves with all his might, his feet push against the cabinets behind him. It won’t budge. It’s just too heavy.

Broken china crunches, and the moaning becomes louder and louder as they get closer, and more abundant. He attempts another shove but has to give it up; the strain makes his temples throb and his lips tingle. He can feel the blood rushing to his face from the exertion.

Several bags of flour lay on top of the immovable mass of counter. He has one last ditch idea and it’s a long shot. The desperate man grabs a bag of flour and starts to throw around the white powder causing a dust cloud to hang thick in the air. He repeats this with the other bags using the combat knife from his belt to open the sealed sacks.

The dead are pushing their way through the door. Some crawl in through the window. Dan hurls the final heavy bag of wheat at the closest corpse. The deceased, yet mobile gentleman’s head knocks backwards from the impact; a cloud takes its place for a few seconds.

The air is full of billions of minute particles that make Dan want to cough. He hasn’t much faith in his own plan, but realizes one bullet won’t do much to save him. He opens a cabinet with his foot as he watches the cloud swirl around, caught in imperceptible currents of air. He leans to the flat top and blows a layer of settled flour back into circulation.

The zombies are making their way around the island. Dan crawls into the cramped space he had opened. Pots and pans rattle and gong as he moves over them and shoves them around. He holds his rifle tightly to his chest as he closes the door, save for a mere crack.

Through the crack Dan extends his hand outward. He holds his lighter out and flips it open. His Uncle Bruce had told him about old grain silos and their tendency to blow up. People had to work without light for fear that the slightest spark would set them off. He turns the wheel of the lighter hoping good old Uncle Bruce wasn’t just putting him on. The flame is waved like a concertgoer’s Bic as the dead close in on the offering of meat.

Miniscule particles catch fire. Their neighbors quickly follow suit in a chain reaction. Dan takes his hand back just before the force slams the cabinet door closed. The air in the kitchen becomes incinerated with a bang. The concussion causes the ground to shake and some windows to blow outward.

The soldier’s ears ring as he emerges from the pots and pans. The cabinet door falls from its hinges. He looks around the charred and smoldering kitchen. The dead were all blown against the walls and out through the door and window. The side door has also been taken off its hardware; it now leans against the next fence. Dan runs outside and can see the zombies struggling against each other to get off the ground.
They must have toppled like dominoes,
he thinks, walking up the flimsy wooden ramp. His feet slide down the slick surface as he tries to move up the incline. He refuses to allow gravity to win.

Some of the dead are already on their feet again and approaching. The man has reached as far as he thinks he can walk, any higher and his weight just pulls him down the bowing wood. He dives forward, grabbing onto the top edge of the fence. As fast as he can, he propels himself up and over the vertical barrier.

Dan lands hard on his right side. He doesn’t allow the pain to stop him from at least checking out his new surroundings. He is relieved to find that the alley is blocked off towards the front of the red house. In the opposite direction he sees no movement. He aims his carbine towards the backyard just in case. The soldier allows himself time to recover from the grain explosion.

10

The dark crawlspace warms under the afternoon sun despite the chill of the air outside. Becka and Stevie sit in silence as sweat starts to bead on their foreheads and droplets run down their noses. Lazy moans still emanate from the dead below. They haven’t dared to move for what feels like an eternity, even when the whole house shook briefly.
What the fuck is going on?
Becka had asked herself.
The world has gone berserk.
She has decided to keep her distance from the holes that overlook the second floor,

Stevie stares down into his late friend’s mother’s room. He watches as the zombies pace. They appear to be searching for something. He avoids letting his eyes rest on his buddy’s limp and shredded corpse. Not long after Derek stopped screaming did they lose interest in his body. The boy wipes a bead of sweat from one of the lenses of his glasses. He wonders if they are looking for them. Despite his fear, Stevie is trying to brainstorm a way out. All he has come up with so far is to keep quiet.
Maybe they’ll just go away.

The skinny boy creeps to the hatch above the hall, holding the rafters overhead. He gingerly makes his way through the white foam and thick hot air. His hope is that a new perspective will give him inspiration.

The temperature continues to rise in the dark and claustrophobic level. Sweat drenches their clothes. Becka feels a drop run from her armpit down her side and gets a shiver. She watches her one last friend gaze down the hatch.

Stevie smiles. The dead in the bedroom have entered the hall.
It looks like they’re leaving,
he thinks with delight.
My half assed plan worked.
The mobile dead turn their wobbly heads, scanning the hall like a group of palsy patients who have all lost their keys. They just mill about in the corridor, not leaving.

“
Anything?” Becka whispers into Stevie's ear after a slow journey over to him.

“
No.” He answers.

They watch the creatures pace, the floor creaks with every step the dead take. The two living souls gasp when they see Derek join them. He walks with a lopsided limp due to his ankle injury. His clothes have been ripped in areas and the flesh below has been reduced to what looks like bloody hamburger. The ghouls have eaten away his chubby cheeks leaving their pal with a permanent, unsettling sneer.

Becka looks away. Stevie balls his fists in anger. He forces himself to calm down. He knows an outburst will just exacerbate the situation.

The cheerleader who despises, yet tolerates, being the top of the high school food chain is wishing she hadn’t ditched this weekend.
Anywhere but here.
She cradles her head in her arms as they rest on top of her knees. A vibration in the foam makes her look up. She sees her friend Stevie creeping back to the hole Derek had made in the floor.

Becka sees Derek pacing with his new friends below. She remembers when they were kids; the three of them did everything together, even bathe. She knows the pudgy boy would have loved to have joined her in the shower. Maybe she should have let him. Either one of the two loyal men would have been a better boyfriend then the string of stupid jocks she always dated.
Derek had died a virgin, Stevie will too.

Stevie has his head lowered into the master suite, hoping to spot some sort of weapon. The boy had noticed that when the whole house shook from that weird tremor, the dead had toppled.
As if the rug was pulled out from under their unsteady feet.
He wonders if he can use that somehow,
maybe there’s something in the bathroom I can use to make an explosive. It just may buy us a few seconds.
His mind works away as the dead enter the room, Derek and his new peers are all moving to the bedroom continuing their constant search. The boy has to quickly recoil so he isn’t seen. He almost falls into the breach when his hand slips in the insulation.

Blood is soaked into the white cloud around the hatch. Becka can see a trail of it leading to the other opening, between the halos of light that spill up from below. She follows the sanguine line all the way to Stevie, knowing what she has to do.

“
How is your leg?” She whispers.

“
Better.” He reports. “I wrapped it with a piece of my shirt.”

Becka is seated facing Stevie. He has his injured leg elevated on a mound of fluff like they had taught them in health class, keeping it above the heart is supposed to help stop the bleeding. He isn’t too concerned about the wound’s insistence on bleeding since he has always been a slow clotter. He wasn’t a hemophiliac like his mom always treated him, just not a fast healer.

Becka’s hands find his legs in the dark. They creep up from his knees to his hips. Her slender fingers walk inward to his fly, undoing his pants. The boy is shocked by her unexpected actions and is about to say as much. Her finger is laid across his lips to keep him quiet. Becka pulls his pants down to his mid-thigh, taking his white briefs with them. His stiffening penis is freed in the hot air. She takes it into her mouth.

The boy breathes hard with pleasures he had never known. This is his first sexual experience with someone else present, and it’s with the one person he has always wanted it to be with. Within seconds he is ready to explode, her lips remain around him as he releases. Stevie’s body spasms, the joy creates an incredible pressure in his ears that temporarily deafens him.

Becka spits into the fluff and wipes her mouth. She looks at her friend who lays back in the soft insulation; his head is foggy with bliss. She is working her own pants off and laying back. The man sits up and sees from the dim light entering the space that Becka is partially naked, he is pretty sure he knows what she wants.

The cheerleader watches Stevie stand, a slender silhouette against the glow from the hole behind him. He struggles to get out of his pants, hopping up and down not worried about the noise he makes. He turns slightly and she can see his penis is already erect and ready for more. The eager teen is trying to pull is pants off over his feet, but the fabric is tangled.

Becka’s foot slides between his legs and finds the denim. She hooks it around the material and she pulls hard towards her. Stevie falls backwards through the hole and into the bedroom below. Before the boy can so much as scream, she collects her pants and moves as far from the craters in the floor as she can. She travels deep into the darkness wading through the thick air and foam. She weeps as he starts to yell. In his panicked, pain filled shouts he calls to her for help. She can’t help him.

11

The sun feels good, as Dan lies looking at the cloudless sky. It has really warmed up since that morning. He had heard snow was on the way, but from the looks of the weather he isn’t too sure. They have been saying the winter is supposed to be a rough one. He reluctantly gets to his feet.
A new house brings new possibilities,
he thinks while moving to the dwelling’s red exterior. His ears are still humming from the explosion.