Love in the Time of Zombies (14 page)

Antonio glared at him, his hand never moving from his wife’s face. “You could have any woman you wanted. There were plenty of women, women willing to use their bodies for protection. But you wanted my wife. Mine.”

Tanya’s struggles had ceased. No movement of her chest remained. Antonio moved back to the far wall, his face in the shadows. “Now I give her to you. You can be together forever.”

Sweat poured off Martin’s body as Tanya limbs twitched and moans rose from her throat. Her eyes opened and a milky opaqueness filled them. Her jaw opened and closed and she sat up. Turning to her lover, the scent of fresh blood drove her on.

He screamed as she reached him.

He screamed as she fed on him.

He screamed as Antonio raised his hand, put the gun to his own head, and pulled the trigger.

He was still screaming as the other man’s body hit the ground.

The Lord is my Shepherd...

Psalms 23:1-6 King James Bible

I was alone.

For the first time since all this crap started, I was alone.

Not on a bus full of other frightened people.

Not on a rooftop with friends and companions to this disaster.

Not on patrol with a partner. Not with Nick. My mind flashed to his young girlfriend, Beth and the baby she carried.

Not with Seth.

My hand moved to my stomach. A reminder at once beautiful and dangerous, that I’d never be alone again.  Staying alive was no longer just about me. Breath caught in my throat. A part of that gentle man lived on. I pressed gently. Tears welled up in my eyes. Swiping hard at the wetness, I moved across the dirt field.

A spate of gunfire echoed from behind me and died away. The moans of the undead became fewer and far between as I cradled the recorder as gently as I would one day carry my baby. Dropping it was not an option. My aching fillings were a small piece to pay to walk in the dark untouched. Skinbags stumbled toward me, only to flee the other way as fast as their deteriorating legs and feet could carry them once they heard the hum.

My mind scrambled for a place to wait until sunrise. Having the recorder was all fine and dandy, but the batteries wouldn’t last forever. If I could just find a place to rest without needing the sound, I could travel by daylight and only use it as needed.

The stench of the finally dead filled my lungs as I crouched and searched the bodies for any weapons. The familiar weight of my crossbow might have filled me with more confidence if I’d had the bolts to go with it, but I’d used them all in the battle and I couldn’t see where they’d pierced bodies in the dark.

The Moon peeked out from behind some clouds and gilded the strewn dead with a silver-edged dignity they’d certainly not had as walking skinbags. I whispered a small prayer and scrambled to find a couple of guns and a knife hopefully before the moonlight disappeared. A torn duffel bag yielded the mother lode—five handguns, a machete, and three knives, along with a heavy-duty flashlight. In daylight I could make my way to the Target group and trade for some supplies and bolts for the crossbow from their sports store—provided the sicko general hadn’t hit them before us.

Silence filled the battlefield. A single gunshot rang out from the mall and then silence once more. No moans. No yells. No cries. No one was a winner in a zombie war.

Only the hum below the threshold of hearing from the recorder vibrated my eardrums. I slung the duffel bag on my shoulder and strode to the blacktop road. I stood in the intersection, the breeze sweeping from the north filling my lungs with untainted air. A choice had to be made.

I could go north toward Antioch and the Target group. I shook my head. Not in the dark. The general could have sent out patrols. They could be in command of the other shopping mall as well. Anything in that direction was too risky at night.

I could go south down the bypass, like on patrol. Just as iffy in the dark and empty of people—live people.

I could go west toward Mount Diablo. I’d never been that way and I didn’t like the idea of finding out what was in that direction in the dark.

What about east? Not an option to go back past The Streets of Brentwood with possible guards at the other end, even though I couldn’t hear them anymore.

An image flickered through my mind. A feature Nick had pointed out on that first patrol trip many months ago. Slightly southwest from the intersection was a water tank on the hillside. I’d asked what the grass-covered thing was and Nick had told me the water tank was covered with plants to hide it from the suburbanites by blending into the vegetation. Buy an expensive house and you didn’t have to see anything as utilitarian as a water tank.

The Moon came out from behind the clouds and lighted my way under the unfinished overpass and across the rising field to the water tank. The smell of burned grass still clung to the field.

I reached the towering water tank. No blood or guts decorated the steel stair treads. I sniffed. No stench of the undead. Listening, only the hum of the recorder throbbed in my jawbone.

With a press of the button, I turned it off and heard... nothing. One step at a time, I climbed to the top. An empty metal expanse greeted me. Moving to the center, I set down my crossbow and the duffel bag. The small thump echoed with a metallic ring.

Sitting with crossed legs, I faced the stairs and relaxed, taking my first deep breath in hours. My hands wandered over my still flatter than flat stomach. No cramps. No twinges.

Over the years, I’d become an unwilling expert in watching for the first signs of losing a baby. Thinking back over all the attempts, all the costs of treatments, and a few times with Seth and I was going to have a baby.

My thoughts didn’t turn to Carl very often these days, but they did then. Would he have been different if I’d conceived? Sometimes, it was hard to dig up memories of the before.

Before the in vitro treatments.

Before the accusations started.

Before the infidelity began.

Mostly, it hurt too much to think of his anger at my ‘fault,’ when it hadn’t been my fault at all.

A laugh escaped and turned into tears at the memory of Bobbi’s comment of changing the stud. I scrubbed away the wetness. Seth had been so much more than a stud, a one-night stand. I could have loved him. I did love him. Him and the gift he’d left me. I wished he could know what he’d given me.

So many years had passed since I’d been thankful for anything, that it felt unfamiliar as I got to my knees, clasped my hands together, and looked to the sky and the stars above. Haltingly, the words came back.

“Dear Lord, in Jesus’ name I pray. Thank you for bringing Seth into my life, please take care of him. Thank you for watching over me and my baby.”

A noise came from the stairs. The scratch of nails on the metal treads. I grabbed a knife from the duffel bag and held my breath. The sound of scraping sped up. My sweaty hands clasped the knife in front of me.

A dog bound up the last step and ran to my side. His tail and tongue wagged in tandem as he sat up and begged with a low whine.

I fell over on my butt, a deep sigh escaping my lips. Just a dog.

I reached out and patted his head. “Sorry, dog. No food tonight.”

He lied down and put his head on my lap. “I bet you were somebody’s beloved pet.” The Border collie closed his eyes and fell to sleep. I ran my fingers over his tangled fur and found a worn collar with a nametag. “At least I won’t have to call you dog.”

“Nickie,” I whispered as I read the tag by the light of the Moon. My shaking fingers went to my lips and tears fell down my cheeks. Looking to the stars and the heavens above, my heart clenched in my chest and took my breath away. Someone was helping me. Someone was watching over me, over us.

“Thank you. Amen.”

“God, you don’t have to help me, but it would be really fucking great if you didn’t get in my way,” Seth cursed for the hundredth time as the undead just kept coming. His truck would have been great right about now. Just when they’d cleared the area around a car, a horde would descend on them from nowhere.

“We wouldn’t be doing this,” he yelled over to Miranda and Cody. “If you weren’t so damned determined to get to Brentwood, we could be safe in an apartment somewhere. With stairs.”

He took a deep breath and plunged a machete into the face of the skinbag in front of him. After the heat of the summer they all looked alike. Like something six months in the grave, except they were walking and killing. The zombie fell and another half dozen took its place.

“Safe is surviving. Safe isn’t living,” Miranda yelled right back.

Man, the girl had a mouth on her. This was the girl he remembered from his supply runs to the compound. Finding a friend her own age had helped the healing process a thousand times more than he’d been doing. Ran had become a mini-Emily. A zombie hunter extraordinaire.

The kids stepped in close and guarded his back. They made a great team if he did say so himself. Why did they need anyone else? Cody answered his unvoiced question.

“Security in numbers, dude. If there is a group, we should, like, join it.”

He smiled at Cody’s surfer slang voice. His smile slipped as a once-male undead shambled up to him. The cargo shorts and skateboard-logoed shirt matched his young companion’s. With a grimace he yelled, lunged, and sent the blond-haired head flying with a swipe of his blade.

Taking a cautious look around, he listened to blessed silence. Bending, he wiped the blood from the machete on the shirt of the fallen and put it back in the sheath.

“Keep an eye out, guys,” he mumbled as he opened the car door and sat in the front seat. The keys were still in the ignition. A few grinding turns, and a lot of stomping the gas pedal, and the motor turned over. It purred like a kitten. The luxury car lived up to its expensive hype. Built for comfort and durability. They cruised down the middle of the street, and knocked zombies out of the way, with three-quarters of a ton of Detroit’s finest.

Seth tuned out the kids chatter as they rambled on as only the young know how to do. Hours of talking with nothing said. His mind turned inward. Gritting his teeth, he knew if it were up to him they would be going anywhere but back to Brentwood, a town with nothing for him.

“Okay,” Cody said over his shoulder, reaching and turning on the radio. Miranda leaned forward, a smile on her face as the young man spun the dial.

“There hasn’t been anything on the air for months, Ran,” he managed to say just before a voice came on over the air. A shiver spiked down his spine. Like a reminder of all they had lost, a sexy DJ voice came on and spoke.

“The Bay Area’s Best is back on for another night of rocking and rolling, friends. After a hard day of fighting the undead and fearing the bad and the mad of society let’s unwind and relax with some Blue Oyster Cult.”

A click sounded on the radio and the well-known strains of
Don’t Fear the Reaper
filled the car and his head. Seth started laughing so hard he had to stop the vehicle in the middle of the freeway and hold his sides.

If the zombie apocalypse had a theme song, that would be it.

The road doesn’t get any harder,

but it doesn’t get any easier.

Every stranger is friend or foe,

decided in an instant.

Trust is a commodity

no one can afford.

—
Seth Ripley

A squeal of the brakes and the jerk of the car yanked Seth out of a dead sleep in the passenger seat of the car. He peeled his eyes open to bright morning sun and wanted to close them again. K-rails barricaded the freeway in front of them. Turning his head, he glanced for a way around that wasn’t appearing. The concrete rails spanned the whole eight lanes. The hillsides went straight up on either side of the freeway. K-rails blocked the off-ramp as well.

Things went from bad to worse, which is the only way things could go in the zombie apocalypse, he thought yet again. A giant stepped from behind the barrier with a B.F.G. Otherwise known as a big, fucking gun. The man made it look like a toy with his bulging biceps and enormous head sitting on no neck.

A quick glance at Cody and Miranda showed a young man ready to shit his pants and a girl ready to die of shock. He sucked in air and grabbed the AR-15 at his feet. The man stood like a statue, the gun not fired yet, but still pointed at their windshield.

“Enough of this shit,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m tired of zombies. I’m tired of people who don’t think zombies are bad enough. I’m tired of being tired.”

Easing the door open, he pulled himself out of the car. The lone sentinel still stood at attention. Seth moved away from the vehicle hoping the gun would follow him and away from the kids. He gulped with a dry throat as his hopes were fulfilled. The gun looked even larger when he stared down the bore. A dark hole of death looking much bigger than it was.

The man’s black skin shone in the sunshine brightening the sky. His shoulders wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Oakland Raiders linebacker. His dark eyes stared at Seth with a glare that meant business.

Moving his arm slightly, Seth pulled the gun back and pointed it in a hopefully non-threatening direction. He took a deep breath as the large man hefted the weapon to his shoulder.

“We don’t want any trouble. We’re just traveling through,” Seth said.

“You can’t go through without paying the toll,” the man’s voice rumbled like rocks in a cement mixer. “Nobody goes through without paying.”

A glance in the near distance showed blood-splattered vehicles sprawled across the concrete roadway. No zombies shambled across the freeway, so the man appeared to be giving mercy headshots.

The man’s stare turned on Cody and Miranda and hairs rose on Seth’s neck. His hand twitched on the trigger of his gun when the stare centered on Miranda. He raised the gun.

“We don’t have much, but we can spare some food and water.”

“Don’t need food or water, got plenty. Some things I don’t have,” he rumbled, still staring at Miranda.

“Not. Going. To. Happen,” Seth gritted out between clenched teeth.

The man’s head whipped toward Seth and a grin split his face. A bright-white slash against his ebony skin. In an instant, his whole demeanor changed. The ominous man became a gentle giant with the grin of a little boy on his face.

“Oh, no. Don’t mean that little girl,” he said. “Hoping you got some chocolate and soap. Maybe some razor blades, but that is probably hoping too much. Hoping doesn’t get you much anymore, does it?”

“What about them?” Seth jerked his chin toward the shot up cars. “Did they not have any chocolate?”

The man pulled the gun off his shoulder and rested the stock on the ground. He took off his baseball cap and ran a forearm over his bald head. “Don’t know about any chocolate. Ain’t looked yet. I do know that they came with guns blazing, no questions asked. Nobody shoots at Teddy Ridgewood and gets away with it.” He put the cap back on his head and held out his hand to shake.

Seth moved closer and reached out. His hand was enveloped in the large, black one. They shook a few times and Teddy’s smile grew. “Teddy Ridgewood or you can call me the King of Pittsburg. Ruler of a dead town.”

“Seth Ripley. The kids are Cody and Miranda. I kind of inherited them.”

He waved and the young man and woman got out of the car and strolled over. Teddy shook hands and introduced himself. Seth kept watch as the trio talked and laughed when the man again said he was King of Pittsburg.

“Where are the skinbags?”

“The what?” Teddy asked.

“The undead. The zombies.” Seth replied, listening to the silence of the town.

“Aren’t any. All gone. All the people gone, too.”

“How can there be none?” Miranda asked before he could. She had her neck craned back, staring up at the enormous man.

“Well,” Teddy began. “Most of the people died of the flu. Town was down to a couple thousand. Then the dead started not staying dead, and we lost a bunch of people that way. So when the crazy people came through and collected the ones I had, I ended up with just me. I’ve looked all over. I’m the only one left.”

“That was General Peters and his group. The crazy people coming through,” Miranda spit out. “I was with them. They have a way to control the horde. Can make them come and go where they want.”

“You don’t say,” Teddy said. “Well, ain’t that the darnedest thing. Trained zombies.”

It looked as if Miranda wanted to say something more, but before he could get a word out Cody grabbed her hand and the tension left her shoulders and she smiled.

“We’re headed to Brentwood. There was a group there. The general, his people and the zombies were going to attack them.” Seth rubbed the back of his neck. “Been ten days; two weeks maybe.”

“That sounds about right. I think that’s when I heard the people come through here,” Teddy said, hefting his big gun back onto his shoulder. “After that, I put up the barricades. Figured if I’m going to be king, I should get something for people going through my land.”

The big man laughed until tears poured down his face. Then he sobered up. “It’s kind of lonely being king of nothing. You folks can stay if you want.”

Seth looked around. It seemed a nice place but one glance at Ran’s stubborn face said she was having nothing to do with stopping before they got to their destination.

“Ran, you know General Peters might be in charge when we get there. The three of us can’t take him on.”

Her brow furrowed. “I’m not living my life looking over my shoulder all the time. If we get there and he is in charge, we can find more people until we have enough to fight back. Don’t you care what happened to Emily?”

“Of course I care,” he shouted. “But seeing it isn’t going to help. It will make it worse. Like this world can get any worse.”

“It’ll help me,” Emily whispered, her hand clenched into a fist. “That bastard will pay.”

As if he could read the young woman’s mind and see her troubles painted on her face, Teddy reached over and patted her shoulder. “Yes he will.”

Seth threw his hands up in the air. He could tell when he was outnumbered. “I guess we are going to Brentwood.”

“Yes,” Teddy said, bumping fists with Miranda and Cody. “I’ve always wanted to live in the country.”

The man started walking toward the K-rails blocking the off-ramp. He waved them to their car and directed them to back up and head to the ramp. Teddy strode to the top and disappeared, to return with a tow truck to move the rails.

Miranda laughed in the back seat of the car. “I thought he would just pick them up and move them.”

Cody and Seth joined in the laughter. “I’m pretty sure even Teddy couldn’t move them without a few more guys.” He put the car into drive and followed the tow truck once the man cleared the way.

“Why are there no cars in the road?” Miranda asked, her head swiveling back and forth. “Everyone is parked and out of the way.”

“If I had to guess, I’d assume Teddy moved them to make it easy to drive up and down the main street here.”

Seth looked all around. “Sure you don’t want to stay? Nice town. No zombies.”

She shook her head. “We are not staying.”

“Dude, the Queen of California has spoken,” Cody said with a bow of his head to Miranda.

They all laughed as they pulled up beside Teddy’s tow truck in a parking lot in front of a marina. The boats bobbed in the gentle waves of the river, their shiny paint gleaming in the sunshine. Seth punched the steering wheel and sighed.

How could the world be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time? Somebody had a fucked sense of humor.

They got out of the car and grabbed weapons and backpacks of food and water. Teddy strolled down the pier, the wooden expanse wobbling back and forth with his weight. They followed as the big guy unlocked a gate and waved them through. He locked it behind them, and they all walked to the last boat.

Seth’s breath caught in his throat and his heart pounded in his chest. The beat thrummed in his ears and his fingers tingled as he tried to keep a grip on his gun.

Teddy stepped aboard the boat with gleaming white paint and its name glittering in metallic blue. Emily. Yes, a fucked sense of humor, indeed.

Getting woken up to a growling dog with the fur on his back standing up is not a good thing. Hearing the moans of the undead over the growling is even worse. I stood up and stretched. Metal was harder than rooftop to sleep on. On the other hand, I had been able to sleep with my canine companion on watch.

Yawning, I walked to the edge of the tank and stared at a dozen or so of the skinbags. The stench rolled over me and turned my stomach. My hand flew to my mouth and I swallowed the sour taste. Wanting to be pregnant was one thing; enjoying morning sickness was another thing entirely.

Nickie the dog stared over the edge as well, his growls in competition with the zombs. With rapid steps, I walked back to the duffel bag and picked up the digital recorder. A push of the button and the dog stopped growling and he sat up and stared at me. Looking over the edge again I smiled as the undead ran away as fast as their pitiful bodies could go.

I squatted and petted Nickie. “Let’s see if we can find some people. Some good people.” Standing, I scanned in the direction of The Streets and the Target center even further away. A chill swept over me as smoke rose in a gray pillar where the other shopping center should be.

Shaking my head, I gathered my few belongings. I wouldn’t know what had happened unless I went there. The comfortable weight of the crossbow sat on my back as I grabbed the duffel bag and took the stairs in a careful speed. The dog followed at my side. Several times I had to scoot him aside with the edge of my foot. The sound from the recorder might scare zombies, but apparently it made a dog stick to me like glue.

Once Nickie and I came off the hill and back to the road, I flipped off the recorder. Silence filled the early morning. A chill lingered as the sun rose across Brentwood. The brighter the light became, the more ominous the smoke became. Walking down the road, it was easier to see it was probably right where the shopping center I was heading to should be.

I wanted to curse the fates, but the dog rubbed against me and it wasn’t hard to remember all I had to be thankful for—the baby, the escape from the general, and for Nickie. A present I was sure came right from Nick. Still being my partner, still having my back.