My Zombie Honeymoon: Love in the Age of Zombies Book One (16 page)

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed—
really
laughed—with anyone more than I have with Michelle. Anyone since Tammy.

My earlier observation about the zombies moving slower in the cold was confirmed. I wonder what will happen when the temperatures drop to near zero, and we have a heavy snowfall? What would happen if we got hit by an ice storm? Would the zombies be rendered immobile? Are they like fish who freeze in the ice but are fine when the ice thaws? Maybe I’ll find out soon.

December 3
rd

It’s incomprehensible what we saw. After chores yesterday morning, we went upstairs to check the traffic, so to speak. It was my turn to watch, so I stood at the window, watching the street. The snow a few days ago didn’t stick, but the sky was gray and overcast. Zombies milled about, slowly shuffling along. Things were uneventful for about ninety minutes until I saw movement with my peripheral vision.

I turned my head and couldn’t believe my eyes: I saw the garage door opening on a house about half a block down the street. What looked like a modified delivery truck backed out. Steel panels had been welded onto the side, metal grating covered the windows, and a huge plow-like device (I think they used to call them
cowcatchers
) was mounted on the front. I thought it was a snow plow until the truck headed our way.

Zombies were slowly congregating toward it, attracted to the noise and movement. The truck drove straight toward them, and the impact of the truck hitting the first zombie flung the creature onto the sidewalk, one dismembered leg flying into the grass beyond. Bone and tissue flew in all directions.

The zombies continued to move toward the truck, and it simply mowed them down. The truck was making no attempt to avoid them—in fact, it swerved to hit them.

Zombies with major head trauma quit moving. The rest would get knocked aside or run over and try to get back up. The ones unable to get to their feet began to crawl toward the truck.

The truck raced down the road past my house. The driver looked like he was enjoying himself. His window was open and he held a cigarette and bottle of beer. The passenger appeared to be laughing. Steering with one hand, the driver brought his left hand to his mouth to take a drag from his cigarette and a swig of beer, then tossed the bottle out the window. It hit a zombie in the shoulder then fell to the pavement and shattered.

When a zombie became snagged by the cowcatcher, the driver screeched to a stop, flinging the zombie onto the pavement ahead, then roared back into motion, running it over. Apparently the driver didn’t think he’d done a good enough job, because he backed up and ran over it again. As the rear tire ran over the zombie’s head, it exploded with a wet pop. They both thought it was hilarious.

Michelle was sitting on the carpet, leaning against the wall. She heard me gasp and rushed to the other window as the truck moved on down the street. Apparently there weren’t as many zombies to have sport with further down, because the truck turned around and came roaring back down the street, mowing down more zombies. Zombies were still appearing, coming from around the sides of houses and sometimes from within houses whose front doors were open. The truck was honking its horn, too, which I couldn’t understand—were they
trying
to attract the zombies? Did these guys have a death wish? Were they trying to draw a crowd? That’s insane!

I was wrong when I said no one killed zombies for fun. I should have said
no normal person kills a zombie for fun.
Once the street was practically clogged with zombies, it happened. It makes me sick to even recall what I saw.

The truck screeched to a stop a few doors past us. After a brief pause, a roll up door on the back of the truck opened. Metal sheets were welded to the frame around the bottom half, blocking the zombies from reaching inside.

As the door rose, three men became visible. One guy, who was probably fifty years old and grossly overweight, may have been the driver. The other two were younger and skinnier—maybe in their late twenties. They all wore dirty jeans and soiled shirts. One had a garish tattoo on his left bicep, although I couldn’t tell what it was. The third guy must have been in the back of the truck.

As we watched, the two skinny guys reached down to pick something up. It was a naked woman. Her head was covered with a pillowcase or cloth bag, stained with blood. Her hands and ankles were bound with duct tape. There were bruises across much of her body, as well as cuts and abrasions. Her entire back side—including her back, ass, and legs—had lateral bruise stripes. In several places were small scabbed over wounds.

She was limp as a dishrag and looked like she might be dead. A trail of smeared dried blood ran from her crotch down her left leg. She was gaunt and pale.

The men carried her to the edge of the door frame, causing the zombies to start their rasping sounds, mouths open, hands and arms scrabbling against the sheet metal as they tried to reach her. I heard Michelle gasp as the woman weakly struggled, apparently roused by the sound of the zombies. She desperately tried to get loose, squirming and twisting, but it was hopeless.

The big man reached over and pulled the sack off her head. One of her eyes was purple and nearly black, swollen shut. The look of panic on her beaten face when she saw the mass of zombies reaching for her, teeth gnashing, clawing at the metal plates, will haunt me all my days.

With the bag off her head, I could tell she was maybe thirty years old with bloodied and matted blond hair. Her struggling increased, but despite her desperation it was no use—between the duct tape and the guys’ hold on her, she had no chance of escape.

The men held her out over the mass of zombies. She evidently lost control of her bowels. Liquid spewed over the zombies below her. The big guy spit a wad of phlegm onto her face. The zombies seemed to be getting more agitated. They were practically rioting. The throng pushed harder and harder at each other to get to her flesh. They began trying to climb over each other to get to the woman, trampling each other in the process.

As zombies fell, other zombies climbed on top of them, reaching for the woman. The two guys held her just out of reach, and when the mass of zombies grew too high, the fat man jumped back in the driver’s seat and pulled forward about ten feet. The pile of zombies collapsed and then began to reconstitute at the back of the truck.

As Michelle and I watched in stunned silence, the fat man came back and ripped the duct tape off her mouth—taking some of the skin with it as she began screaming. Her lips and mouth started bleeding freely. The zombies went into a frenzy as the woman screamed wordlessly.

The two men heaved the woman into the horde.

With a tumult of rasping, the zombies swarmed her as her horrifying screams echoed through the neighborhood.

Michelle and I locked eyes. Hers were hard and dark, filled with terror, disbelief, and emptiness. Mine must have looked the same.

Michelle sank down on the carpet. I turned back to the window and saw the guy with the tattoo laughing. The other skinny guy watched with a smirk.

The screaming woman sank into the crowd of clawing, ripping, rasping creatures. A zombie party with a live human piñata.

As the woman’s screams died out, the big guy unzipped his pants, pulled out his pecker, and began to piss into the crowd where the woman had landed. Steam rose from the swarm of feeding zombies.

While he was doing this, one of the other guys came up with two fresh bottles of beer, one of which he handed to the skinny guy while saying something that made them both laugh.

The zombies had swarmed the woman. I couldn’t see her, thank God. All I saw was the occasional raised zombie head as it chewed a ripped and bloody piece of the woman’s flesh, blood dripping off its chin.

When the man finished pissing, the three of them continued looking down into the fray, laughing and joking. The skinny guy chugged his beer and hurled the empty bottle into the crowd, then gave the zombies the finger. Now that the zombies were preoccupied with eating, the truck sped back to the house it had come from. The garage door opened and the truck pulled in. The garage door closed behind them.

The neighborhood no longer looked like the quiet street I have lived on for so many years. Sure, the houses were still there, complete with mailboxes lining the street. Cars were parked in a few driveways.

But there was a mass of rotting, broken flesh clotting the street, looking for all the world like a tumor. A writhing, bloody tumor, infecting the neighborhood with cancer. These creatures were no more human than maggots, or like vultures scrabbling over road kill.

Michelle and I were speechless, trying to come to grips with what we had witnessed. I felt nauseated and tasted bile in the back of my throat.

I crossed the room and held out my hand. She just looked at it blankly for a moment before reaching out. I pulled her to her feet, put my arm around her, and helped her downstairs and to the sofa. While she sat there, I found the bottle of Xanax and handed her a tablet. I swallowed one as well.

We sat in silence until I noticed she was shivering. I got a blanket, draped it over us, and began to talk, telling her not to worry, that we were safe, no one would find us, I'd take care of her, I'd protect her. I don’t know if I believed my own words, but I repeated them over and over, and after a long time I felt her body—which had been utterly tense and stiff—start to relax. Her breathing got deeper, and as I looked down at her, I saw her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep. I wanted to get up; my bladder was full and I wanted some bourbon. But I didn't want to wake her, so I sat there, feeling her warm body relax into mine. I started getting sleepy myself when Michelle’s body started jerking and she began making whimpering sounds.

"Michelle, wake up! You’re having a bad dream! It's okay, I'm right here!" I said. She looked around, eyes wide, and I could tell she was disoriented. She buried her face in my chest and began to cry. I put my arms around her and stroked her hair. She cried for probably ten minutes, then the sobs died down.

Her voice thick with emotion, she said "That woman! She . . . what kind of man would do that to another person? How could they be so horrible? How could they do that to her? They’re worse than the zombies! They
know
what they’re doing!" She looked at me with pleading eyes.

"I don't know. Those men were probably raiding houses and found her. They probably used her and tortured her until they got tired of her. Throwing her to the zombies was their form of entertainment. These are the same people who hate guys for being queer, or hate black people and call them
niggers
. Give them a chance and they’ll act on their hate, as long as they can do it in secret. They’re sick bastards. There’s a defect in their character."

"That could have been
me!
" she choked, "If I had been in my house, they might have raped and beaten me and thrown
me
to the zombies! Kevin, how can we possibly protect ourselves from guys like that?"

"Michelle, listen to me. What
could
have happened doesn’t matter. It didn’t happen. You’re safe. Even if they break into the house, they won't be able to find us. When I had this part of the basement renovated, I left the other part unfinished. There's a door in the kitchen leading down to that side of the basement. Anyone searching the house would go down there and find it empty. I’ll show you next time we’re up.

“Our trap door is hidden. No light escapes the basement. We'd have to be making a hell of a lot of noise for anyone to hear us. We have the radio upstairs. If they do break in, we'll hear them. If somehow they do find out we’re here, by the time they break through the trap door we’ll have escaped out the root cellar." 

Michelle was still trembling, badly shaken by what she saw. Truthfully, so was I. I knew I was up against human monsters far worse than the zombies. It will be difficult to truly relax again, knowing they’re out there.

After a few minutes, I lifted Michelle’s chin toward mine, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and said, “Michelle, what we saw was horrible, more horrible than I can believe. But it didn’t happen to us. We’re still alive, we’re hidden well, and we have each other. That’s probably more than anyone else can say in these days and times.”

I then bent down and kissed her softly on the cheek. “Let’s keep doing things the way we have been, and let’s continue getting to know each other. Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other, so let’s make the best of it.

“Let’s resolve right now to watch out for each other. To protect each other. And to be smart. We’re clever people. We can get through this as long as we’re with each other. What was it you read in the Bible?

Two are better than one: if either of them falls down, the other can help them up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up,’
I paraphrased.

She looked up at me, put her arm around my neck, and pulled me to her. She kissed me on the lips, then put her head back on my chest.

We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I started replaying the afternoon. I found myself getting tense and anxious again. I stood up and said, “Let’s find something to do. We need to distract ourselves.”