Summer Of 68: A Zombie Novel (7 page)

Chapter Seven

Ruth Miller never did as she was told. She never locked the doors and she never left her perch in front of the foyer windows. When the shooting began, she sensed a new level of fear, one she never felt before—a fear which grounded her experience in the barn, and brought about a new level of realism to this nightmare.

The pops and cracks of gunfire never sounded like she thought they would, more like Chinese fireworks than anything else. She closed her eyes as they progressed and dreaded the pause between each discharge. The old woman was scared—scared that when the firing ceased, the prevailing team wouldn’t be who she hoped it would be. Having grown up in a rural environment, Ruth was accustomed to the occasional report of a hunter’s rifle, both in and out of season. This was different. Every spent bullet marked a malevolent change, which chilled her blood and rattled her bones.

Abruptly, the shots stopped. She caught her breath. Soon they were followed by a quick succession of pistol fire. Even that ended, seemingly as quickly as it began. 

Her mind was a blank slate, incapable of rational thought. Rather than locking the doors or hiding, she remained still. It was as though she had become an extension of the house’s design—a living, breathing defect in her Grandfather’s craftsmanship.

When she first saw the Sheriff emerge from the barn, she gasped. “Thank you, Lord!” she said as she clapped her hands. “Oh thank you, oh thank you…”

From her vantage point, she watched as the Sheriff stumbled and fell, using the barn as a means of support to pull himself along.

While the sight of him was enough to calm her nerves, it hadn’t been enough to quench them entirely. Something wasn’t right, though she couldn’t reckon what. It was then that a horrific thought entered her mind. What happened to the other guy, the deputy—was he wounded or was he dead? The thought sickened her.

“Wait,” she said with a smile as the deputy stumbled out from around the barn, following the sheriff. She looked toward the ceiling and repeated her praise.

She watched as the sheriff staggered for another forty feet and was nearly to the car. Still, he paid no mind to the deputy.

Ruth looked from one to the other, when she recognized the slow and shaming haste that the other guy made to catch up. Even from a distance, her poor eyes noticed the red splotches running down the front of his uniform and the damage to his neck.

How can someone walk with that much blood loss?
She wondered and then she remembered.

“No…oh, no…”

The deputy had become one of the creatures she had seen in the barn. Panicked, Ruth watched the Sheriff stop. It looked as if he was catching his breath, his chest and shoulders heaved. Unbeknownst to him, his deputy was closing in.

Without a second thought, Ruth slammed her thick hand against the windowpane. The glass rattled, threatening to shatter.

She screamed, “Look out!”

Ruth might’ve been nothing more than a simple country woman, but it didn’t take much for her to know that the deputy
should’ve
been dead, and that her nightmare was far from over.

***

What the hell was that?
Baker thought, crawling along the side of the barn. He staggered forward, catching his balance and came to a halt. His adrenaline had ceased, leaving him fatigued. His nerves were frayed and his legs felt numb, growing weaker with each step. Every move was a struggle, an uphill battle he fought to win.

He staggered forward—closer and closer with each step. He heard it again, and stopped. It took a moment, but he recognized Ruth’s tired voice. He turned in its direction, spying her bulbous figure clouding the window.

What is she doing…?

She screamed, slamming her fist against the glass. His first thought wasn’t what she was screaming about, but why she was assaulting the glass in such a way. A strange thought, sure, but it was all his tired mind could muster.

Ruth Miller screamed again, and this time he heard exactly what she was screaming: “Behind you, he’s behind you!”

Baker spun around, the motion disoriented his senses and when the fog cleared, he saw Mark Cohen lurching forward—his upper body hunched forward, arms outstretched and swiping at the air.

“Oh Christ, not you, too,” Baker groaned, seeing what had become of his friend.

Cohen’s corpse sighed, a long and agonized cry—more like a wheeze escaping through the gap in his throat.

Before Baker could react, the two collided, tumbling to the ground. Cohen’s zombie growled fiercely, clawing at the Sheriff. His jaws clacked, a few short inches from Baker’s face, expelling a putrid breath as Cohen’s innards had already begun to rot. 

Surprisingly, the zombie was stronger than Baker expected. Dead weight bore down upon him as he wrestled with his aggressor. Cohen thrashed and continuously cried—desperate to eat his friend’s face.

Clawing at Baker’s attire, the corpse snapped its head forward, slamming into Baker’s forehead. A dull crack echoed between his ears, blistering with a sharp pain that caused a hundred little stars to cloud his eyes. His vision blurred, shifting between focus, and when it cleared, he found himself greeted once more by grinding jaws and a cold gaze of Cohen’s once blue eyes.

Whatever it was that made Mark Cohen who he was, was gone—lost the moment he died.

The zombie continued to thrash, throwing its head back and forth. Baker gained the upper hand, grabbing the cadaver by its windpipe and squeezed. His knuckles bulged, dripping with cold blood as he mustered his strength, pushing the zombie slowly off himself. The corpse rose up, a couple of inches, and allowed for ample time to slip his other arm between them and shoved the corpse aside. 

Cohen’s corpse rolled to the ground, and hit the side of the barn. It writhed, thrashing its limbs about. Baker scrambled to his feet. His heart fluttered. He took a step back, only to fall over his own feet once more.

The zombie wasted no time and crawled forward, reaching up for the Sheriff’s pant leg with a violent swipe. His stiff fingers snagged the starch cuff of his pant leg.

Baker kicked, slamming his foot across the broadside of the zombie’s jaw. Cohen’s mouth snapped back, separating from the skull and lolling limb—suspended by a useless enclosure of flesh. With a broken jaw, the zombie’s hiss became a gargle, flapping against its dangling tongue.

Desperate to keep the upper hand, Baker kicked again. This time the corpse released its grip. Baker climbed to his feet, stepped back, and drew his revolver. Before he could level the shot, the corpse stood with a lumbering step forward.

In a moment of panic, Baker fired. The gun leapt in his hand, but the bullet was useless, punching a hole through the corpse’s stomach. Congealing, blackened blood gushed from the wound. The force pushed Cohen back a step or two.

The zombie looked up, and met the Sheriff’s eyes.

Baker felt a tug at his gut. He saw not the zombie, but Cohen’s pleading stare as if to ask,
why?

“You’re not you,” Baker said, firing another shot.

It tore a quarter-sized hole through its throat, ripping out the back like wet paper and damaging his flesh opposite of the wound.

The zombie staggered and groaned—a wet gargle bubbled from both wounds in its throat, but was otherwise unfazed. The corpse lunged, colliding against the Sheriff. This time Baker held his ground, shoving the stiff body backwards. Cohen’s corpse faltered a pace and continued on the offensive.

Baker snagged him by the hair. He jerked its head to the right and threw the corpse off balance. When the zombie staggered back, he swung his leg under and sent it to the ground. Undeterred, the monster rolled to its back and stared up, locking eyes with a feral stare—his jaw flopping about in a feeble attempt to snarl as it once again stood.

Baker aimed—his hand shook as he focused in on the dead eyes of his once loyal companion. His breathing slowed and he took a step back, moving in sync with the corpse as it again swiped, missing his leg by a hair.

From below, Cohen groaned.

“I’m sorry,” Baker said, “but I can’t keep doing this.”

He tugged the trigger and with a crack, the revolver’s report echoed through the open countryside. Mark Cohen was dead for the second time in less than fifteen minutes.

Baker took a deep breath. “Fuck,” was the only word that came to mind.

***

Ruth screamed hysterically. Helpless, all she could do was watch as the deputy assaulted the other man. She sobbed with balled fists held against her beating heart and shook her head. Her cries were loud, so loud that they masked the sound of her kitchen door creaking open and shut. Through the doorway staggered another corpse. Its ankle was broken and the bone had broken through its skin, scrapping softly across the hardwood floor.

The zombie pressed on, crossing through the kitchen at a slow stride, hindered only by its ankle. The corpse possessed an undeniable eagerness, beckoned by deep throated heave and whimper escaping his meal’s lips.

Its jaw fell slack—a thick, frothy sliver of drool rolled down its chin, spattering the breast of his shirt.

Ruth’s focus was diverted, drawn to the fight outside. She never noticed the zombie, even though it stood less than ten feet away. And she wouldn’t have noticed it either, hadn’t the corpse brushed a small decorative table, seated beside her armchair. The incidental collision, though subtle, jostled a small ceramic owl, sent it to the floor, and shattered.

The sound of breaking glass, no matter how small, stole the air from her lungs. Rush gasped and before she could turn, the corpse lunged. Its mangled, claw-like fingers caught the old woman by the hair.

She screamed, throwing a fist in a crudely drawn arc. The ghoul held tight, pulling her towards its open mouth. Ruth lost her balance and the two of them fell. They hit the floor with a resounding crash, which shook the house like a tremor.

She rolled from the corpse, narrowly missing its putrid jaws as they snapped against her skin. Desperate, her fingers scratched at the aged wood floor, but found no purchase. Behind her, the zombie rose and pounced. It came down hard, straddling her with gnashing hands. It groaned, competing against her screams as she fought for salvation.

“Please…no…” Ruth gasped for breath.

The corpse reached for her and clawed at her face from behind and grabbed her face, scaly fingers probed her mouth and caressed her cheeks—drawing bloody welts with every swipe.

Ruth braced herself, waiting for the brutal finale. It never came. Instead, the zombie groaned as though it could sense something more enticing than her skin. Every groan revitalized its hunger—one that surpassed a lust for bleeding raw flesh.

With a clammy hand, the corpse shoved her face against the floor.

Ruth screamed, thrashing, but the zombie held strong, pushing her further and further into the floor. With her hair in hand, the corpse snapped her neck back, building steam before it slammed her face against the floor. The corpse did this, again and again.

Every whack caused her resistance to waver. An immense pain ricocheted through her head, down to her toes. Noticing her hesitance, the zombie grew more fevered in its delivery.

Ruth’s teeth snapped and broke, and her nose popped. Her screams became hushed whimpers.

Paying no heed, the zombie continued to slam her face onto the floor. She cried, choking on her own blood, as broken shards of teeth dribbled down the back of her throat.
             

“Stop, please. Stop…” Her words were inaudible. Mere gargles between abrupt bursts of pain.

Strangely, the zombie stopped as though obliging to her wish.

Ruth heaved, spitting out a mucus-laden wheeze as the foul creature pivoted its weight on top of her.

She sobbed, “Let me go,
please!”

The corpse didn’t move.

Ruth listened as the zombie hissed in a barking manor, enticed by something new. She attempted to look, turning her head to the side, but the continuous gush of blood from a newly formed canyon in her brow kept her from seeing.

Intent on survival, she threw her weight back with the utterance of a cry.

The zombie groaned as it tumbled aside, landing on its rump.

Freed from its bulk, her body hurt like hell; somehow, she pulled through it and on to her knees. Her head spun, colors blurred. A steady stream of blood ran from her forehead, clouding her nose and mouth as though she was breathing underwater.

Ruth wiped the blood away, clearing her sight, but the zombie had beaten her to its feet. The monster groaned with a determined howl. In its hand, it held a small brass paperweight, which had once belonged to her departed husband, Charles.

The corpse gripped the object tight, holding it like a baseball.

Ruth whimpered, frozen as the zombie raised the paperweight up and over its head. Brass coating glimmered in the sunlight, filtered through the curtains. The paperweight sparkled as the corpse stepped towards her. In a slow and clumsy arc, the zombie brought it down, slamming it against the bridge of her nose.