Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (24 page)

“Sure,” she begins. “It also
shows how to keep it clean so it fires right.”

“Wow that
is
a pretty
cool book.”

“You bet it is,” she says. “My
grandpa gave it to me and said that anything I needed to know once I was out on
my own could be found inside. I’ve read it a couple of times already and
sometimes I reread some of my favorite chapters.”

“What
are
your favorite
chapters?” he asks.

“I like the one about insects,”
she explains. “Did you know there are bugs that you can eat?”

“Yuck!” he says.

“Yeah, you’re right, they’re not
the best, but when you’re hungry, anything tastes good.” She smiles.

“I don’t know,” he shakes his
head. “I can’t imagine a bug tasting good.”

“They are if you’re in a pinch.”
She widens her eyes and gives a quick nod.

“So what else you got?” he asks.

“Let’s see.” She rummages
through her pack. “I have some clothes and a few cans of food… Oh, and some
shells for the gun. Those are always handy.”

“You didn’t bring anything to
play with?”

“I have my stuffed bear, his
name is Benny.” She pulls out a small stuffed toy. “I always keep him in my
pack just in case I have to go really quick.”

“That’s a good idea,” he
comments.

“My grandpa says that you should
always be ready to move out.”

“You know, the kid had a pretty
good idea,” Greg says.

“About?” Scarlet asks, dabbing a
swatch of wet cloth on Johnny’s forehead that she found in one of the drawers
behind the counter.

“About the idea she had to head
out into the wilderness.” He kneels down beside her and turns his attention to
Johnny. “Has he been bitten?”

“I don’t think so, but he sure
has been beaten,” she says, pressing the cloth to his head. Once the cloth is
in position, she stands up and looks to Greg. “I’m not so sure it isn’t a bad
idea either,” she replies. “If we can get to a secluded area that wasn’t too
populated, we might be able to live off the land for a while until whatever
this is works itself out.”

“Do you really believe this is
just going to go away?” he asks.

“Nothing lasts forever,” she
replies.

“And dead people aren’t supposed
to get up and move around either,” he comments. “But that doesn’t look like
it’s stopping them.”

“You have a point,” she says,
taking another look at the injured man on the floor.

“Shouldn’t we put him on one of
the benches?” Greg asks.

“No, the cool floor might help
with his fever,” she says. “God only knows how long he’s been out there. He’s
lucky to be alive.”

Greg peers through the front
doors and replies, “Yeah, we’re all a little bit lucky.”

·17

It is as if Johnny were looking
out at the world from inside of a tin can. He can see the man and woman
speaking, can register their words, but everything is hollow and echoes in his
head. The people become blurry, almost fading into their surroundings before
popping in his sight and becoming focused once again. His head is swimming and
the only thing he can truly hear with any clarity is the heart thumping within
his chest.

The floor is cold beneath him.
He feels the smooth tile with the tips of his fingers and moves them between
the grout lines, playing with the texture. Even the simplest movement is a
distraction, helping ease the delirium. When he was a boy, he would get
headaches that were so bad he had to keep the rest of his body moving to and
fro to keep the pain from becoming too much to bear. He feels the same way now
as he twitches his fingers along the floor. There’s comfort in the movement,
something sure that he can control, something that he can consciously do. As
small of a victory as it is, it’s still reassuring.

His eyes become heavy and he
smiles to himself as sleep takes him away.

April is in his thoughts. He can
see the first day they met. She dropped her purse and he scrambled to her side
to help her gather her things. It was such a cliché. He had seen it in all the
movies and read it in all the books, but it was the first step to a long and
happy relationship. He can’t think of her in the way she became after the dead
rose. They were both under a lot of pressure and not quite themselves. No, he
remembers her how she was, in the perfect world they had created together.

She was happy in those days.
Sometimes he would glance at her doing some chore or another and she would be
smiling like she had suddenly remembered a particularly funny joke. He loved to
see her that way, loved the way the edges of her mouth bent upward, creating
tiny lines around her eyes. He imagined her older and how she would have those
features etched into her skin and it made him love her all that much more.

But as quickly as the happiness
came, he could see the woman in the window of the attic. The snarl spread
across her face, the look of hunger in those very same eyes that he had come to
love. It pained him deeply to look at her like that. If he could go back, he
would have jumped that day back at Mike’s place, he wouldn’t have given it a
second thought. He would have sacrificed himself so she could have held out
that much longer.

“Retrospect,” he whispers
between parched lips.

“Hey, I think he’s waking up,”
Greg kneels down beside him and checks his eyes.

Scarlet checks his forehead.
“His fever seems to be down,” she says, giving Greg a quick look and placing
the wet cloth back on Johnny’s forehead.  

“I tried to save her,” Johnny
coughs. “It should have… been… me…” He falls back into unconsciousness.

“He’s still in a bad way, we
should let him rest,” Scarlet says and walks away with Greg.

 “I think I should go and poke
around in back,” Greg says. “There doesn’t seem to be any of them out there and
I’m curious to see what’s in those garages and storage sheds on the other side
of the yard.”

“We should wait until John’s
better,” Scarlet replies. “I mean, we don’t want to go fooling around and have
to get out of here in a hurry with him in that condition.”

“Do you think he’s going to get
better?” he asks.

“He’s already showing signs of
improvement,” she answers. “Let’s give him a couple more days before we make a
decision.”

“All right, but I’m itching to
get out of here,” he says. “I don’t like how many of them there are out there.
If any more show up, we’ll be hard pressed to run. Plus,” he adds, “I don’t
like the way they’re looking at me. It freaks me the hell out.”

“I know what you’re saying, but
just give it a little more time,” she says.

The dead crawl out from the
street, from the asphalt and concrete, from the cracks and crevices. They are
thick, black ink, gurgling up from the sewers and from beneath the abandoned
cars. From under rich, dark soil, they birth themselves to the surface of the
earth with hellish veracity, scarring the scenery with their putrid forms.

They leak out onto the world as
punishment unto the living. Bodies twist as fragments of decay drop out onto
the ground, slapping, scraping against petrified bones. Gnashing mouths… so many
gnashing mouths.

Johnny runs, but he can’t seem
to keep from tripping. Everything he encounters is an obstacle, placed by the
hand of fate to make him fail. He’s quick to his feet, swaggering on unsure
legs, slipping on the blood soaked ground, pushing himself forward.

There’s nowhere to go. Every
street is the same, every route a prison. He laughs uncontrollably from fear
and panic. His mouth is thick with spit and he’s spraying out insults to the
dead. He screams at them, he rips away at their shadows and throws himself
against them, trying to tear them away.

“You’re not real!” he howls. “You’re
not supposed to be real.” His words are hysterical and without meaning.

His face slams against the
ground, splitting his lip, nursing blood into his mouth. They encroach, stagger
forward and moan his name. They sing out in rasping growls for spilled blood,
for deliverance, for the soul he hides within his flesh.

“You can’t have it,” he spits
and flails his arms to fend off the crouching horde. “It’s mine and you can’t
fucking
have it!”

His eyes open wide and he gasps
for air. Darkness is everywhere - nothing but darkness and the cool moan of the
dead. He kicks to get away, pushing himself along the tile, scooting away on
his back.

…they do not follow.

He breathes easier, watching the
silhouette of the dead grow and collapse in the front doors. Like a moving
illustration of Hell, the dead waver as the flames of an inferno, licking
upward along the gate that separates them from their purpose.

“Easy, easy.” Someone taps
Johnny on the shoulder and he recoils. “Take it easy, buddy. You’re safe.” The
voice tries to sooth him.

“Where the fuck
am
I?” Johnny
asks.

“You’re safe,” the voice says.
“We’re in the train station. Everything is okay.”

“Who are
you
?” he asks.

“I’m Greg. I was the one who
helped you in from out there.” His shadow points through the dead.

“Oh hell,” Johnny breathes,
placing his head in his hands.

“A nightmare?” Greg asks.

“Yeah.” He shakes his head,
moving it between his palms.

Greg sits on the bench next to
Johnny, cross legged on the floor. “Those seem to be the norm nowadays.”

Johnny sits up straight and
clenches his jaw. “Yeah, I suppose they are.”

“You want to talk about it?”
Greg asks.

“No, not really,” he replies.
“Just the dead chasing me, and I’m not able to get away,” he adds.

“Ah, the usual,” Greg laughs.
“Don’t let it bother you. We all have those. That’s one of the reasons I’m not
sleeping now. Smoke?” he asks, extending a pack of cigarettes.

“No thanks, I don’t smoke.”

“Neither did I,” Greg laughs
through the filter and lights the cigarette. “It’s funny what kind of bad
habits you can take up when there’s a distinct possibility that you could be
eaten at any moment.” He takes a deep drag.

“Ah, what the hell,” Johnny
says, extending his hand.

“Thought you might,” Greg says,
pursing his lips into a smile that is lost in the darkness and nurses out a
cigarette with a shake of the pack. “They’re kind of stale though.”

“I wouldn’t know the difference.”
Johnny takes the cigarette and Greg lights it for him. He lets out a muffled
cough and takes another drag.

“So what’s your story?” Greg
asks. “How did you wind up out there in such bad shape?”

“I lost someone I loved,” he
replies.

“Join the club,” Greg says and
takes another puff from the smoke. “I don’t think anybody living right now
hasn’t lost someone.”

“How about you? What brought
you
here?” Johnny asks.

“Well,” he pauses and takes
another drag, “that lady over there,” he points to Scarlet, sleeping on a bench
at the far side of the room by the train yard, “saved my ass.”

“Oh yeah?” Johnny asks.

“Yep,” he tips his head to the
side. “She stepped up and here I am.”

“Let’s hear it,” Johnny says,
snuffing out the cigarette on the floor.

“It’s not all that exciting.” He
shrugs.

“What? You have something better
to do?”

Greg lets out a small laugh.
“Yeah, I guess not.” He throws his cigarette to the floor and stomps it out. “I
was working a night shift as a security guard down at the docks. I’m a terrible
underachiever,” he snickers. “This was before anyone knew what was happening,
mind you, and I was doing my rounds just like any other night…”

“Excuse me, sir,” the woman says
from her car as she turns off the headlights. “I think I’m a little lost.”

“I’ll say ya are, lady” Greg
replies. “This is
not
the place to be after dark.”

“I know, that’s why I need your
help,” she explains. “I need to get back to the interstate.”

“In that case, you’re going in
the exact opposite direction that you should be going,” he replies, leaning on
the door of the car. “You’ll need to go back a few blocks and make a left at
Newport. Take that for about six miles and it will take you to the 57 freeway.”

“Wow, I’ve really gone out of my
way, haven’t I?” she laughs uncomfortably.

“Yeah ya have,” he replies. “What
brings you out here, anyway?”

“I have a job interview in the
morning so I figured I would get an early start on it and stay in a hotel tonight
so I can get there as early as possible,” she replies.