World of Ashes II (5 page)

Chapter 3

From exhaustion alone Daniel passed out just before light filled the smoky skies. The sound of wooden boards creaking woke him up not long after he’d fallen lightly asleep and he almost shot the first person he saw. His training made him pause, waiting to identify his target. Daniel’s vision cleared fast enough to realize he was looking at a child. She was standing there in her Scooby Doo pajamas, dirt and blood smeared all over her disheveled hair. She didn’t have the vacant stair the zombies did, and she was holding a can of soda. From what he’d seen, the infected weren’t in the habit of holding onto things, except you.

“Can you open this for me?” She said, her tiny voice out of place in the carnage that surrounded them. “I can’t.”

Daniel took the can when she handed it to him. He popped it open and handed it back. “Are you thirsty?” He said. She nodded. “Here, drink some water. It will make you feel better than a soda will.”

She traded him and guzzled the water as if she’d forgotten how it tasted. “Are you okay, Mister?” She asked.

“Yeah… Yeah I’m fine. What’s your name?” Daniel tried to be nice. The girl was very shy and it took her a minute to answer while she drank more water.

“My name is Kaylee.” She said, sitting Indian style next to Daniel.

“Well, Kaylee, I’m Daniel. Where are your parents?”

Kaylee didn’t answer. Instead she pointed to the store in the distance where the fight had taken place last night. “We were in there.”

“How long have you been out here?” He asked, choking back the lump in his throat.

“I dun’know.” Kaylee responded.

“Okay. Let’s find some place safer to hide.” Daniel tried standing, but every muscle in his body was in pain. He remembered being in better shape not too long ago, but then Basic Training was a lifetime past as it was reckoned in the end of days. After his second attempt to stand, Daniel asked Kaylee another question. “I’m not from around here. Do you know a safe place to hide?”

“Uh huh.” She nodded, walking toward the unfinished stairwell. There was thunder in the distance, real thunder, not just guns. It was going to rain soon. Kaylee brought Daniel to what he assumed had been her house at first, though he’d be proven wrong. She knew where the key was under the doormat and let them in.

“Is this your house?” Daniel asked.

“Uh uh. This is Mister Fisher’s house. He’s my Godfather.” Kaylee said proudly. “He and my daddy were in the Navy. They sailed on a
Destroyer
.”

Daniel smiled at how articulate Kaylee was, glad he was there to protect such a precious child, lost in the mess of a dying civilization. Did she even understand what was happening? Did he? “Do you know where Mister Fisher is?” Daniel looked down the hallways, hoping there were no infected inside.

“He was in the store too.” Kaylee said, sitting in front of the TV. It turned on, but there was only snow.

“How did you get out of the store?”

Kaylee shrugged. “I had to go potty. The potty in the store didn’t work.”

“So you were outside when the crazy people came?” Daniel didn’t think a child as young as Kaylee would know what a Voodoo Zombie was. He was searching for vocabulary she might more readily understand. Daniel had been accused of using big words more than once, which meant he could confuse people without intending to. The person who’d hated that the most had been his Drill Sergeant, SSG Zebulon. Like #24 on
Skippy’s List
reads: “
Must not tell any Officer or Sergeant I am smarter than they are, especially if it’s true
.”

“Uh huh. Mommy made me run into the bushes, then she went back for Daddy.” Kaylee found a channel on the TV that had something besides snow. It was just the same images he and Lea and had seen for the last week in their hideout. “Is this what is happening?” Kaylee asked. Daniel’s blood froze. She understood just fine.

“Yeah. I think it is.” Daniel sat on the couch next to the little girl. “I think something really bad is happening all over the world.” Daniel pointed at the TV. “That’s Berlin, I recognize the buildings from pictures… That’s Seoul, South Korea… That’s Huston, Texas.” He looked down at Kaylee staring wide eyed at the silent images flickering by. “Do you know where we are? Like the name of this town or street?”

“Mommy says we live in Verjin’a.”

“Virginia is a state. Do you know what town this is? There are lots of towns in a state, and fifty states in our country.”

Kaylee looked up at Daniel and shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

Daniel smiled. “Me too. Let’s see what Mr. Fisher has in the kitchen for us.” They found the refrigerator fully stocked, no one but FEMA having been through this neighborhood. Kaylee wanted pancakes, but Daniel talked her into something that didn’t have to be cooked. He was worried about the smell attracting people. A bowl of Cheerios and cold milk was good enough for the both of them. They sat on the couch and ate, watching the same images over and over again. Kaylee fell asleep not long after drinking the last of the milk in her bowl. Daniel put a blanket over her and set the child down on a plush couch. He couldn’t imagine the horror this girl had suffered, but it could only be as bad as what he’d seen. Exploring the upper-middle class home, Daniel found all sorts of things he would need. Backpacks for hiking, extra clothes that were a little too big for him, and a pair of Reebok hiking boots that would do better than his flat skater shoes over a long distance. Mr. Fisher had enjoyed collecting swords he mounted on homemade stands, all of which were just those shitty mall replicas that break after the first few swings. Of course there were no guns, again. Daniel surmised he’d have to find a dead cop or soldier if he was going to get more ammunition. He only had what was left in Greg’s magazine, about fifteen rounds, and ten in Mark’s M9. He’d forgotten to retrieve the other pistol from wherever Lea had dropped it. Going back wasn’t a notion he could entertain.

He didn’t sleep that night, though he desperately wanted to. His body was resting, but his mind was moving a million miles an hour, overcome with anxiety. He knew his situation was bad and that he didn’t stand a good chance of making it much farther. The only thing that might keep him going was having Kaylee to take care of. He would pace around the house, checking every window and door, piling furniture in front of all but one. That would be their escape route when the food ran out. He wondered why Kaylee’s family had abandoned their homes, and how they’d ended up hiding in a minimart. Maybe they hadn’t been at home in the first place when the plague victims ran through the streets. That was after all his story in a nut shell.

Kaylee woke up in a crying fit, Daniel was quick to calm her, but she didn’t recognize him at first. If anyone but a zombie attacked her, she could probably use her razor sharp fingernails to escape. After she’d stopped struggling Daniel had to go pour peroxide on the gashes in his cheeks and put toilet paper on them like razor cuts. Kaylee felt bad and used some Flintstone pattern Band Aids on him. Daniel needed to shave before he put new ones on, that would be a real chore, getting around the cuts with a razor. If they scarred over they would be a powerful reminder not to have children of his own one day.

While Kaylee was kept busy drawing a giraffe on the kitchen table (without paper because kids do as kids do), Daniel heard something outside. He went to the front windows to look, trying not to alert the little girl. There was a group of about ten people in the street, all armed with tools or various civilian grade handguns. One man had a shotgun, but it was just an old duck hunting side-by-side. Daniel thought about inviting them in, but then again he didn’t know them. He didn’t know anyone anymore. From what he could hear they all spoke Spanish anyhow. He didn’t understand Spanish, so now there was no way he was inviting them in. They could kill them both, or worse yet take their food and leave them to die. After a few minutes Daniel saw what they were running from. It was a herd of the slower zombies, all with bloodied wounds from when they’d been attacked. It formed clumps of red mud that hung everywhere. Daniel wondered how far down the zombies would have to eat someone before it wouldn’t be able to move again. Did anyone stay dead anymore? This was a good question.

The people hiding in Mr. Fisher’s yard opened fire on the hundreds thick gaggle of undead. One or two dropped, but it wasn’t enough. The people tried to run but one of the older women and a morbidly obese man couldn’t get away fast enough. The woman was torn limb from limb, devoured without ever hitting the ground until nothing was left but slippery organs and broken, gnawed bones. The fat one fought the herd off as long as he could, waddling in between cars and obstacles he actually gave his group the time they needed to escape. Inevitably he was bitten though, an undead construction worker with his back mostly eaten away pounced on the fat Hispanic man from behind. He died like all the others as the zombies bit into him over and over again, the worker and his buddies joining in the feast as if they were ants swarming a piece of red candy.

They didn’t get to eat long before the virus spread to the man’s brain. He went berserk, pain meaning nothing and fatigue seemingly a thing of the past. Enraged, he threw the feeding zombies like they were lawn darts, putting one through a car window head first and using another as a bat to hit the others in a much bloodier reenactment of Neo v.s. Agent Smith.

Daniel watched in astonishment, not knowing if, or how, he could do anything about this. The fat man pummeled the zombies around him for some time before suddenly dropping dead as if he’d had a heart attack. That was entirely plausible, but the other dead were no longer interested in him, which probably meant he was turning into one of them. It wasn’t long before he too was back up, shuffling along with the herd in search of prey. Daniel was glad Kaylee hadn’t seen this, or even reacted to the gunfire. She was used to that by now. How sick was that? No American child should have to live with violence in their own neighborhoods. That was something for faraway places in war torn lands… but this was a war torn land now. More of America was burning as they hid in relative comfort than had in all of the Civil War. How could they ever recover from this? What if someone else recovered first?

The herd of zombies moved on, but it took a long time to pass there were so many. How long had they been chasing those poor people? The fat one was still in the area, but he was wedged solidly between two cars, reaching at a cat that had cornered itself. Daniel made a mental note of that too. These things seemed willing to attack anything living if people weren’t around. That spelled trouble on a whole new level. What if animals could be infected too? There was a bloody howling sound and Daniel looked back through the curtains. The fat man had gotten ahold of the cat, shoving its head into his mouth despite being viciously mauled. The cat went stiff when he chomped down Ozzy Osbourne style. He then proceeded to eat the entire cat, even though the skeleton was difficult to consume. A sharp bone stabbed through his neck from the inside out, but didn’t seem to affect the dead man any as he wandered away to follow the herd. The other ghouls behaved much the same, attacking everything but plants it seemed. There were always gunshots in the background, but none of them were close anymore. The echoes were indirect, and as a result many zombies changed course over and over in circles chasing one sound or another. Daniel wished he could get a few of them in a fenced in area and do some tests. Take one’s eyes, take another’s ears, take out another’s nose, see how each one hunts deprived on one sense or another. Alas, he had nowhere to put them, and no one to help. What good would knowing these things do if he was all alone?

That night Kaylee slept on Daniel’s lap in the living room. He put on a movie for her, but the selection wasn’t really for kids. She’d been forced to settle for watching
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
, the most kid friendly movie in the house. She was asleep before the bad guy was even revealed. Daniel wandered in and out of consciousness himself, dreams of home and Lea kept him from deep sleep. Around two in the morning he opened his eyes and looked around. The DVD was rerunning its main menu, the rest of the house quiet. Kaylee was sprawled out on the floor under a Pokemon-print children’s sleeping bag. He covered her feet with an afghan, thinking the sleeping bag might not be enough and went to use the bathroom. It was decorated with a beach theme, lighthouses painted on the walls and statues of lighthouses and other items one would associate with the sea were littered all over. He opened the medicine cabinet and found a lot of nothing. Just some prescription sleeping pills, dental picks, half a tube of toothpaste, and some laxative chocolates. Strangely no tooth brushes, though. He pocketed the pills, a knockoff brand for another medication, just in case. If this place stayed safe he would need to sleep at some point and doubted he could on his own.

Standing vigil with his M4, Daniel cared for Kaylee for another three days and three sleepless nights before he broke down and took one of the small white pills. By then he’d thoroughly fortified the single story house. He and Kaylee spent the days making the basement less of a man-cave and more like a home. Neither of them were baseball fans, but at least they could read books together. The Fisher’s had kept all of their now grown children’s books, probably as keepsakes. The TV was left upstairs so Daniel could watch it while he stood guard, and to keep Kaylee from having to see the carnage repeat on 40” inches of 1080HD.