Zomb-Pocalypse 3 Page 7

  “Well we can’t just stay here,” I tell him, beginning to shake. I’m kicking myself for ever sneaking along on this trip.

  “Yeah we can,” Silas says as he strides towards the huge pit of bodies.

  “What are you thinking, son?” my dad asks him, and Silas shakes his head.

  “It’s crazy but…” he pauses as he shucks off his backpack and his coat and tosses them underneath a nearby tree.

  “What are you doing?” I squeal when he jumps into the hole and sinks down past his knees into the rotting bodies. I turn to my dad so he can back me up, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s staring at Silas with a strange mixture of horror and understanding on his face. “What is happening?” I demand, planting my hands on my hips. The zombies are almost here and Silas is screwing around—he’s going to get us all killed!

  “Shut up, Blondie, and get in the hole,” Silas tells me, and I know he’s not in the mood, but I can’t help it.

  “Not until you tell me why you’re doing this!” I fire back, and Silas looks like he’s going to explode.

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?” he demands, and that takes a little of the fire out of my belly. He hasn’t, in fact, he’s always saved my helpless ass. I shake my head, not wanting to voice what we both already know. “Then take off your coat and your pack and get in here before you get torn apart,” Silas hisses at me. His tone is so serious that I automatically start unzipping my jacket and unsling my backpack. I toss it under the tree where Silas left his and then I stand hesitantly at the edge of the hole. My dad starts shucking his stuff off too.

  “What do I do?” I ask, not wanting to immerse myself in the rotting pile of infected meat.

  “Get your ass in here before I get out and pull you in by your hair,” Silas instructs, making a visible effort to keep his voice low. My dad grips my hand, and together we climb into the pit. With my first step, the corpse underneath me shifts and I fall to my knees, my jeans instantly getting soaked with viscera. Silas shifts a couple of the bodies around. “Lay here,” he tells me, his words no longer angry but encouraging. It takes everything I have not to scream when I see the maggots writhing around where he’s pointing.

  I catch sight of the first of the zombies coming through the rusty open gates and I throw myself down on my belly into the mess. The smell is overpowering. I feel chunks rise up into the back of my throat, but I swallow them down—maggots are disgusting—but I will take them over being ripped to shreds any day.

  Silas silently covers me with a couple of the bodies and then burrows in himself. My dad has gotten the hint and has also blended himself in with the corpses. My eyes widen when I see the first zombie stagger near the open pit. I feel something grab my hand and nearly erupt from the pit, never mind the danger. “Shut up,” Silas mutters so quietly that I barely hear it, but I know what he’s said. The hand squeezes mine and I realize with some chagrin that it’s my dad. Silas has a large hunting knife in one hand and a gun in the other.

  More and more zombies gather beside the pit until their moans are deafening, and I’m convinced we are going to die. My heart beats in my ears so loudly that I’m terrified the zombies are going to hear it. I try to breathe through my mouth, to help with the smell, but I get scared that I might accidentally get some of the goop in my mouth, or just as bad, a maggot, so I switch back to nose breathing, even though it makes it horrible.

  I sit, expecting death, for what feels like an eternity before I realize that the zombies aren’t paying any attention to the pit. They are moaning and groaning and staggering around, filling the graveyard by the hundred, but they aren’t riled up anymore; it’s like we’re invisible.

  I’m almost willing to give Silas some credit for his genius, though disgusting idea, when one of the zombies that is too close to the pit gets jostled by his neighbor and suddenly pitches into the pit, practically on top of us. I have to hold my breath to keep from jumping up in panic when he starts scrabbling around, grabbing at the bodies for support as he tries to get some traction.

  When his hand, with its chipped, contagious fingernails, comes barreling towards me, I squeeze my eyes shut and try to mentally prepare for death. I will die, but if I don’t cause a scene, then my dad and Silas can still have a chance if they remain quiet and let the zombies pass.

  Chapter Six

  The scratch never comes and, after counting to ten in my head, I slowly crack my eyes open to see what happened. Silas happened, of course. I open my eyes just in time to see him gently pulling his knife from the zombie’s head. The zombie sags deeper into the pit to join the rest of its fallen comrades. I shift my eyes to the rest of the zombies up top, but none of them seem to have noticed. I’m in shock. I feel my dad squeezing my hand so tightly he’s crushing my fingers, and I know that I’m not the only one who was worried half to death. I gently wiggle my fingers, trying to get a little relief, and he instantly releases me. I can feel his guilt across the pit, and I give him a small smile to show him I’m okay.

  I catch Silas giving me a dirty look and can only assume it’s because he thinks my eye movements are going to be the death of us. I close my eyes instead and focus on breathing shallowly.

  I’m woken up by a not-so-gentle shake to the shoulder. I look around and start to panic when I can’t see anything, everything is dark. My mind races, frantic to figure out what happened. “Settle down,” I hear Silas’s voice and I stop moving, forcing my muscles to relax against their will.

  “What’s going on?” I whisper and hear Silas snort as he shifts around in the muck.

  “You fell asleep,” he tells me with an incredulous chuckle, and I’m incredulous as well. How in the heck did I manage to sleep with all the zombies and the carnage? I shudder thinking about it, and thinking about it makes me doubly aware of the gore soaking my jeans making them stick to my legs, and the dried goop making the back of my neck itch. I twitch my fingers and find they too are goopy and immersed in the composting bodies.

  “Is it safe?” I ask, not seeing any more zombies in the moonlight—I also kind of assume that Silas wouldn’t be talking if it wasn’t clear.

  “As safe as can be expected,” my dad chimes in, shoving a corpse off his back and standing up with a loud snap from somewhere in his body. I wince just imaging how stiff he must be. Silas pulls the corpses off my back and I stand up as well, or as much as I can in this soupy mess. It feels like slogging through quicksand as I make my way over to the edge of the pit, terrified the whole time that I’m going to sink down and drown in this mess. I pull my tired, soggy body up over the edge, and the hard ground is the best feeling in the world right now.

  I look around the cemetery, but there isn’t much to see in the dark and it gives me the creeps. “I’m not sure this is safe,” I say, even though they must know wandering around in the dark is dangerous.

  “We can climb back in the pit and wait until morning,” Silas offers, and at this point I’m already so covered in crud that I actually think about it. I shake my head.

  “No thanks,” I tell him. Honestly, nothing short of the immediate threat of death would get me back in that pit. Silas doesn’t argue for once, so I’m pretty sure we are on the same page.

  I pause to wipe my hands on the grass before grabbing my backpack and jacket, I try to keep it as far away from the rest of my body as possible so I won’t contaminate them. “Ready to go?” Silas asks, sneaking up behind me, and I jump.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I say, and hear my dad give a grunt of agreement. Silas doesn’t use his flashlight this time; it would be a beacon to every zombie in the countryside. We trudge back out through the gate and, instead of returning to the field, to the main road, Silas turns and we begin walking down the narrow country road where the cemetery is located. We head away from the main road with nothing but the moonlight to lead our way.

  Every rustle in the grass makes me jump nervously; I’ve never felt so exposed. I was never a fan of the dark, and that was before there w
ere flesh eating zombies to be scared of. We stay in the center of the road, the idea being that we will have more room to fight if a zombie bursts out of the ditch—thankfully no zombies do that.

  “I think I see something up ahead,” Silas says, and his words send ice cold fingers of fear racing through my body.

  “What is it?” I yelp, imagining the horde of zombies from earlier returning to finish us off.

  “A house—I think,” he says and I allow myself to relax a little. We’ve been walking for forty-five minutes and my gore-soaked jeans have begun to dry and have hardened to my leg like a cast. Every time I take a step, I feel them rubbing uncomfortably. Twenty minutes ago, the terrifying thought that this could somehow infect me crept into my brain, and I’ve been walking gingerly ever since.

  “Let’s go,” Silas says and starts off at a run.

  “Wait!” I yelp, and he turns impatiently back towards me.

  “Come on slow poke,” he cajoles, but I shake my head.

  “I can’t,” I tell him, and I think he can tell from my voice that I’m not joking around.

  “What is it?” he asks, almost sounding like he really cares, but there is no way that I can tell him I’m scared my chafing jeans are going to turn me into a zombie.

  “Never mind,” I tell him, motioning for him to go on ahead. “I’ll catch up.”

  “I don’t think so,” my dad interrupts. “We are all staying together,” he says firmly, and I deflate a little. We are all tired and cranky and I feel bad for slowing us down, but I will feel even worse if I become a zombie. I catch Silas staring at my legs as I walk crookedly down the road like a cowboy whose ridden too long in the saddle, and I try to walk a little straighter.

  Silas doesn’t argue as we continue at a slower pace. Even though we aren’t running like he wanted, we still reach the house in pretty good time. It’s hard to see the details in the dark, but I can tell by the shape that it is a one-level, small square house. I feel some relief that the home isn’t large and won’t take us forever to clear.

  We reach the front porch without incident, and my dad raises his fist and knocks. The sound echoes through the silent yard and makes me feel even more on edge. We wait for a full five minutes, but nobody comes to answer the door, so Silas tries the knob and it opens.

  As soon as the door is open an inch, we hear it—the low growl of a zombie. Silas pulls the door closed, reaches for his flashlight and gun, and then pushes the door open with a bang. His light illuminates an elderly female zombie wearing a bubblegum pink tracksuit. Her hair is short and spiky, sticking up in every direction, and her spine is curved, making her appear hunched over. She stares unblinking into the glare of the flashlight, but she doesn’t attack us.

  “What’s going on?” my dad whispers to Silas, and he shrugs.

  “Maybe our scent is masked thanks to all this zombie crap we’re wearing, and something is telling her not to attack,” Silas guesses, as he steps forward to test his theory.

  “Silas, don’t,” I say sharply, and the zombie looks around hungrily at the sound of my voice. Silas steps closer and closer. With each step I expect the zomb to turn and bite into his flesh, but she doesn’t. Silas walks right up to her, and she just stands there as docile as an old cow. “Enough,” I whisper, and Silas nods, spiking his knife through her skull.

  “That’s crazy!” he crows as he wipes the blade of his knife off on her track suit. We walk through the house, clearing it, and only find one more zombie. An elderly man, most likely her husband. It is the same with him—he doesn’t attack—and Silas walks right up and puts him down. Silas and my dad each grab a zombie, take them outside, and lay them out in the yard.

  “You take first turn in the bathroom,” Dad offers, and I look at Silas, unsure, but he nods.

  “Do it,” he tells me, and I give them both a grateful nod as I slip into the bathroom and peel out of my clothes. They are completely ruined, so I ball them up and shove them into the garbage can. I turn to the shower, shivering in the cold, and turn on the water, waiting for the icy blast that is unavoidable. At this point in my life, I’m not sure what I hate more about coming into contact with zombie guts—the fact that it’s highly contagious and disgusting, or the cold shower that is guaranteed to follow. I turn on the showerhead and turn back towards the mirror, trying to peel a few strands of zombie-encrusted hair off my shoulder.

  My lantern lets out a little bit of light and I’m grateful not to be in the dark anymore. I glance over my shoulder and freeze at the silhouette framed in the closet door.

  “Holy crap balls!” I yelp as I lunge for my backpack at the same moment the zombie stumbles out of the closet and lurches towards me with an awful phlegm-filled rattle in the back of her throat. She isn’t the speediest, but she doesn’t have to be. I’m trapped in this tiny bathroom with a zombie, and worse yet, I’m completely naked. I promptly make a promise to myself that if I survive this, I’m never going to shower again—no love of personal hygiene is worth this! My backpack is sitting on the sink within easy reach. I dive for it and spill half of my junk out on the floor as I pull my gun out too quickly and fumble it. The gun slides past the zombie’s feet, and she trips on my deodorant and stumbles. I’m forced to back up next to the toilet with nowhere left to go. I throw my bag at her, but it doesn’t faze her in the least. I watch as the light of my lantern glistens off her teeth, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to die and become a naked zombie for all of eternity. Silas and my dad will probably be horrified.

  My eye lands on the top of the toilet, and I duck her arms and make a grab for the heavy porcelain lid. Her one arm thumps me on the back, but I don’t feel the drag of fingernails and I don’t have time to worry about that right now anyway. The toilet tank lid is heavier than I imagined, but I swing for the fences, catching the zombie underneath the chin, and it sends her backwards on her ass. It’s harder to hit her than I imagined, like literally hard, especially since I’m swinging upwards. The vibration of the impact reverberates up my arm, and it isn’t pleasant. My arm throbs as I bring the lid down on the very top of her head, and it’s easier this time because I have momentum on my side. The zombie’s eyes roll around in her head, but she doesn’t actually die. Even worse, my makeshift weapon cracks from the impact and half of it falls to the floor with a clatter. I stare at the jagged piece of porcelain left in my hands, and my mind races a mile a minute. The zombie starts to scrabble to her feet but I kick her square in the chest, for lack of a better idea, and she falls back against the tile floor. I really wish I was wearing my boots as I rip the shower curtain off its rungs with one hard tug and toss it over the zombie’s struggling body. I need to try and reduce the risk of getting scratched, but I also need to finish this and it’s too dark to find my gun—she might even be laying on it. I jump on top of the zombie, using the shower curtain as a buffer, and stab the broken point of the lid into her face. She is still struggling underneath me, nearly bucking me off, so I lean into the porcelain and push with all my might, forcing it through her skull and into her rotten brain. She finally stills, and that’s when I become aware of the pounding at the door.

  “Jane?” Dad calls sharply through the door. “What’s going on in there?” he demands.

  “Are you okay?” Silas asks, sounding about ready to break the door down.

  I shakily climb to my feet, my entire body vibrating from adrenaline, and wrap a towel around myself before opening the door. I see my dad’s worried face first and he gives me a once over, his eyes widening at the fresh zombie blood on my hands and collar bone before he looks past me. The horror makes his face age ten years.

  “You missed one,” I say as I step out into the hallway, and Silas catches me in his arms. I collapse against him, feeling boneless, and he wraps his arms around me, supporting me and my towel.

  “Why didn’t you call us?” Silas asks, and I shake my head.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “There just wasn’t time. She was in the closet and when
I looked up, she was already coming at me.” My dad comes over and gently pulls me out of Silas’s arms and leads me over to a chair.

  “Were you hurt?” he asks, his eyes bright with worry, and I shake my head.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe my back…” I say, trailing off at the look of terror on my dad’s face.

  “I’ll look,” Silas offers, but my dad slaps his hand away.

  “No, I’ll do it,” he snaps, even in this moment of fear, he doesn’t want Silas touching me when I’m only wearing a towel.

  I feel the gentle tickle of my dad running his hands along my back, and then he lets out an enormous sigh of relief. “All clear,” he says, his voice going high at the end as he bites back a sniffle. He hugs me again, and I almost sob in relief.

  “You stay here, and we’ll clean everything up for you,” Silas says as he gets to his feet and starts off for the bathroom. He stops and looks back at me. “I’m so sorry, Jane. I should’ve looked more carefully.”

  “We both should’ve,” my dad says, and I give them both a shaky smile that I don’t really feel.

  “It’s not your fault. We all checked that bathroom. I guess we’ll just have to be more careful about checking closets from now on,” I say, and both Silas and my dad nod.

  “It probably didn’t come out because we were disguised under all the zombie mess,” Dad says thoughtfully as he and Silas go into the bathroom and wrap the zombie up in the shower curtain before hauling her outside with the old couple. Silas and my dad turn the water off and even insist on washing the bathroom floor before they’ll let me back in there. They both go over every inch with a flashlight to be sure there are no more surprises. Silas even removes a large black spider that he finds in the corner, and relocates him to the kitchen.

  “I’ll be fine,” I reassure them as I close the bathroom door in their faces, and then I’m alone again in the bathroom that nearly killed me the last time. It smells really strongly of bleach now, and there is absolutely no sign of the zombie—except the missing shower curtain. Silas has thought of everything, and he’s even hung a large bed sheet up in its place. I start the water again and turn to the mirror. It reminds me too much of earlier when I look back and see the empty closet door, so I turn away and start to mentally prepare myself for my icy shower.