Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) (34 page)

He reached for the X-09 inside his coat and gripped its handle. The power he normally felt from holding it brought little comfort and very little sense of control. Who was he kidding? This was an uncontrollable situation! There was no explanation. This was impossible. This couldn’t be happening.

He’d always thought he’d be able to handle anything, that nothing would surprise him anymore. There was nothing left to lose after April. His life, what little left of it there was, counted for nothing. If he died at the hands of the undead, so be it. If the storm had taken him, so be it. If now, if he was dead and was a ghost among the living in a world where the undead didn’t exist, so be it.

“We’re in the past, before the rain came.” Joe’s heart skipped a beat and he felt his cheeks flush at the absurdity of the notion. “Or in the future after the dead are gone,” he quickly added, as if that would make it better.

It didn’t.

“I don’t know where or even when we are,” August said.

Another car pulled into the parking lot and passed through the helicopter. Joe couldn’t help but stare as the car continued on its way just like the other, as if nothing had happened.

A man with a big belly in a plaid shirt exited the bank, went to his rusting brown pickup, and backed out of his spot. He, too, passed through the chopper and joined the traffic on the road.

“Billie, did you see—”

She wasn’t on the lawn beside the building anymore. Instead, she stood by the front door to the bank, poking at it with her hand. The closer Joe got to her, the more he was able to see what she was doing. Slowly, she pressed her fingers against the glass. They passed through the door as if through air. She pulled her hand back and did it again. And again. And again.

“Careful, Joe,” August said from behind him as he approached Billie.

But before he could talk to her to try and figure out what was going on, Billie passed through the door and went in.

* * * *

Head aching, eyes stinging from her outburst, Billie slowly made her way through the bank. People milled about, others sat in the waiting area; while others stood at the tills, speaking with the tellers while fishing in their purses or wallets.

The woman with too much makeup snapped her gum as she walked toward her. The woman’s shoulder passed through hers as she walked by, heading for the doors. The woman stopped before the doors, adjusted her purse over her shoulder, then opened the door just as it appeared Joe and August were about to pass through the door like she had.

The two men entered.

The old man and Joe searched the people, obviously looking for her.

She didn’t want to talk to them. Not right now. She ducked out of view behind a table with a bunch of brochures on it and a for-customers-only coffee machine.

Wondering if Joe would shout her name, if he truly believed no one could see them or hear them, she waited, just needing some space.

Sure enough, Joe called out: “Billie!”

“Argh. Not now,” she whispered and got in behind the legs of someone who had come to grab themselves a free coffee.

She searched the bank, looking for a place to take a breather. It was all relatively open area, the only hiding places being either behind the tills or in the vault, which had its door open. As if that could stop her even if the door was closed. She could pass through solid objects!

Then the memory came. Her fall. The sidewalk. Her arms passing through the cement. The sensation of gravity taking her and about to suck her to the center of the earth or beyond.

What happened out there?

She peered over the table. Joe and August had split up, each wandering around the bank, eyes searching above the heads of the people. A little boy no more than four ran through August’s legs to catch up with his father on the other side of the old man. An elderly lady passed through Joe as she went to inquire about something at the help desk.

Billie eyed the vault, and when she was certain Joe and August weren’t looking, she made a break for it and ran, her body passing through the waist-high gate separating the area behind the tills from the bank floor. About to run into the vault, she caught sight of two stalls for those opening safety deposit boxes on the other side of it. She headed for one of those instead.

When she emerged through the fake-marble-covered door, she stopped and took a deep breath.

Finally, she was alone.

* * * *

Joe searched the people, hoping to catch a glimpse of Billie. How hard was it to find a small girl with bright pink hair? Especially one who could pass through solid objects?

He couldn’t see her. He knew she probably wanted to be alone after what happened outside, but now was hardly the time to leave him and August.

He scanned the bank for the old man. August stood in the far corner, next to a stairwell, seeming to already be waiting for him to make eye contact. Once Joe did, August signaled that he was going to go downstairs to look for her. Joe nodded and August turned and headed down the steps.

A bank of offices bordered the place’s interior so Joe decided to check them out, one by one.

Out of habit, he dodged a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair who was coming toward him. Another shorter fellow with spiked blond hair who he didn’t see was right behind the man and Joe hit him straight on. The blond fellow’s body met his and Joe merged with him, feeling as if he was slowly sinking into a pool of Jell-O. Then the sensation passed and Joe was on the other side, the blond guy still walking forward, not missing a beat.

Joe gave himself a shake and turned into the office with the open mahogany door on his left. A fifty-some-odd-year-old with male-pattern baldness and a moustache sat behind a desk, one hand tapping the keys of his keyboard, the other supporting his chin as he stared at the monitor.

He couldn’t help but chuckle.
Well, how ’bout that?
He recoiled at his own humor.
Don’t turn back. That’s not you anymore.

On the white wall to his right was a black-framed picture of a well-muscled runner hopping over a series of hurdles, and below was the supposed-to-be-motivating slogan that read forward.

“All right,” Joe said and approached the wall.

He put his fingers against it and they passed through and, like before, there was a slight resistance, like slipping your hand into a pool of cool, soft mud. He withdrew his fingers, took a deep breath, walked toward the wall, instinctively bracing himself for the dull thunk of impact as his head met drywall. Instead, coolness and darkness embraced him and it felt as if he were slowly sinking in the deep end of a swimming pool albeit with something under his feet for support. The darkness then melted away and he found himself in the closed-door office of two women, one with short brown hair behind a desk, slouched in her chair with hands folded across her lap, the other across from her leaning against the desk, bright blonde hair hanging in her face.

“I’m not going to judge you either way,” the woman sitting down said.

“I know. I just don’t know what to do.”

The woman sitting down leaned forward. “You’re gonna have to make a decision, though. Frankly, I’m getting tired of hearing about it. Either make your move with the guy or not.”

“But I
really
like him.”

“You’re married.”

“Don’t remind me. But that’s been cold for a few months now. I mean,
really
cold.”

“That’s not true. A friend of mine found somebody while she was still attached. She got divorced and they both lived happily ever after.”

Okay, I’m done,
Joe thought.

“You’ve been telling me,” the other woman said.

“I don’t know.” The blonde woman began to pace. Joe avoided her on purpose. “Just tired of being torn, you know?”

Joe merely leaned in close to her ear and said, “Don’t do it.” And he moved toward the far wall, sinking through it and emerging into an empty office, the door open.

Like the other with the two women, no Billie.

He went through the remaining offices, all of their occupants unaware of his presence. Billie wasn’t in any of them.

By the time he exited out the door of the office nearest the tills, passing through solid objects was becoming normal and he didn’t mind it when a short Asian man carrying too many papers passed through him.

The door at the front of the bank opened and a man wearing an expensive-looking long, white overcoat and white velvet fedora walked in. He paused a moment at the door, surveyed the room, then went to the heavyset woman sitting at the help desk. The woman picked up her phone after he spoke to her, dialed a number, said something, then set the phone back down. A moment later, an office door opened and out came the woman whom the blonde was confessing to. She greeted the man in the white coat with a handshake then directed him toward the vault on the other side of the tills. He waited for her by the vault door while she went in, and when she emerged with a small, silver long box, he went with her to somewhere on the other side of the vault.

Joe’s focus changed when August came up the stairwell, hands open, palms up. Nothing.

Joe signaled to the offices he’d just been in and signed that Billie wasn’t in those either. Sighing, he glanced out the far window to the helicopter in the parking lot.

Was it his imagination or did the misty residue on its hull suddenly seem a lighter gray than before?

* * * *

Billie paced the tiny stall, hands steepled together beneath her chin. There wasn’t much room to move—at least, without passing through the stall’s walls or door and risking bumping into Joe or August outside—and was getting tired of being cramped up in there. Worse, she was just tired of being tired. And tired of being a woman. It was stupid and cliché but she was having a hard time keeping up with everything. The guys seemed to have no trouble, at least from her view of things. Joe rarely showed emotion. August, though warmer than Joe, felt like a grandpa that she only saw on special occasions. And Des . . . . If he was here, he’d be the one to talk to. He’d probably be having a blast walking through solid objects once the shock and newness of it wore off.

But she was just tired. Tired of trying to survive. Tired of being pushed to death’s edge then suddenly being tugged back. Tired of weirdness and conflicting emotions. Sick to her stomach over losing her family. Sick of the undead. Her only comfort came from them not being around anymore.

She still didn’t know where she, Joe and August were. Des would probably say they were in some parallel universe. He was big into stuff like that: spaceships, aliens, time travel, parallel dimensions. Your regular run-of-the-mill comic geek.

Never got to say good-bye,
Billie thought. A sharp pang pricked her heart. Maybe, just maybe, if they somehow returned to—what, their world?—maybe then she’d be able to find Des’s body and give it a proper burial. If he wasn’t a zombie, that was.