Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) (7 page)

If You’re real . . . if You’re real, forgive me,
he thought.
Stop me.

Heart heavy, he remained on his knees. The heavy stench of smoke hung over him and sat in his nostrils. A dance of flame sprang to life behind the small, dark glass window of the oven door.

August’s mouth fell open as the seriousness of what he was doing hit him, like a stern finger poking at his heart.

“No!” he grunted and slammed his hand down on top of the oven, using the edge to help him up.

His old knees creaked as he stood and his head swooned from rising so quickly. The room tilted to the side then righted itself again. Once steady, he sprang for the drawer nearest the oven and yanked it open, pulling out the oven mitts.

Quickly, he shoved his hands into them and opened the oven door. A thick cloud of dark gray smoke billowed out.

Coughing, August turned his head away. He took a deep breath, held it, and squinted his eyes before reaching in and grabbing the book and pulling it out. He faced away from the oven and with a big puff of breath he blew out the flame on its top and sides, then ran the book over to the sink where he patted the bright red hot lines rimming some of the pages.

He reached back to the oven, closed the door and turned it off.

Back at the sink, he stared at the still-smoldering book, some of the pages partly missing, others black with soot, others black and brown altogether.

Taking off the mitts, he was about to ask for forgiveness when his eyes caught sight of the header on the open page.

It read exodus.

* * * *

The following morning, August loaded up the blue Ford minivan with what was left of the food—not much, just a few cans of beans, some Tequila and a few just-add-water noodle soups that he had forgotten about on the top shelf—and whatever else he could find around the cabin that might be of use: an axe, hammer, a few pairs of jackets and boots, pillows and blankets, a half-roll of toilet paper, and, of course, his .22 and bullets.

This was it. It was time to return to the world. What else could it have meant when the Bible opened to Exodus? Maybe God finally did speak up after all this time?

He licked his lips. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, darling. I truly don’t. Just know I’ll do my best to honor you and, perhaps, save a few folks along the way.” He frowned. “Ah, what am I doing? You can’t hear me anyway. I’ll just pass a message up to the Big Guy and He’ll do all the talking for me.” Then, “Hopefully.”

August turned and went to the Ford. He opened the door and, resting his left forearm on the frame, set the rifle up for one last shot. He had debated if he should do this or not. Every bullet counted and he only had ten left, but the thought of his family’s cabin falling into the hands of the creatures, the idea of them breaking in and roaming the rooms and contaminating it sickened him.

The front door to the place stood open. A can of propane sat on the matt in the landing. It was old, partly rusted, but August thought it would still do the trick.

August closed his eyes a moment and said good-bye to the old place. When he opened his eyes, he aligned the shot . . . and pulled the trigger.

4

Back into the Gray

April licked Joe’s hand as he laced up his boots. They were army issue, a pair he got back in his mid teens when he was enrolled in air cadets for a short time. Fortunately for him, he had maintained the same shoe size since the ninth grade so the scuffed, black boots fit even now. Steel-toed, they had saved his life on more than one occasion when the undead tried to turn him into one of their own, a kick to their skulls rescuing him from a life imprisoned inside the shell of a human corpse.

“Sorry, pal. You can’t come with me,” he told his dog and strapped on his kneepads.

He stroked the patch of brown hair on her head then kissed her on the nose. She licked his nose in return, their little exchange before he went out each night. Though April was only a dog, she was the closest thing he had to a friend and, he supposed, she’d be the closest he’d ever have to someone to come home to. Killing the undead was easy emotionally, but leaving the dog behind each evening was always hard. To lose his buddy . . . . Joe didn’t want to think about it. He’d already lost enough loved ones as it was. April, the girl from a life when things were normal, his friends and his family.

He gave his pet one final scratch behind the ears then exited his apartment and locked it.

“I’ll be back soon,” he called through the door.

Opting not to use its holster, he held the X-09 through his trench coat as he headed outside, prepared to make the transition between the safety of his home to the uncertainty of the streets.

He lived in the Haven. The only question that hung over him each day was, for how much longer? The power lines would inevitably go down and he, like the others who lived in the area, would be in the dark, just like everywhere else in the city.

Walking down the sidewalk, Joe glanced up at the gray, cloudy sky. Tonight the gray was blotched deep brown in parts like someone had splashed coffee against it. He remembered the days when the area used to be teeming with people, cars, kids on bikes zipping down the sidewalk—the area he grew up in. His parents’ place had been seven streets down and theirs was the first place he hit after coming home from the days of walking the streets after being at April’s. Even now, a year later, he remembered walking up his folks’ driveway, the houselights off, both outside and in. He didn’t need to be a pessimist to know his mom, dad, brother and sister were already dead. The question at that point had been
how
dead?

He remembered it clearly:

Armed with a knife from his kitchen and a baseball bat, he cautiously approached the front door. After taking a deep breath, he pressed down on the tab above the handle and pushed. The door moved slightly, but no further. Locked.

Maybe they’re all right?

He dug in his jean pocket and pulled out his keys. He still had a key to the place even though he no longer lived there. Joe unlocked the door, pressed down on the tab above the handle again and pushed. The old door swung open with a creak.

Exhaling slowly, he went in, scanned the front landing to make sure the coast was clear, then proceeded into the living room. Everything seemed fine. The black leather couches on the white carpet sat untouched, just as his mom liked it. (Those couches were off-limits the moment his parents got them; Joe never understood the point in having them if you couldn’t sit on them.) The dining room beside it was also empty and intact, his mom’s fake fruit centerpiece still in the middle of the large oak table, a few pieces of mail on a nearby chair. He went over to the envelopes and checked the postmarks. Days old. They were still sealed and it wasn’t like his parents to leave mail unread for longer than a day.

Heart beating quickly and steadily, he went to the kitchen. At the entrance, his jaw slackened and a flush of heat came over him. The dual-windowed kitchen door that led out onto the patio was in pieces. Murky red blood coated the jagged pieces of glass still in its frame and a streak of dark red painted the white-and-gray-squared linoleum floor, as if something or someone had been dragged across it.

The creeping feeling that someone might still be in the house tugged at Joe as he went for the kitchen door. He just hoped that if someone was inside, they were alive and not dead.

Joe peered through the broken glass. The backyard looked the same as the last time he visited except everything was muddied over with that awful gray stuff that had fallen from the sky. Pools of blood and smears of meat blotched the patio in hideous red, the smell of it having sat out in the open so long sending his stomach into twists and twirls.

He swallowed again, a lump forcing its way down his throat.

“Anybo—” His voice squeaked. He cleared his throat. “Anybody?” The word was so quiet that he doubted that anyone would have heard him.

“Mom? Dad?”

Tears pooling at the bottom of his eyes, he stepped outside and tried to avoid stepping in the patches of blood.

He dropped the knife and bat. The edge of the bat struck his toe through his shoe but he didn’t care. To his left, on the patio table, were the heads of his family, his father’s and sister’s sitting side by side, his mother’s and brother’s lying on their ears, eyes locked onto each other, frozen terror on their faces. Blood coated the table and rimmed it by its legs.

Mind blank, Joe numbly walked toward them. Unable to think, he glanced to his feet, his shaking hands, then finally, to the yard. There were no bodies, just a few patches of intestines, a blood-soaked arm and a sheet of skin.

Joe couldn’t breathe.

His heart banged so hard inside his chest he thought he was going to faint.

Green stars rimmed his vision and a shadow crept in along the edges of his sight. He felt lighter than air. The last sound he heard was his head hitting the patio wood.

Now, walking down the sidewalk in the Haven, Joe still couldn’t believe he had gotten out of there alive, that the zombies hadn’t come for him. If any had entered his parents’ yard while he was unconscious, they might have left him alone, somehow thinking he was already dead and not worth their time. He’d never know if that was the case or not.

Joe pulled out the X-09 and held it tight with his right hand. He no longer teared up at the memory of losing his family. For this he felt shame. Either he had accepted their deaths or had grown so cold and bitter that he didn’t care.

But if I feel bad about not caring, then I have to care, right?

“Whatever,” he said softly and pulled out a Old Port cigar from the inner pocket of his coat. From the side pocket he produced a box of wooden matches, stopped walking, lit the tobacco, then continued.

The smell of the smoke sometimes drew out the dead.

He hoped he’d run into one or two. Each time he blew one away, he felt a little better about himself and reclaimed a little piece of the lives the undead had stolen from him and everyone else.

Many nights he had wandered around, thinking about what he was doing. And many nights he realized how stupid it was when he stepped back and took a hard look at it. He was playing vigilante, trying be like the superheroes he had written about before the world fell to hell. But at the same time, he also gained a keen understanding of the catharsis this brought and the amazing feeling of trying to set something right when everything had been set so wrong. He didn’t care if others noticed. So far as he knew, no one did. There were others like him anyway, guys and girls who went around with guns and killed as many of the undead as they could. Without them, the city would be in far worse shape. The military that been dispatched to each city nationwide after the rain fell had lasted only a short time before the undead bulldozed them like a pack of raptors hungry for the kill. The cops were all dead. Even those like him, well, there weren’t as many out there as there used to be but, thankfully, they were still out there.

Hopefully they’d still be able to make a difference before it was too late.

5

The Rat

Billie spent the night at Des’s place. She was going to go home with the milk, but after hearing several gunshots echo outside, Des insisted she stay with him and go home in the morning. But when morning came, they ended up getting caught up in a world of playful conversation and video games. Besides, both had enjoyed spending time together after being so far removed from another living soul for so long.

This evening, Billie had fallen asleep on Des’s La-Z-Boy. She said she just wanted to close her eyes for a minute and take the edge off a budding headache, but Des knew better. Not eating properly slowly took you down and now it was finally catching up to her. He’d make sure she got some food in that stomach of hers before she left.

Des stood over her sleeping form, hands at his sides, mouth closed, eyes fixated on her face. Seeing her like this, so peaceful, so at ease, made him wish he was someone else, someone who wasn’t such a geek. He didn’t know for sure if a “geek” was how she viewed him, but he’d seen other girls roll their eyes at him the way she sometimes did, seen other girls not look him square in the eye when he spoke to them. It was a role he was used to playing, though. His sister, Jante, who died the day the rain came while waiting for his parents to pick her up from a college class, had a friend, Shelly. Shelly was dead, too, but Des would never forget her.

Shelly came over to the Nottingham residence regularly, and while she and Jante would sit around the kitchen table nibbling on chips and popcorn talking about their latest crush, Des would always eavesdrop from downstairs, one ear listening to them, the other listening for Xbox monsters.

It drove him nuts that he was attracted to her, and he knew full well it was just a high school crush because only high school crushes were of the kind where you fell head over heels for someone without really knowing them. Each night, lying in bed and waiting to fall asleep, he thought about her. He imagined her wearing a white T-shirt with black, form-fitting pants with bell-bottom legs and bringing her into his arms. Imagined running his hand up her back and his fingers through her shiny red hair. Imagined her closing her perfect blue eyes as he leaned in to kiss her.