Cage The Dead (6 page)

“Not at all. But, some of the zombies are missing hands and fingers and one’s missing its entire arm,” Gaia explained with another laugh. She stared at Nick until she believed he finally understood.

“The cats,” he said.

“What else? Or Oscar and Grace. Some of them have been spending a bit too much time trying to get into the cat pens,” she continued, feeling that there was some sort of justice in that. “So, question is: how do we get over there without attracting all those dead things?”

***

Nick quickly summed up his idea to Gaia, explaining that they needed to circle all the way around to the outside borders of the zoo, through some of the pens of the big cats. He went on to say that gatherings of zombies were outside those enclosures and how it would be safer for them to go through the animal pens than have to deal with the mobs of zombies gathered outside. He believed that the tigers and lions would let them be—more so than the zombies would. Nick was well versed in the ways of the big cat. Gaia knew little of his past, but she did know that. To Gaia, that opinion made sense, but still scared the living shit out of her. Having to come face to face with the big cats without anything between them was a frightening prospect.

She followed Nick as he made his way on a wide circuit around the outside section of the zoo toward the cat pens. He had his keys on him and held them in his right hand while the pitchfork was gripped firmly in his left. Gaia saw the first of the enclosures, found on the opposite side of the zoo as where her primates were kept, and calmed herself, knowing the animals could sense fear.

They would have to climb through the tiger pen and then the lion pen to emerge safely at the rear side of the barn, which Nick explained, he could not see, but had hoped it was void of the living dead.

“We won’t know until we get there,” he said, making Gaia feel even more trepidatious about the whole plan.

“Explain to me again why we can’t go through the house and into the hospital that way?” Gaia asked, looking for a reason not to do this.

“Because the entire facility is surrounded by the living dead,
and
we never go anywhere without exploring it first,” Nick explained as he slowly crept toward the locked gate at the side of the tiger pen. “You follow? We never go somewhere that we haven’t explored. It’s a sure fire way to get yourself killed. That house could be crawling with the undead, and if we get chased somewhere, we could be running into a death trap. Comprende?”

“Yeah, sure,” Gaia said, understanding the logic behind that line of reasoning. She had seen her share of horror movies and enough of the dumb things they did to argue with Nick.

“The Amur’s are magnificent animals,” he remarked dreamily as he crept closer and fitted the key in the lock. “Did you know that each tiger’s stripes are as unique as a snowflake?” Nick whispered excitedly to her, as if he had not a care in the world.

Gaia held his stare for a minute and then widened her eyes as if to prod him along, which he did, unlocking the gate and waving her closer. She watched uncomfortably as the zombies standing at the front of the pen began to make sudden movements as well as jerk their heads about, seeming agitated. The tigers, possibly sensing that too, began to pad about their enclosure. One of the tigers strode right over to Nick’s position and growled lowly.

“Hold on there, Toby,” Nick whispered, standing tall. “You know me, boy.”

“What is he doing?” Gaia asked, remaining still and trying not to panic.

“Maybe he got a taste for flesh,” Nick suggested, not completely confident of his answer. “Just guessin’.” He gestured to the remains of what was most likely a zombie that had somehow gotten into the cage. At least, Nick hoped it was a zombie.

Gaia then heard the shuffling of something to her right and noted a zombie, which could not have been more than a teenager until recently, racing toward them, its wild eyes wide with malice.

“We don’t have a choice now,” Nick said, shoving open the enclosure and stepping inside. Toby made no move toward him, and Gaia reluctantly followed him inside. But before Nick could secure the gate, the zombie slammed headlong into it, forcing it open slightly and knocking Nick down in the process.

“Fuck they’re strong!” Nick yelped from his backside.

Gaia cocked the shovel, ready to swing it at the zombie that had made its way inside, but before she could, a mix of orange, white and brown flew past her. She gazed to her right to witness the tiger, his half-ton plus of muscle and grace, leaning over the zombie. The tiger named Toby clamped down on the zombie’s neck holding it in place with its massive weight and then tore out a huge chunk of its neck. Its second bite latched onto the zombie’s shoulder and Toby dragged its still moving body to the back of the enclosure and into the shadows. Snarls and the sound of bones snapping ensued.

She could see the zombie’s legs for a brief instant behind a cropping of bushes, as it spasmed and twitched violently under the tiger’s assault until finally it stopped altogether.

Gaia snapped her attention back to Nick, hearing the steel on steel as the gate closed. Several other zombies now threatened to tear them limb from limb, held fast by the gate’s steel bars. Nick worked the key, locking the gate again from the inside.

“Do they sense that the zombies are a threat?” Gaia asked, truly not understanding how or even
if
the tigers recognized the zombie as such.

“I honestly don’t know. Their behavior is…different.”

“So they differentiated between us and the zombies?!”

“I have no idea why they just did that,” Nick admitted, adjusting the rifle again on his shoulder and staring at the gate on the opposite side. “All I know is that we need to get moving if we wanna torch these fuckers.”

“Sounds good to me, Gaia said, adjusting her grip on the shaft of the shovel, holding it firmly in two hands. She followed Nick to the opposite gate, walking briskly and matching his pace. The other zombies gathered outside the pen hadn’t seemed to notice them yet. They made it quickly to the gate, unlocked it, and made it outside.

The next destination was the lion pen. Once they were through it, they should make it to the backside of the barn without incident.

Nick hunted through the key ring and found the proper key, set in in the lock, and then turned it. Gaia watched as the lions in the distance were gathered near the front of the enclosure, swiping and biting at zombie hands that dared breach the safety of the bars. It looked so ludicrous to Gaia—so surrealistic, as if she were dreaming the whole thing.

She took in the sight of four zombies reaching inside the pen, trying to get at the lions, and watched the big cats swatting at and biting the zombie flesh. There were several females and a male there at the front of the enclosure. Nick stopped and stared at the exchange, looking from Gaia back to the fight again.

“What’s up?” Gaia asked. “And can you answer it when we get out of here?”

“Sure,” Nick said, shaking his head dismissively, as if he had just remembered what they were doing. The pair ran to the gate on the opposite side and they were both relieved to witness nothing but green pastures at the backside of the barn. But then Nick stopped suddenly, holding Gaia back with an outstretched arm, stopping her in her tracks.

Another male lion, its glorious mane surrounding its majestic face, had suddenly begun to pursue them.

“Move, but go slow,” Nick advised, doing exactly as he said, the lion stopping its pursuit altogether. Gaia mimicked his actions and followed him to the gate. Suddenly the lion padded over to them and sniffed the air, making a growling noise.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Nick cooed, placing the key inside the lock and turning the tumbler. It clicked and then he slowly turned the handle and the door clicked open. The lion made no further moves toward them and let them leave unmolested.

“What was it?” Gaia asked, dropping the head of the shovel to the earth and wiping copious amounts of perspiration for her forehead. She felt the moisture beneath her blonde hair and ran her hand through it in a futile attempt to rid herself of the moisture. She thanked her lucky stars she’d decided to get it cut short recently for a wedding, and silently hoped to live long enough to see it grow out again.

“The lions don’t normally hunt or react like that,” Nick explained. “I’ve never seen them do that kind of thing, biting at exposed arms and such. Least not since I’ve been here. Though this is far from what I’d call normal.” Nick laughed out loud at that very evident summation.

“Well, the world has never been more turned on its side,” Gaia agreed, putting her hands on her hips, the shovel standing upright in the ground.

“True, we have no idea if whatever made us—well,
them
—zombies, did anything at all to the animals.”

“At least they’re not undead, too,” Gaia joked, retrieving the shovel.

“Fuckin A, right!” Nick said excitedly.

“So, how do we go about this?”

“Well, much as I hate it, we need to attract them undead fuckers this way after we set the trap, get as many of ‘em as we can inside and torch the barn.”

“Sounds like a nightmare. I really hate to burn anything that has so much history,” Gaia said sympathetically.

“Yeah, not something I am proud of, either. But, if we want to get inside the house and the lab, we need a major distraction. Plus, they’re not very smart from what we’ve seen, right? They’re only driven by their need to feed. We can use that instinct against them in this case.”

“Let’s get this done then. We’re losing light,” Gaia said, seeing that the sun shifted slowly westward in the sky.

She desperately wanted this get this over with, and she had to get back to Adam soon. He needed her now more than ever.

Chapter 5

The pair went about quietly gathering the gas cans, the ones the grounds crew would use to fuel the mowers and tractors, and brought them back inside the barn. There were still dozens of zombies wandering around outside in various states of wholeness, some missing hands, fingers and a few lacking entire limbs.

Gaia also recalled that at least two grizzlies had escaped their pens and wondered how many more were out and about. Her thoughts went to Solomon, the silverback gorilla, and their family of newborn gorillas on the northern side of the zoo, above the house and veterinary facility. As soon as she treated Adam and made sure that he was doing well, she would have to somehow get back inside to check on her extended family. She had no idea if the primates remained untouched by the undead plague. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to check before her world got turned on its ear with this ‘zombie plague’.

“Should we at least let the chickens out of their pens?” Gaia asked, referring to a few that were copped here in the barn beside bales of hay, and trying not to feel terrible about it. Nick nodded and the pair began to gather them up and toss them out the back door one by one, as her thoughts came right back to the zombie outbreak.

The only fact that she knew for certain, was that this thing was widespread, perhaps even worldwide. The extent of which neither she nor Nick knew as all contact with the outside world had been summarily cut off. Maybe Adam could shed some more light on the subject once he was better. She hoped he could anyway, as she poured gasoline all over the bales of hay and the floor of the barn.

“Okay, we need to set up an escape route,” Nick said, gesturing to the windows around the barn. “There’s a ladder—“

Nick was cut off abruptly by the sound of glass shattering to their right. The glass window pane of the door shattered under the impact of a crazed zombie.

“Shit, no time now!” Gaia said as the door flung wide, coming to the conclusion that it wasn’t shut completely. Zombies began to funnel into the wide expanse of the barn’s floor and both Nick and Gaia grabbed their weapons and ran for the ladder that would lead them to the barn’s loft.

As Gaia got to the top, she shattered the window nearest her and began to shout at the top of her lungs, drawing hordes of the living dead toward the barn.

She turned and saw Nick on the opposite side of the hayloft as he removed his lighter. He looked to her and Gaia nodded, seeing dozens of the zombies inside the barn now. Gaia looked back outside the window and saw a slightly inclined roof where she could easily step onto and it wasn’t all that high off the ground.

“Do it now!” she yelled across to him. As he looked up, Gaia regarded him in dismay as the lighter fell from his hand to plummet below to the mass of zombies gathered there, crazily trying to climb on top of one another to try to get at the duo above them.

“Shit!” Nick yelled as it echoed throughout the barn.

The pair of them looked around as if to figure out what to do next. Gaia again looked back to Nick, who moved to the edge of the loft and leaned over the ladder.

He means to go down there to get the lighter!

 
“Nick, are you fuckin’ crazy?!” Gaia yelled over to him.

“What else are we supposed to do?!”

“Just hold on a minute,” Gaia said, pacing back and forth. Their situation had gone from bad to worse in seconds. The sunlight coming through the opposite side of the barn was blinding in that exact moment. But, that very intrusion of sunlight spurred an idea as she spun to face Nick once again. She stumbled backward as the sunlight blinded her for a heartbeat and she quickly caught her balance and knelt to secure her stability.

“Nick, your binoculars!” she yelled. “I remember seeing something about starting a fire with a magnifying glass. And if you had a light bulb, or even a pair of binoculars, it would work!” she continued excitedly. “Spin them upside down over the hay!”

Nick nodded and did exactly that. Gaia sat with restless anticipation in that very moment as everything they had planned hinged on that very notion being true. They had trapped themselves inside a barn with dozens of zombies around, essentially rang the dinner bell. They were as good as dead unless this plan worked.

He held the binoculars directly over a grouping of hay, funneling the sunlight through it until Gaia’s heart leapt with excitement when she noticed a flash of light from beneath the magnified lens.

Fire erupted suddenly from the underside of those binoculars, which caused Nick to stumble backward as it blazed upward unexpectedly. Nick stumbled back and fell out the open window above. Gaia could not see him any longer behind that sudden eruption of fire.

“Shit!” she whispered, running and leaping out the window, watching the flames reproduce and spread through the barn with reckless abandon. She happened to witness the conflagrations engulf the zombies below that did not seem to notice or even care that their reanimated lives were about to end, too.

Gaia watched as even more zombies rushed toward the blazing inferno that was the barn and she ran toward the back edge of the roof, grasped the edge and lowered herself down, falling a few feet to the earth below.

Agony shot through her mind as she grasped her right ankle. She landed awkwardly when she fell, but she wouldn’t allow the pain to slow her down. Ignoring that sharp sting, she ran as best she could to the backside of the barn, seeing Nick lying in a heap. His left hand was singed at the very least, and he rolled around grasping at the opposite shoulder—the same one that the other zombie had partially torn open only a day ago. It was again stained with fresh blood as Gaia winced at the wounded shoulder, only able to guess at the pain the man had to endure.

“Hey! Are you all right?!”

“My shoulder. I think it’s dislocated!” Nick snarled through gritted teeth.

“Let’s get you up and out of here,” Gaia said, helping Nick to his feet and the two of them ran to the side of the barn where they had rested their tools. Gaia snagged her trusty shovel, but Nick, his left arm all but useless, left his behind.

“Over there,” Nick said, nodding to the crest of a hill where they could sit and watch the conflagration as it consumed the bulk of their undead enemy.

Another hour or so passed as animal howls, roars, growls, and other sounds penetrated the open air. In that time, as the fire began to dim, Gaia realized that they were suddenly beneath a canopy of stars and the moon shone brightly overhead.

The smells of the burned undead was nauseating and it stole Gaia’s’ mounting hunger straight away.

“Let me get a closer look,” she said to Nick, who nodded through what looked to be tear-soaked eyes. Though she did not hear him make a sound, he must have been in so much pain, so she allowed him his bravado and said nothing about it.

She stood and immediately felt the sharp sting of pain in her right ankle as it protested against such an idea as to put weight on it. She ignored the discomfort and began to carefully maneuver through the darkness, trying to get her footing set on the incline when a sharp pain registered in her ankle once more. She found herself suddenly rolling down the hill coming to rest at its base, unable to push away the agony.

She sat there for a good long minute before she finally chuckled at the silliness of the event and allowed herself a good laugh, realizing that she needed to do just that, or she would go insane.

She heard a sound in that moment that stole any sense of happiness she had permitted herself. She rolled over to see a charred corpse lunging for her and managed to roll back away from it just as it fell over her. She heard the snap of its teeth as bit for her now-removed flesh and she shuddered, having lost the grip on her weapon on the way down. She quickly tapped the side of her body looking for the machete handle, but could not find it either.

The zombie hit the ground with a solid thud and seemed to be having trouble finding its own footing as Gaia stood and looked around for either of her weapons.  Finding them in the darkness, of course, would be near impossible and so she backed her way up the hill as the zombie crawled slowly toward her along the ground.

She blessed her luck again as she noted that the wretched thing did not have most of its right arm and so, could not really get itself off the ground, possibly not having the brain functions to adapt for the missing appendage.

Then she heard a gunshot break the relative silence and turned to see Nick leaning over the crest of the hill with a pistol in his hands.

“Sorry, had to chance it,” Gaia heard him say before he slumped behind the mound of earth again. The creature before her stopped moving completely in that instant. She stared into its lifeless eyes, kicked it in frustration, and began to make her way back up the hill slowly, recovering both her weapons along the way.

As she sat next to Nick, the pair writhing in pain, Gaia again laughed. “Some pair we are, huh?”

But, despite that, she knew that they had to again press on, understanding that Nick needed medical treatment now more than ever, that she could use some help herself, and that her beloved Adam was still waiting patiently for them to return with the proper medical supplies that he so desperately needed.

***

Nick gritted his teeth and groaned as they pair approached the front door of the house.

“Lotta memories here,” Nick mentioned absently. Gaia continued to ignore him, focusing on her surrounding s and the darkness that awaited them within the house. There were various movements in the shadows in the distance in front of the veterinary building entrance, probably more zombies that were not drawn toward the fire, and so, this was still their preferred method of entry.

Gaia turned to regard the blaze in the distance, watching the barn burn and seeing zombies still meandering about, bodies aflame, and caring nothing for their own safety.

Over the first hour, the flames attracted dozens more of the undead, drawn by the light and sound as they wandered right into the fire with no regard for their own safety. They didn’t even feel the flames that licked their skin and subsequently devoured it. The scene was somewhat cathartic for her and Nick as they had both voiced similar thoughts.

An hour or more passed and the fire began to die down. The surrounding area grew eerily quiet. She was thankful that none of the animals wandered too close to the fire, having the good sense to stay far away from it. It didn’t seem that any others had escaped their enclosures except the pair of grizzlies, the goats and others around the petting zoo, and a few elephants that had trampled their way out of their pens. So far, so good, she had told Nick.

There were still more of the undead wandering around, but they seemed not so interested in the dying fire any more. A good portion that she could see from the reflection of the blaze were charred and burnt all about, and yet they continued along as if nothing had happened.

 Ignorance is bliss.

She placed her hand on and twisted the knob on the front door, holding her shovel in her left hand, and slowly opened the door.

“I’ve got a small flashlight here,” Nick said, handing it to Gaia and wincing as the slightest movement now seemed to cause him pain.

And why not?
Gaia thought. He had a portion of his flesh partially torn from his shoulder, and then had fallen at least ten feet to the ground, landing on that very same side. He ended up dislocating it at the very least. He probably cracked a few ribs too, from the way he was moving. Every step seemed to be excruciatingly painful for him. And yet, he persisted, never complaining once, and so would she.

Gaia shone the light inside the room, Nick standing right beside her. “This way,” he instructed, directing her through the foyer and kitchen and into a hallway. It was lengthy and tightly spaced, pictures hanging all along the wall.

A sound echoed in the hall and Gaia froze in place, the sound coming from behind her.

When the beam of Gaia’s flashlight illuminated the source, she found Nick steadying a side table and the accompanying lamp that sat atop it. “Sorry,” Nick whispered.

Gaia sighed deeply and then she held her breath again as another sound came from the opposite side of the hall. This time the source of the sound wasn’t Nick.

She slowly shone the light down the hall to see two quickly approaching figures. Their eyes revealed to Gaia that their once human life had all been eradicated by an infection that killed them and brought them back to ‘life’. That ‘life’ was more akin to a terrible presence; an abysmal existence in which a curse was implanted with the sole purpose of feeding a deeply rooted hunger that could never be satisfied.