Dead Beginnings (Vol. 1) (8 page)

Lonnie tried to calm himself long enough to do the math and figure out how many bullets he had left. Assuming the magazine was fully loaded when Buddy first showed up in Amy’s house minus the shots he fired off into her chest and head, that meant in the best case scenario he had about twenty rounds left. Knowing Buddy and how lazy he was about refilling the rounds once he’d used the gun, he could have anywhere from fifteen to one single bullet left.

His eyes flickered from window to window to try to count the number of shadowed hands. His chest heaved with massive intakes of air, making his head feel like it was going to float away at any moment. There was no way to figure out the odds of them surviving the attack once the windows gave out. All the two men could do was wait and pray that they were double paned.

XIV.

              Glass shattered and fell to the wooden floor of the living room. Lonnie flinched as the sound reverberated through his aching head. Dead and mangled hands reached through the new opening ferociously. The shards of broken glass that clung to the sides of the frame dug into soft, loose skin and tore it from their bones as they tried to pull themselves inside.

              Lonnie’s heart raced as his eyes moved from the broken window to the others that remained intact. They didn’t have long before those gave out too and they were perilously surrounded with no way out. He had to think fast. The Army may not have trained him to fend for survival against walking, hungry zombies, but they did teach him to shoot and use hand-to-hand combat. It would have to do.

              Another crash tore through his dashing thoughts. The dead pulled themselves up by the window sills to get through. The two broken windows were spread far enough apart that they still had a chance—one directly in front of the terrified men and one to their right in the dining room that opened to the living room they stood in.

Lonnie couldn’t tear his eyes away as one male used both arms to propel itself forward through the opening over a large piece of jagged glass. It drug across its chest and down its belly. The body collapsed to the floor, the first to break the barrier and make it into the house.

              Lonnie and Rowan took several steps backwards, away from the bleeding corpse as it lie on the floor.

              “Is it dead?” Rowan whispered frantically into Lonnie’s ear.

              “Yeah, but it’s not stayin’ down.”

              The lanky, gutted male pushed itself up. It swayed with its guts spilling out of the gash, its intestines dangling down to the floor like the rope Lonnie used to swing from at the Michigan cabin. It took an unsteady, lumbering step toward the two warm bodies of flesh and everything fell to the floor with a nauseating splat—stomach, intestines, spleen, gallbladder, liver. Nothing was neatly tucked inside anymore.

Rowan raised his hand to his mouth and gagged.

              Two more bodies came crashing in through the dining room window.

              “Let’s get out of here!” Rowan yelled as he turned for the stairs.

              “No!” Lonnie grabbed ahold of the panicked man’s arm. “How do you think these things got to the windows? By climbing the porch steps. We go up there, they figure out how to climb the stairs, and we’re done for.”

              The disemboweled male raised its arms and charged forward. Lonnie took his assault rifle in both hands and fired a single shot at its head. He missed and caught the thing in the throat instead. Slick, black blood spurted from the wound, spraying the couch and floor. One of its feet slipped on the mess and it tumbled down.

Lonnie jumped on the opportunity. He ran to the fallen body and shoved the end of the rifle into the forehead of the writhing creature. He fired one off and the corpse lie motionless below him, as it should have always been.

A surge of heroic energy sparked through Lonnie’s body.
We are not going to die today
, he thought as he stared at the lacerated, disfigured form. The face was one he’d never seen before in town. That was good.

Twenty feet behind him, Rowan screamed over the sound of guttural growls. “Help! Get them off!”

              If Lonnie truly wanted to be rid of the sniveling, worthless man, the moment had arrived. He was in the clear to find a way out on his own as the zombies swarmed over Rowan and tore him from limb to limb. All he had to do was get up, walk past to the back door, and slip out. He may never get the chance again. He whirled around and ran.

XV.

The AR-15 slammed against the skull of the clawing, ravenous corpse that had a grip on Rowan’s dark gray t-shirt. It let go, stunned by the blow for a second before it turned to Lonnie with its mouth opened impossibly wide from an unhinged jaw.

The short, sturdy blonde turned his body and put all his weight behind the next crack across the bloodied creature’s head. There was a loud crunch as the side of its skull caved in and a thump as it collapsed to the hard floor in a mangled heap.

              “Get it off! Get it off!” Rowan continued to scream.

              Another zombie had him by the arm and was trying to pull his soft flesh into its snapping jaws. “Oh, God! Get it off me!”

              Lonnie grabbed the thing by the collar of its dirty button-down plaid shirt and flung it to the side. It crashed into the end table by the couch, wood flying in all directions as it burst into pieces. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation as Lonnie stomped over to it. Splintered bits of cheap wood jutted out from the thing’s left side and arm. Lonnie dropped to his knees, pulled it up by its shirt collar with one hand, and pummeled its face with his bare fists.

              He wasn’t thinking as he drove his thick, hard knuckles into the spitting creatures face over and over again. It wasn’t like before with Buddy. He was aware of what he was doing, but he still had no control over it. His hands moved on their own and he simply watched in satisfaction as cheek bones fractured, the jaw shattered, and finally the right temple gave in. The dead weight of the body pulled Lonnie’s hand down to the floor with it. He leaned over the putrid corpse, its face a sticky mess of pummeled meat and cracked bones.

              The feeling was unbelievable, like nothing Lonnie had ever experienced. Before, whenever he felt the unyielding urge to beat someone’s face in, he blacked out and was left to piece together the incident when he came to. It had always been frustrating to see the aftermath and not get to experience the electrifying feeling of knuckles against flesh, to hear the euphoric sound of splitting bones.

He stood to his feet, his shoulders heaving up and down, his muscular arms held away from his body as black blood dripped from his hands.

              In the far distance, Lonnie heard the sound of more outside, moaning and grunting through their efforts to get in, like a scary movie playing in distant room. He was aware, but not concerned. He was alive, Rowan was OK, and they were going to get out of there in one piece.

              “Did they bite you at all, or scratch you?” Lonnie turned on Rowan and got within inches of his face, his own turned up to glare into the towering, shaking man’s eyes.

              “N-N-No. No. I’m good,” he stammered as he shook his head, his shoulders shrugged up to his ears.

              Lonnie backed off a step and swung the rifle around to his back. He scanned the place quickly to find their best exit. “The back looks clear. Let’s go.”

              “You saved my life,” Rowan said, reverence pouring out of his eyes toward the breathless, bloodied man in front of him.

              Lonnie forced out a puff of air from between his lips. “Whatever. No biggie. Let’s just get the hell outta here.”

              Rowan took a step forward, his brown eyes softened as he stared his savior in the face. “It’s a huge deal. Thank you. I owe you one.”

              Lonnie wrinkled his nose and gave a crooked smile. “What are we gonna kiss now? Let’s just get the fuck outta here.”

He wrenched the door open and looked both ways before stepping out into the hot summer night, the partial moon shining down on his sweaty flaxen hair, basking him in a gallantry glow. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, but he resisted. Only he knew the traitorous thoughts he’d had before he saved Rowan from being zombie food. But he
did
save him. That meant something.

A monumental shift happened inside Lonnie during that split second decision to save his life. The world was crumbling around him. Left and right, people were dying, by the hundreds, possibly thousands for all he knew. Rowan had been so close to death right before him that the foul smell stung his own nostrils. But he no longer felt the tug of unconsciousness as a seething rage burned inside him, toward Rowan, toward the dead. He didn’t want to hurt anymore. He wanted to help.

There were people left in his town, people wounded and scared and too weak to take care of themselves, people who wanted to survive, but didn’t know how—and he was going to save them all.

XVI.

              Darkness blanketed the wooded area Lonnie led Rowan through, away from the overrun house. The crescent moon was unable to penetrate through the thick braches of the pine trees. The air was heavy with a dense humidity that weighed down the lungs and made Lonnie feel waterlogged and draggy, but he pressed on in a light jog.

After the rush he felt from saving Rowan’s life he wanted more. He wanted to feel that intoxicating surge of energy again. Not only was he an important part in preserving mankind, but Rowan was now forever indebted to him. The man would do anything for him and Lonnie knew it.

              Up through a small clearing in the trees, a squat male appeared and shuffled into the circle of silver moonlight. Its clothes were tattered rags and chunks of its hair had been ripped out of its head, pieces of skin taken with it to leave bloody patches exposing white skull. With its mouth gaping open, it emitted a raspy, hissing growl and its head lolled to one side.

Lonnie looked the thing in its white milky eyes before he cracked it in the head with the butt of his gun, never breaking stride. It was knocked onto its back, stunned for a moment but not dead in the way it should’ve been. The two men continued on past it.

              There was no time to stop and make sure every single zombie they encountered was put out of its miserable existence. It was all about priorities. Finding survivors was more important than cleaning up the mess. That would come later, when Lonnie had gathered enough followers to take on the dead, one small horde at a time, until the living could regain their claim over their shit town.

              On either side of the path the two men took, branches rustled and shadowed bodies limped along. Blackened outlines of heads turned on fragile necks toward the commotion of the two men moving seamlessly through the night. They zeroed in their sites on the fresh meat, trailing after it like a pack of dogs.

Lonnie never looked back once. There was no way those things could catch up. As long as he focused on what was ahead of him, he would make it out of the woods alive to save another life.

              Rowan’s breathing wheezed out of his chest with every exhale while Lonnie kept stride without hindrance. He knew the man’s tall, toned, body was all for show. The guy probably never went to the gym in his life. Some people were just built that way, but where was that going to get him now? What would Lonnie do if Rowan couldn’t keep up, if he had to stop and catch his breath?

Before he would’ve said “fuck it” and left the man to his fate, but now—now he would do whatever it took to save the sad sap, for no other reason than the fact that he could. He was capable. He was a zombie killing machine that no one could stop, and he loved every minute of it. He may not have graduated from boot camp or married Amy as planned. It took the world falling apart for him to find the purpose to his life. Funny how things worked out.

XVII.

              Lonnie Lands and his faithful follower didn’t rest until they reached highway twelve again. Once the soles of their shoes met the hard pavement both men doubled over, hands on knees, and heaved in and out in attempts to steady their breathing. Several minutes passed like that on the quiet, deserted street. Lonnie was the first to right himself, scan his surroundings, and get his bearings straight.

              Up the road there was a single swaying body standing about fifty yards away, its back turned to them. It was the first time either of the two men had seen one of those things almost completely still. They couldn’t make out what captivated it in the distance, if anything did, but the trance it was in was a stroke of luck for the exhausted duo.

              Halfway between the mesmerized zombie and the two living, breathing humans was a car smashed into the thick trunk of a tree, the front end crunched in like an accordion. There was no movement in or around the vehicle.