Die Trying: A Zombie Apocalypse (21 page)

“The undead are driven to frenzy by the scent of blood,” he said to me. He sucked the blood from one of his fingers and savored the taste like it was a rare delicacy. “It drives them mad. Did you know that?” Without waiting for an answer, he g
ot back to his feet and gently fondled the breast of the dead woman. The corpse swayed gently, and the heavy hooks in her ankles groaned from their support beam in a low mournful creak. The man’s breath hitched in his throat and his eyes rolled white into the back of his head. Without waiting for me to answer, he went on, his voice suddenly ragged with bizarre arousal. “That’s why I use the basement,” he said. “The walls are solid stone. They can’t smell the blood down here.”

He thrust his hand down inside his underpants
and they fell down around his ankles while I stared in revulsion and disbelief. His brow furrowed in concentration and he blinked sweat from his eyes. He stared through me with a glazed wonder, his mouth open and dribbling, seeing something else entirely.

He groaned aloud. His dried out wrinkled body undulated lewdly
, and he ran his hand through the coarse grey pelt of hair down to his sunken stomach in a grisly caress. He wrapped his fingers around the stub of his dangling penis and stroked himself. His skinny frame began to tremble uncontrollably and the shriveled pale flesh of him went hard within the dense unruly nest of pubic hair.

He groaned again
, and a strangled sigh of ecstasy gurgled in his throat. Then he was gasping for breath, his chest heaving as he sagged on trembling legs.

I lunged for him.

I threw myself across the room, and there was a vicious, murderous roar in my
ears – a sound I didn’t recognize – a sound I didn’t know I was capable of. I was shaking with rage, snarling like a wild animal, and my hands clawed around his skinny neck and buried viciously into the withered flesh of his throat.

The old man went backwards, crashing to the hard ground with my weight on top of him, driving the wind from his lungs. The gun fell from his hands and he kicked and thrashed in sudden fear and desperation. I drove my knee into his guts and
hunched over him, feeling the tips of my fingers and my thumbs moving closer and closer together around his throat until they were almost touching – until the life would be choked out of him.

The old man’s eyes were wide and wild. He made a sharp hissing sound. Spittle
bubbled from his mouth and his eyes began to cloud over. I lifted his head and then smashed it back down into the ground. The decapitated head he was wearing fell off and rolled away, and I saw that the old man’s thinning grey hair was matted stiff with dry blood.

He clawed at my hands and punched at my shoulder.
He raked his nails down my forearm and scratched at my chest. I snarled at him – wild beyond reason – and beyond the reach of compassion or remorse. I shrugged his hands away and tightened my strangling grip around his throat.

I pounded the back of his skull hard down onto the ground again and he suddenly went slack. The breath escaped from him in a long
weary wheeze, and his eyes seemed to bulge then glaze with mist. I opened my hands and drew away from him, shaking and gasping. The old man’s gun was lying near the trough of blood. I scrambled for it on my hands and knees and snatched it up. I got to my feet and backed away, putting space between us. My hands were trembling, my body pumped full of adrenalin – but the brutal need for retribution still pounded like a relentless drumbeat in my head that I could not ignore.

I had never known an emotion so powerful as the need for revenge that gripped me.

“Get up,” I said to the man.

He didn’t move. He lay, limp and lifeless – but he was still breathing. I saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

“Get up,” I repeated. “Get on your knees. Right now.” I kicked out at him with my boot, and caught him high up on the thigh. His body flinched, and then he made a gargled choking sound in the back of his throat as though his lungs had suddenly started pumping again.

The old man groaned and reached for his throat. His breathing was harsh and asthmatic. He rolled his head and his eyes opened reluctantly. He saw me and there was a dark shadow of alarm
in his gaze. He sat upright and then spasmed into a fit of coughing.

I held the gun on him and it was level and steady in my hand
, as though carved from stone.

“I thought the zombie apocalypse was the horror to beat all horrors,” I said conversationally, my voice flat and devoid of all emotion. “I thought nothin
g could be more terrifying than the undead rising to kill without remorse or reason. But I was wrong.”

The man watched me uncertainly, his eyes flicking to the pistol in my hand.

“You changed all that.” I paused. “You made me realize that despite the horror of an undead apocalypse, man is still the greatest threat, the worst danger – the most hideous, monstrous killer. And I can’t let that continue. Not without fighting back for my friend who you murdered, and for the others whose lives you have taken because of your insanity.”

“I did what I did to survive,” the man said. “I did what any other would do.”

I shook my head. “No, you went beyond that. You’re a monster.”

“You can’t kill me. It would be murder!” the old man
voice rose, becoming strident. “You would be just like me, and no better.”

I smiled
darkly. “I still retain my humanity,” I said. “I don’t know if you’re insane. Maybe you are – but insanity doesn’t excuse this… this atrocity, nor does it excuse the cold blooded murder of my friend. We might have been a civilized society before the apocalypse, but there was a time when an eye for an eye was the law. I’m bringing that back, as of right now.” I heard the words in my own ears and they were formal and dispassionate, as though I were handing down an executioner’s sentence.

I shifted my aim, lifting my arm a fraction until the barrel of the old man’s gun was
pointed between his eyes. He cringed away suddenly and threw his hands up in front of his face as if to shield himself from the bullet. He started to moan, and then the sound became the soft whimper of terrified sobbing.

“This isn’t just revenge
anymore,” I said. “It was. Revenge is what brought me here. Revenge is what made me hunt you down. But now, it has become much more than that. This is a mercy killing. It’s an execution because if I let you live, I know others will die at the hands of your madness.”

I took three quick strides across the room towards him. The old man shrieked with fear and cowered away, backing up against the trough of blood so that the contents sloshed over the r
im and spilled across the hard earth. When he could go no further, he snarled up into my eyes like a cornered beast, and shrieked a tirade of vicious abuse.

I put the gun to the top of his head
.

I
pulled the trigger.

The old man’s
skull exploded, spattering my legs with the contents. His withered body collapsed and went instantly limp beneath me while the roar of the gunshot in the confined space of the basement echoed off the walls and then finally faded.

The
heavy silence afterwards was even more harrowing. I felt cold and empty and it tormented me. There was no swelling surge of triumph. There was no sense of vindication or justice. There was just the silence and my sickening despair. I cupped my face in my hands and my features felt worn and haggard, as if ravaged by some horrible disease.

I reeled away
. My heart was thumping hard in my chest and my hands were shaking uncontrollably. There was a roar in my ears like the sound of crashing surf and I sweated and trembled with shock. I sucked in great lungsful of air, while the blood fizzed in my veins and the enormity of what I had done began to seep through the fading embers of my fury.

I
turned away, shaken and shocked, and ran up the stairs. A clock in my head started ticking, counting down the seconds as I reached the big heavy door and slammed it shut behind me. There was a heavy steel bolt high up on the door that I had not noticed before. I hammered it into its iron bracket with the palm of my hand, sealing the hideous tomb, and then fled towards the kitchen.

I went straight for the cardboard boxes stacked carefully on the linoleum flo
or. They were packed with canned food, blankets, bottles of water and a flashlight. I tore the boxes to pieces in my haste and found a chunky set of keys.

I left everything behind, strewn across the floor
, except the flashlight. I went to the back door and flung it open. The sky was filling with a dark brew of storm clouds that scudded in ragged tatters across the moon. The night was damp, but it wasn’t raining. It was like the air was filled with a suspended drizzle, as if the rain hadn’t quite arrived yet. I ran my fingers through the keys until I found two that were most likely to fit the garage roller doors. Then I burst from the house, and ran – literally – for my life.

I jammed the first key in
to the lock of the roller door. It went all the way in, but wouldn’t turn. I reefed it out and thrust the second key in. The lock turned silently and I reached down and heaved the roller door all the way up.

Soft broken light filtered into the garage.

It was a large dark space with open rafters. It smelled of gasoline and fertilizer. One side seemed to be loaded up with tools and motor parts. I snapped the flashlight on for two seconds and bounced the light off the walls.

In the middle of the concrete floor was a Yukon. Maybe twelve years old. Maybe more. I could see the big GMC lettering across the grille. It was grey
with dark tinted windows all round. The driver’s side door was unlocked. I slid in behind the wheel. The seat was saggy, worn and tired with age and use, and the interior smelled of stale cigarette smoke. I found the car key and slid it into the ignition. Turned the key and the dials across the dashboard lit up.

I sat there and did not
hing for three seconds – three precious seconds, torn and undecided.

“Fuck it!” I swore at last. I left the keys in the Yukon and the
driver’s door open. I ran to the side wall of the garage and groped around until I found a small can of lawn mower fuel. I shook it and heard the contents slosh. I guessed it was maybe half full.

More than enough.

I made a grim dash for the back of the house, suddenly overcome with the suicidal realization that I was risking more than just my own life – but it was too late. I went up the stairs and stepped over the dead body inside the door.

I
splashed mower fuel through the kitchen and then spilled a trail to the back door. I still had Jed’s cigarette lighter stuffed into the pocket of my pants. I put the lighter to the fuel and it went up with a soft
‘whoosh’
in a fireball of flame and searing heat.

I ran.

I didn’t look back.

I r
aced into the garage and hurled myself behind the wheel of the Yukon. The big engine thundered to life and I stomped my foot down on the gas. The tires screamed on the smooth surface of the concrete floor until the tread bit down in a burning feather of blue smoke. The Yukon leaped forward and I turned the wheel hard, roaring along the driveway with the door still swinging open.

Dark shapes were swarming from the street towards the house. They came from out of the night, convulsing and writhing, their twisted bodies driven by mindless rage and thirst. I saw them fill the
windshield as the car crested the rise of the driveway and the road suddenly appeared beneath the big front wheels. I slewed the Yukon to the right, hauling the steering wheel hard over and grunting with alarm and fright. The front wheels washed into the loose stones in the gutter. The door was flung wide open and caught one of the undead ghouls with the impact of a swinging punch. It sent the zombie flailing backwards into the path of the surging horde behind it.

The Yukon swayed wildly on
its suspension then righted itself, and the engine bellowed like wounded bull. The door slammed shut. The steering wheel was ripped from my hand and the car veered towards a mailbox on the opposite side of the street. I clawed it back, jounced up the curb and then felt my teeth slammed together as the car crashed and bounced back onto the road. The Yukon ploughed over the body of another undead ghoul that flashed across the windshield and then disappeared beneath the grille.

The clock in my head wasn’t ticking any more.

It was broken.

How long had I been gone from the others? An hour?
Maybe a little less…

Surely no more.

I stole a glance in the rearview mirror. The house was a blazing torch in the darkness of the night. I could hear the fierce roaring crackle of the flames over the low growl of the
car’s engine as a column of smoke rose up through a shower of sparks into the sky. The fire glazed the heavy clouds with a fierce orange glow and lit the road ahead of me for hundreds of yards.

I crunched my foot down hard on the gas pedal and
hung a fast turn until I was on the street where Jed and the others would be waiting for me. I saw the silhouette of the house up ahead. I flicked the headlights on and slammed my fist down on the car horn.