Dying To Live & Fighting To Live-Book One and Book Two (Zombie Overload Series) (7 page)

"Ok. I'm gonna
get off here and pay attention to the road."
Yeah.
Ok.
But you're not driving.
And I'm sure Dad wishes you
wouldn't.

We are on a hill on
the outskirts of Springfield when Jake stops. We do the same and all
of us get out. Our boys stay close as we meet Jake in front of his
vehicle. He's standing with his back toward us, hands on his hips.
Getting up next to him we look out over the City of Springfield and
what we see leaves all of us speechless.

Smoke is rolling
toward the heavens in several places in the city. Fire is boiling out
of the five-star hotel. Screams can be heard. Different guns blasting
and popping throughout the night. People calling out for help.
Vehicles can be heard honking, tires screeching on pavement, crashes
of metal, explosions from god only knows what.

I feel a wave of
fear go through me. How in the hell are we going to get through this?
It's a huge city of chaos!

Some of the other
people who had turned around on the interstate and followed us, come
up to stand beside us. One woman drops to her knees on the ground,
sobbing. I search through the group for the young mother but can't
find her. I walk back through the lines of cars, waving at a few
members who have chosen to stay inside their vehicles. Finally, I see
the little yellow Bug and walk up to it. Before I can reach it, she
opens the door and gets out. Up close, I realize she's even younger
than I first thought. I give her a weak smile and she gives me one in
return. Then starts crying. Hard. She reaches out for me and I hold
her, wondering just how old this girl really is.

"Hey, it's ok.
You're not alone now. Ok?" I try to reassure her.

She releases me and
steps back, swiping the back of her hand across her tear-stained
cheeks and runny nose.

"I'm so scared.
What am I supposed to do with these kids? I just left. No one knows
where I went. What if their parents are looking for them? What if
they turn me in for kidnapping?" She sobs even harder.

I just look at her.
Is she serious?
Ok. Yeah, I realize she's probably in shock. I
get that. I totally get that.

"I really
wouldn't be worried about kidnapping charges. And I'm sure the
parents would be relieved the kids are alive and with you." I
doubt that they are. If they are still alive, they are probably
freaking out pretty bad right now. So I figure out she's the
babysitter. Not the mother.

"How old are
you, by the way?" I'm going to guess eighteen.

"I'm sixteen."
She tells me in a shaky voice.

Damn!
Even
younger than I had guessed. Just a kid herself. Barely legal to
drive.

"Where do you
live?" I ask her.

"I live in
Springfield. My mom and dad expected me home hours ago. They are
probably so worried and upset with me."

I pray her parents
are still alive to
be
upset and worried.

"I'm sure they
understand. Do you have a cell,"
what teen doesn’t!
"and have you tried calling them?"

"I left my cell
back at the kids' house. It's in the last town. Should I go back and
get it?" Is this girl serious? The town with mobs of dead and no
living people in sight?
Sure, kid.
You run along and fetch
your phone.
Wow!

"Um, let's not!
Here. Use mine." I pull my cell out of my back pocket and hand
it to her. I watch her dial and put the phone to her ear. As it's
ringing, I look over at the two little kids in her car. The toddler
has blond hair and bright blue eyes. He's banging his carseat with
joy and laughing. I smile at him when he waves his chubby little
hands at me. The infant is so tiny. I would say
it
(Girl? Boy?
Can't tell.) was less than a month old. My stomach clenches with fear
for those gorgeous babies.

A hand with a cell
phone appears in front of my face and I turn to look at the girl.
Taking the phone, I give her a questioning look, although, I'm sure
the news isn't good, considering I never heard her talk to anyone.

"No one
answered." She stares at me with shining eyes.

I grab her hand and
tell her, "that doesn’t mean anything. You left your cell.
Maybe they did the same. Maybe they are ok."

She nods and
breathes in deeply. I ask her what her name is and she tells me it's
Lily. I tell her to get back in her car and when we decide what to
do, we will let her know. I walk away feeling ill. Just a kid. Three
kids all on their own. I reach the others who are talking together,
trying to figure out if they should try to go through the city or go
around. I notice Jake is standing off by himself. I walk over to his
side and face the city just as he is.

I ask him what he's
planning to do. He tells me he's going into Springfield, just as he'd
planned.

"What's so
important there?" I ask him.

"Weapons, ammo,
food, supplies. My brother, " he finishes in almost a whisper. I
look over at him. His features have softened. He looks dejected. I
wonder if his brother is as tough as he is. I ask him.

He answers with a
short, sharp laugh, "No. He's in the hospital. Cancer."

Oh, hell.
How
horrible! I now understand the hopelessness on his face and in his
voice. I want to reassure him. Tell him he could be ok. But there's
really no sense lying to him. He's not an innocent sixteen year old.
He knows better. And really, what's the point, anyway. Not everyone
is going to live through this just because we love them.

My husband walks up
next to me and wraps his arm around me. I lean into him.

Giving me a tight
squeeze he looks at Jake and asks, "So, what do you think?"

Jake stares into the
night and tells him he's going.

Will nods his head
once and says, "If you can really get us some guns, we'll go
with you."

Jake nods and walks
away, throwing back, "Let's get to it then."

Will looks down at
me and kisses me, tells me he loves me. I tell him I love him, too,
and we walk back to the van where our boys are already waiting
inside. As Will is about to shut my door for me, we hear a
blood-curdling scream.

Will jerks his body
toward the back of the line of vehicles and I push him out of the way
so I can get out. I'm almost certain I know who that was. We run to
the back of the van and over to the middle of the road. Able to see
more, I look with horror at the little yellow Bug. Two zombies. A
thin, short, undead teen male wearing a fast food uniform is banging
on the back window where the two babies are sitting, totally
oblivious to the danger. The other one, a female, is beating on the
driver's window where Lily is screaming on the other side of the
glass. The undead woman was maybe in her early fifties and wearing a
pale green house dress. Her right hand is caught in the door, so I
assume that it had been open for some reason.
Why the hell did
Lily open it after I told her to stay inside?
The dead woman
jerks her hand back, over and over, until finally her hand snaps
apart with a series of cracks. That makes Lily scream even more.

I start running
toward her, my only intention is to protect those three kids.
No.
I wasn't thinking.
I vaguely hear my husband scream at me to
stop but nothing really registers. I reach the car and fling myself
on the woman's back. The force of my weight throws her against the
car, pinning her arms between her body and the car. Lily is screaming
and screaming and I briefly think,
SHUT THE HELL UP!
The male
on the back realizes fresh food is right next to him and falls
straight to the ground next to my feet. I think about his teeth
sinking into my leg and I start stomping on his head over and over as
hard as I can. His hands keep reaching for me. The woman is trying to
push herself away from the vehicle and I know, if she gets loose, I'm
definitely dead. But trying to keep one zombie from biting you by
kicking them, making yourself off-balance, while at the same time
being shoved and jerked all over the place by another desperately
hungry zombie, is a pretty hard damn thing to do. In fact, it's
impossible. They feel no pain. They don't get tired. But the living
do.
I
do. And I
am
. The woman twists and jerks away
from me and I forget about stomping the teens head in.
Thick
skull, that one!
I back step as fast as I can as the woman turns
to me. Her eyes have no light, no spark, no
soul
. The one on
the ground crawls across the pavement, neither one takes their eyes
off me.

Someone pushes me
back then steps in front of me. Will lifts his sword and, full of
rage, slices the woman's head off her shoulders. It hits the highway
directly in front of the undead teen. He stops crawling and looks at
the head. Realizing it's not the head he wants, he backhands it and
the head bumps down the road. Will goes and stands over the undead
kid. He raises the sword then brings the tip down and into the kid's
head. He stops crawling instantly, and his body relaxes. Will looks
around for more, then whips his head toward me, eyes flashing with
the same rage he used on the zombies.
Uh, oh.
I'm in deep
shit now!

I tell him how sorry
I am but...and then point to the car. He turns and for the first time
see's what's inside. His eyes widen and his breath catches. He looks
back at me with a look that says, 'Are you kidding me?'

I shake my head no.
"Her name is Lily and she's sixteen. She's the babysitter.
Those," I point to the babies," would be the babies."
Lily has finally stopped screaming, though
when
, I don't know.
But now, both babies are screaming. Probably because she scared the
crap out of them. Or possibly because she pissed them off like she
did me.

I look at Will, "We
can't let them keep going alone. She's not even able to take care of
herself, let alone two babies. At least, not now."

Will agrees with me
and motions for her to roll her window down. When it's down enough
she can hear him, he tells her that she and the babies should
probably ride with one of us. She agrees and we help get the carseats
and diaper bags out. I'm holding the baby, looking at its adorable
tiny face, shocked that the baby weighs so little, even though I knew
by looking at it that it would. I ask Lily if the baby is a boy or a
girl and she tells me it's a girl, she's three weeks old, and her
name is Grace. The boy is two and his name is Kaleb. Lily tells me
their parents had gone on their first night out since Grace was born.
I hold the baby tighter to me and breathe in her milky sweet, baby
powder scent. I'm overwhelmed with pain when a vision of an undead
feasting on her body comes into my mind. That's enough to frighten
and sicken anyone, no matter how tough they think they are.

The baby is still
crying in my arms while Lily and Will get the toddler's carseat
belted inside my parent's van. I look around and what I see has me
almost pissing my pants!

"Will. Will! We
gotta go. NOW!" Coming up the hill from Springfield is hundreds
of undead. The hill is less than a blocks distance from top to bottom
so we didn't have much time. I grab the diaper bag, Will grabs the
baby's carseat and we run like hell back to our van. Jake flies past
us and motions for everyone to turn back. Will whips us around and
the other vehicles follow.

They all seem to
have made it ok.
Thank God.

My husband's phone
rings and he answers with a 'yeah'. I'm trying to change Grace's
diaper on my lap in the front seat while the boys are trying to
figure out the carseat. I finally get her changed and grab a bottle
out of her diaper bag. I feed her while I listen to Will's side of
the conversation. From what I hear, we are heading straight for the
hospital first. I interrupt and tell him we need to get guns and ammo
first. There is no way we can even hope to get in and out of the
hospital alive without them. He relays what I said to the other
person, says ok and alright a few times, then hangs up.

I ask him who that
was and he tells me it was Jake. He had given Jake his number so we
didn't have to stop every time we needed to talk to him. He said Jake
had agreed that I was right
(of course!)
and that he would
lead us to an armory. I ask Will how the hell he thinks he can get
inside an armory? Will shrugs then reminds me that Jake
is
dressed like military.
Oh, yeah. I forgot.

I have had something
bothering me this whole time but couldn't figure out what, until just
now. I realized none of the other people even tried to help when the
two zombies attacked Lily's car.
Nice.
Real nice.