Kellie's Diary: Decay of Innocence (14 page)

Chapter 4

              A screech of rubber on pavement echoed through the streets, bringing Sarah out of the moment; she peered down the street as a brown station wagon careened through one of the cross streets into the iron fence of a house in front of it.  The brakes squealed but it was to no avail as the front half smashed against the fence.  The engine shut off and a mild hiss emitted from the vehicle.

             
Now with her full attention, Sarah shoved the gun into the back of her pants and ran over to the wreckage.  As she approached, the front passenger opened the door and stepped out, a heavier set man in his forties wearing a trucker hat.  He inspected the front of the car and groaned loudly in despair.

Sarah found her voice.  “Are y’all okay?” she called to them, slowing as she got closer.

The trucker looked up at her, and he sighed in relief.  “Oh, thank you Lord, you’re a normal person!” he declared.

“Normal…?” Sarah stammered.  “What do you mean?”

“Those demon people that are runnin’ around eating other folks!” he said.  “You haven’t seen ‘em?  They’re all over the place!”

Oh my god… this
is
real… but that means…

“You see any of those things around here?  Freaky eyes, don’t talk, walk funny and bite everything in sight?” he asked nervously.

Sarah’s thoughts drifted to Eddie.  “No… no, I haven’t seen anything like that here.  It’s been pretty quiet.”

An agonized groan came from the driver’s side; Sarah looked and saw that the driver was bleeding from his head and nose, and the back passenger appeared to be out cold, his face pallid and sweaty.  The trucker ran to the driver’s side and opened the door, helping out a younger, lankier man in his thirties; as he gained his footing, he bled profusely from the wound on the side of his head, which he promptly noticed and pressed his hand against his forehead.

Sarah opened the back passenger door and saw the out-cold person slumped against the seat – he looked similar to the driver in stature, except even younger.  The inside of the station wagon was strewn with empty beer cans, used bandage dressings and a shotgun in the adjacent back seat.  In the trunk area there were blankets and an assortment of bags and suitcases.

“Hey, you okay?” she called in a louder tone, hoping to jostle the man awake.  There was no response, so Sarah inspected closer to see if he was breathing.  She saw no sign of breathing, but a second glance showed a bandage wrapped around his thigh.

She stood back up.  “I don’t think he’s breathing,” she told the other two.

“Damn it,” she trucker said.  “He got bit by one of those crazy zombies, we were tryin’ to get him to a hospital!”  He moved to where Sarah stood and leaned into the car and he shook the man.  “Jimmy, wake up!  We need to get walkin’!  Jimmy!”

Zombies?!  You can’t be serious!

A growl came from inside the car.

“Oh, shit!” the trucker yelled in surprise, stumbling backward into Sarah and causing them to lose balance for a moment.  “Bob, you gotta get that shotgun!” he said.  “Jimmy’s turned into one of those things!”

Sarah looked up in terror.  Jimmy now had a lifeless, expressionless face with bloodshot eyes and darkened veins, almost identical to Eddie.

Bob, still braced against the other side of the vehicle, moved away from the front which was now smoking and steaming from the impact.  “I ain’t doing it, Harry!” he shook his head fearfully.  “I’m not gonna get myself bit, too!”

Sarah stood up first and helped Harry to his feet, horrified by what she was witnessing.  Jimmy wasn’t moving much, he had crawled halfway out of the car and about to fall out.  She wanted to ask why they needed to shoot him, but then Eddie flashed through her head again – unresponsive to her cries, and unrelenting.

“Okay, as soon as he falls out of the car, we need to get the gun,” Harry said.

In the distance, a low moan came from the west – two more crazed people were shuffling their direction.

“Shoot, we’re runnin’ out of time,” Harry said.

Jimmy tumbled out of the car, seeming to struggle with balance.  Bob took the opportunity and went to the back seat to grab the shotgun; he ran around to meet with Harry and Sarah on the other side.  “You two may want to step back.”

Sarah and Harry took a few steps backward; Bob cocked the shotgun and pulled the trigger, obliterating Jimmy’s head.

Sarah faced away, her stomach turning inside out.  “Oh my god!” she exclaimed.

“Holy shit, that made a mess,” Harry said.

Before Sarah could express her disgust with his reaction, the distant groaning got louder.  She looked around and saw even more of the same dead lunatics congregating toward their space.  There were too many to count, but Sarah guessed there were a few dozen in the distance, with a handful getting closer.

“We gotta go,” Bob said, cocking the gun again.  “If we stay here, we’re dead meat.”

Sarah thought for a minute.  “The gas station down the street, maybe we can find help there,” she offered.”

“Worth a shot,” Harry said.  “Let’s get some of these bags outta here.” He turned to Sarah, “If you’re stickin’ around, I need to know who you are.”

“I’m Sarah,” she said, her attention fixing on Jimmy’s remains.  “Want some help with that stuff?”

“Sure thing… you got something to defend yourself, Sarah?” Bob asked.

She remembered, and pulled the gun from her pants.  “I always carry it with me, but
I don’t have a full clip.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Harry said, handing her a bag and picking up a steel baseball bat for himself.  “Now let’s go, they’re getting’ closer.”

              I still can’t believe this is happening
.  With each of them carrying a bag, they ran down the road to the main street, dodging the zombies along the way.

Chapter 5

Sarah, Harry and Bob reached the gas station with little incident, except for Bob pulling the trigger on a few too-close zombies.  Sarah was still trying to wrap her head around everything that occurred, but with each shotgun blast she was brought back to the immediate situation.

The lights were still on around the station, which put Sarah at ease only slightly as night fell.  The three looked around the property, only finding one car at the gas pump, with the driver door open.

“We got lucky, this wasn’t anywhere near as bad as across town,” Harry said.

“Yeah,” Bob agreed, “we could barely drive, there was so much crap goin’ on in the roads.”

“Uh-huh…” Sarah acknowledged partly, still filtering through her thoughts.

Harry looked around again.  “We can’t stick around too long, those things’ll catch up eventually.  They don’t get tired, y’know.  We need to get our shit then leave.”

Sarah’s attention shifted to the inside of the gas station.  From where she stood, she thought she saw someone lying down on the floor just inside the glass doors.  “I think someone’s in there,” she pointed at the doors.”

“They a zombie?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know, they’re lying down,” she said, stepping forward to look closer.  She soon realized that there was more than just one body on the floor.  “There’s more than one in there… I think they’re all dead…”  Her voice choked again, gulping back the fear building in her throat.

“There’s stuff in there we could use,” Bob said, “we need to go check it out.”

“But what if they’re…” she forced the word, not believing she was saying it, “…zombies?”

“Then we kill ‘em,” Harry said, patting the baseball bat in his hand.

Sarah shook her head, looking down at the ground.  “I don’t believe this is happening,” she muttered.

“It is what it is, miss,” Bob said.  “These folks ain’t people anymore.  Trust us, we tried… there were a lot of friends we saw die back where we were.  Shit hit the fan this morning and it ain’t getting’ better anytime soon.  We either gotta kill them, or they kill us.”

Sarah closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing.

“We better hurry,” Harry said.  He approached the door first, and whistled in disbelief.  “You’re right, there’s a lot in here.”  He turned back to the others.  “I’m gonna open the door, if they wake up, we take off.”

Sarah and Bob nodded in agreement, stepping closer behind him.  Harry pulled open one of the glass doors and the door chime rang; Sarah braced herself in case any of them weren’t truly dead.  The stench of death shot through the air, causing Sarah to retch a little; she swallowed it back, peering inside.  None of the bodies moved after the chime went off, only relieving her slightly.

Bob walked in first, stepping over the bodies with the shotgun aimed down the aisle.  Blood was smeared across the floor in various places, and several of the items had been knocked off their shelves.  Sarah trained her pistol ahead of her, following close behind Bob, while Harry stepped in last.  Sarah looked down at the corpses and found a few shiny items scattered around the floor.  The nearest one was next to the head of one of the bodies.  Nervously she leaned down to examine it closer, recognizing it as a spent shotgun shell.  As she looked around the rest of the floor, she found even more, some sitting in the pools of blood on the floor.

“I think someone’s been here already,” Sarah said.  “There are empty shells everywhere.”

“Shit,” Harry sighed.  “It’s like a damn warzone in here.”

Bob went behind the register and began searching through the shelves and drawers.  “You guys start looking for stuff.  Food and water might be a good idea.”

Sarah picked up a few snack bars from the front aisle next to the register, trying to avoid the carnage as much as possible.  Harry picked up a few bottles of beer from the fridge, followed by some water.

A shuffling movement came from the back end of the store; Sarah immediately aimed the pistol, but didn’t see anything.  “Harry, did you hear that?”

“Sure did,” he answered, gripping the bat tightly and preparing for a swing.

Sarah glanced around.  “You check near the fridges, I’ll go through the middle.”

“Sure, I’ll grab a beer while I’m at it,” he chuckled.

Sarah rolled her eyes, still in disbelief at how this guy was taking the circumstances.  She carefully stepped over more bodies, watching carefully for any signs of movement.  As she approached the end of the aisle, she heard the shuffle again to her immediate left.  She spun and aimed as she stepped back, but was surprised to see a very small body sitting against the aisle shelf.  It was a little girl, curled up with her knees against her chest.

“Oh my god,” Sarah said quietly, kneeling down next to the child.  “Hey, are you okay?”

The girl’s head shot up, a look of utter confusion in her face.  She tried to curl herself up tighter and backed against the shelf.

Sarah’s heart skipped – the girl looked eerily similar to Stacy: roughly the same age, brown eyes and light colored hair.  For a minute, Sarah didn’t say anything; the two girls shared an extremely long stare.

Sarah blinked a few times and came back to the present.  “Where’s your parents?” she asked, with a small waver in her voice.

The girl shook her head.  “I don’t know.”

Glancing around, Sarah wondered if the parents were amongst the bodies inside the store.  The situation became more puzzling to her with each second, uncertain as to how a child was sitting quietly in a room surrounded by corpses and shotgun shells.  “Can you tell me what happened in here?”

“I… don’t remember…” the girl looked around, and then buried her head into her arms.

Harry walked around the corner and his eyes crunched in confusion.  “How the heck did that kid get in here?”

“No idea,” Sarah answered, then turned to the girl again.  “Listen, you’re not safe here, we need to get you out of here.  Maybe we can find your parents.”

“Damn it, we’re not alone anymore,” Bob called out; Sarah looked outside and saw a few of the zombies walking around the parking lot.

The girl shook her head again.  “No.”

“Your mom and dad aren’t in here, and if you want to find them, we need to get out of here.  I’ll keep you safe until then.  My name is Sarah, what’s yours?”

The child looked at her for a moment, and then answered quietly.  “Lydia.”

“Nice to meet you,” Sarah felt herself smiling for the first time all day, though it was for only a short moment as Bob ran out the front door and began shooting.

Lydia jumped up, frightened; Sarah picked her up with her left arm and reached for the pistol with the other.  Harry ran out the front door in front of her, and barreled toward the zombies, swinging wildly at their heads and knocking a few of them down.  Bob wasn’t quite as aggressive, only approaching the ones that were too close to him and blasting the shotgun at relatively close range.

One of them noticed Sarah and changed course in her direction.  Sarah panicked, looking every direction possible for somewhere to run but found that there were more in the distance behind her.  The zombie got closer, its raspy breathing and snapping jaws becoming more nightmarish by the second.  Sarah was out of time – she knew she had to make a decision.

“Don’t look, Lydia,” she told the girl, who covered her face with her hands.  Sarah took a deep, wavered breath and aimed between the eyes of the zombie as it closed in.  With a quick flex of her trigger finger, it was over and the zombie dropped to the ground.  For someone trained since childhood on how to use a gun, Sarah had never been more scared to pull the trigger; a brief vision of Eddie crossed her mind as she looked at the corpse.  She felt tears creeping up again but the distant groaning of the enemy grew louder around them, preventing her from grieving.

A high-pitched scream from Lydia almost deafened Sarah; she turned around to see another one coming up behind her, and she sent a bullet through its head quicker than the previous one. 
What am I doing?!
  The situation was still unreal to her, but she didn’t have enough time to try and sift through her thoughts.

The revving of a loud engine brought Sarah’s attention to the street – a blue Volkswagen bus was heading right into the gas station, ramming directly into a group of zombies which left dark red smears across its front bumper.  It screeched into the parking lot, stopped at one of the gas pumps, and two men and a woman came out.  The younger and trimmer man came from the driver’s side and ran inside the store, remaining in there for a minute.  Sarah watched him for a few seconds – she couldn’t tell right away what he was doing, other than becoming violent with the cash register.

The tall but stocky older man outside carried a wooden bat and began cracking zombies across the face with it.  Meanwhile the red-haired woman rounded the other side of the bus; armed with a pistol she started picking off the zombies that were closing in from another side of the parking lot.

Sarah backed closer to the bus, and the woman saw them.

“What are you doing with a kid out here?” she asked incredulously.

“We found her inside the store,” Sarah said.

The younger man ran back outside, removed the gas cap and stuck the nozzle into the slot.  He climbed into the back of the bus and came back out with a spare gas can, taking a second nozzle to fill it.

“You okay back there?” the older one called.

“I’m okay, just keep them off me a few more minutes!” he answered, somewhat frantically.

Sarah’s left arm began to ache from carrying Lydia, combined with the physical stress.  Across the lot, she saw Bob and Harry continuing their assault on the zombies.

“Shit!” the younger one cried, and when Sarah looked toward him, there was a zombie reaching for him; without a second thought she instinctively raised the pistol and shot through the neck of the zombie.  It was enough to bring it to the ground; the young man wiped his face in relief and stared at Sarah.  He couldn’t have been much older than twenty, now that she had a good look at him.

“Thanks,” he said, sighing.  “That was a really good shot.”

The woman came around the corner of the bus.  “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine, thanks to her,” he said, gesturing toward Sarah; he noticed the gas can overflowing onto the pavement, and he cursed as he pulled the nozzle out.  He checked the one filling the bus and noticed it wasn’t quite done yet.  “We’re almost done filling up!”

“Screw that,” the older man spat.  “There’s way too many of these things, and I don’t want our bullets being wasted on a gas stop.”

Sarah gazed around the gas station – the zombies weren’t going away, in fact, it looked like there were more than before, no matter how much they were swatted or shot at.

Harry and Bob ran up to the rest of the group, both out of breath.  “We can’t keep doing this, we gotta get out of here,” Bob said, and Harry nodded in agreement.

The younger man took out the nozzle from the tank and picked up the spare gas can, practically sprinting around to the side to hand it to the older man.  “Stick that in the back with the other stuff, and I’ll get ‘er started.”

“What about these people?” the woman asked.

“We can’t leave them here, especially since they got a kid,” the older man said.

“We could use the extra hands, and I can tell she knows what she’s doing,” the younger one pointed at Sarah. 

The zombies continued to get closer, and Harry noticed first: “Well, what’s the plan then?”

“The plan is you’re getting in the bus with us and we’re getting the hell out of here,” the older man ordered, guiding Bob and Harry into the bus; Sarah was hesitant, considering she wasn’t sure if Lydia would be safe around any of these people.  It’s better than being around those things, she realized.  She stepped inside the bus, and the other woman climbed in with them, and the older man went into the front passenger seat.  The younger man started the engine, quickly backed up, and immediately stepped on the gas and began driving down the road alongside the highway.

Sarah looked outside the window, and found very few cars on the side road – however there were several dozen crashed on the highway itself.  The sky had gone almost completely dark, ramping up the level of fear and uncertainty in her.  At least for the moment she was safe.

After a few moments Lydia finally let go of Sarah and looked around the inside of the bus, studying everyone’s faces, and then settling back in Sarah’s lap.

“Cute kid you have there,” the woman said.

Sarah shook her head.  “No, she’s not mine.” She paused, fighting the rush of emotion.  “Like I said before, we found her in the gas station store.”

“What’s your name?”

Lydia, looked away, hanging on to Sarah again.  Sarah spoke for her.  “This is Lydia.”

“Good to meet you, Lydia,” the woman said.  “I’m Rita, the driver is Jack, and the one in front is Howard.”

“I’m Sarah, that’s Harry and Bob… we met a little earlier.  I used to live down the street.”

“Since we’re here, is there anything you want to pick up and bring with you?” Jack asked.

Just Stacy and Eddie… and my life… There’s nothing there for me anymore.
  “No... that’s okay.  There are a lot of those… things in the neighborhood, it’s probably not safe.”