Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (3 page)

Keith did not, and that pissed him off
more.

Outside the cell they couldn’t see
anything other than the dead. They blocked out most of the light
and filled the room with a putrid scent the likes of which none of
them had ever smelled.

2 BARBIE THE ZOMBIE
KILLER

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top)

Walter and Jeff Caulfield, father and
son, huddled by the window once more to watch as the dead staggered
about. New Haven had become infested with the dead. Walter wanted
to know his enemy, so he tried to study them, but studying them
hadn’t really given him any greater understanding of the creatures
or any alleviation of the concerns he and his family had. Some
would walk toward the house while others would walk in other
directions. Some followed others and there seemed to be no rhyme or
reason behind any of it. It left them both as confounded as
ever.

“
Should we go back
out?”

“
No, not yet. I’m not as
young as you are Jeffy-boy. Takes me a bit longer to get my wind
back.”

Jeff couldn’t help but smile at the
words Jeffy-boy. He couldn’t recall the last time his father called
him that. It had to be sometime in high school—maybe when Walter
was teaching him how to drive around the parking lot. Yes, that
seemed right. Walter handed him over the keys and the pimple-faced
Jeff with three proud whiskers on his chin took them with vigor,
and his father said, “Guess I can’t be calling you Jeffy-boy
anymore, huh?” And that was it. Jeffy-boy turned into Jeff—all
grown up in the blink of an eye.

They could hear Laura, Walter’s wife,
Barbara, his daughter, and Maria, Jeff’s wife playing with the
children in the basement. The sound was soft and barely audible
upstairs, but the house was otherwise quiet. Their laughter and
giggles seemed an odd contrast to what Walter and Jeff were seeing
outside the windows, but a very pleasing one. It was the sounds of
hope and love. The sounds any man really needs to hear to get off
his ass and make a move for the future. Walter used Jeff’s shoulder
to push himself up, and as his knees cricked and creaked and the
pain burned deep in his back, he used the sounds of his
grandchildren at play to push it away.

Jeff looked at his father approvingly
and as Walter looked back at him all he could see was his little
Jeffy-boy looking back. The skin around his eyes looked older, but
the eyes themselves belonged to the little boy Walter would always
see in them.

“
Ready
old-timer?”

“
Nope. You?”

“
I’ve been ready to fight
zombies since I was Tommy’s age.”

“
Heh. I guess all that
garbage you used to watch might finally be worth a
damn.”

“
Let’s go find
out.”

They went into the half-finished
basement where everyone was playing. Laura turned instinctively and
without a word knew they were going back outside. Her and Walter
looked at each other. She nodded in that disapproving way that made
Walter smile and lift his eyebrow up a notch, suggesting he knew
better, but he just couldn’t help himself.

Jeff and Maria hadn’t quite developed
the fluid and succinct nuance of expression to convey their
feelings, so Maria just looked at Jeff with incredulous and
accusing eyes. Then she said, “Are you kidding? You’re both going
back out there?”

Jeff gave her a mean look, shifting
his eyes to the kids, “We’re…just going to check things out is all.
Relax, we’ll be right back, okay?”

“
Whatever.”

“
I’m coming too,” Barbara
said.

“
What? Why?”

“
Why not dad? Is this boy
stuff?”

“
Boy stuff? Ha. Come on,
now, it’s not like that. The kids need you in here. Have fun. Trust
me, you’re better off.”

“
Well, if you’re just going
to check things out, then I’ll be fine, right?”

Jeff smiled at her, but it wasn’t a
nice smile. It was the I’m-going-to-kick-your-ass-later smile.
“She’s right dad, why not? Come on, Barbie.”

“
You know I hate
that.”

Walter turned around shaking his head.
The kids went back to playing. Tommy looked after his father,
wanting to go with him and Laura tried to pull his attention
back.

“
Barbie The Zombie Killer,”
Jeff said as they went up the stairs.

“
Don’t be a dick. Can you
bait your own hook yet, or does Maria have to do that for
now?”

“
Funny.”

They walked toward the front door. The
hall had a coatrack and bench in it with a small rug atop the
hardwood floor. It wasn’t a big space but it essentially served
them as a mudroom. Hanging on the coatrack were a long raincoat and
a slick jacket that Walter had used to go fishing with for years.
It was supposed to be black, but it looked like seaweed
green.

Jeff opened the closet door across
from the bench at rummaged around a moment. He eventually pulled
out an old track jacket with a hood and tossed it at his
sister.

“
There’s a set of gloves in
there,” he pointed, “but I think you’re on your own for
boots.”

“
My sneakers are fine. I
don’t plan on getting myself all dirty. That’s not very lady
like.”

“
That’s my girl,” said
Walter.

They opened the door and Walter
grabbed the bloody shovel he left against the siding. Jeff took a
step to the side and grabbed a baseball bat. He handed it to his
little sister and she took it, finally showing a touch of fear on
her face. Jeff grabbed the spade shovel that was next to Walter’s
and they descended the steps.

The dead things were walking around,
seemingly without direction or purpose. One noticed them, and then
another, before they reached the first deader several had turned
their attention and their bodies towards them. Moving, slowly, at
the warm flesh that in turn was moving towards them.

“
Maybe I should’ve stayed
inside.”

“
Next time, sweetheart,
take my advice…for once, please.”

“
They get scarier up
close.”

“
What do you
mean?”

“
Just look in their eyes.
There’s nothing there. It’s like they’re hollow.”

“
I don’t think I want to
get that close.”

“
Then stand back,” Walter
said, as he approached the first deader in proximity.

Walter jabbed the dead thing just
under the chin, but not quite in the throat. It moved back and
tripped on its own feet. They were easily thrown off balance and to
the ground but surprisingly quick to get back up. Once the dead
thing hit the ground Walter stood on its chest and brought the
shovel down violently into its face, smashing through the bridge of
its nose and crushing in its orbital sockets. Walter pulled the
shovel out and jabbed it two more times in quick succession before
taking his foot off the dead things chest and looking at where the
others were.

“
Look, dad, it’s
twitching.”

“
Yeah, I’ve been noticing
that. Saw one earlier that was pumping its hand into a fist, like
it was trying to grab the air.”

“
It’s creepy as hell,” Jeff
noted.

“
Sure is. All the more
reason we need to keep watching them. Studying them. We need to
know our enemy as best as possible.”

“
Watch out, dad, I’ll take
this one.”

Jeff swung his spade shovel like a
sword, cracking a dead man who had to be about the same age as he.
The impact was strong and sent the man to the ground. The blow must
have dislocated the man’s jaw because it looked crooked and out of
place. Jeff took the corner of the shovels head and slammed it into
the deader’s temple—cracking open its skull on the first shot. Then
he stood on the corner of the shovel and pushed it in as if he were
digging a hole. He pulled it out and did it again. The second
assault seemed to nullify the dead thing.

Barbara stepped closer to it and after
seeing its head she vomited.

“
It’s okay sweetheart. Jeff
and I both puked earlier. No shame in it. Let’s call it a night and
head back in okay?”

“
No. No, it’s okay. I’m
okay. I…I want to hit one.”

Walter was a bit taken aback. Barbara
always felt she had to prove herself to her father. If Jeff could
do something then she had to make sure she was just as capable. No
matter how many times Walter told her she had nothing to prove he
might as well have been talking to himself, or a wall. A wall, he
figured, might have listened before his daughter.

Barbara started moving toward one of
them. She held the baseball bat down low, moving it around. She was
getting comfortable with its weight, and as she moved closer to the
dead thing she could see what Jeff was talking about. She could see
the emptiness in its eyes. The lack of expression on its face. It
really was just a dead thing. The only thing human about it was its
appearance.

She swung, and hit it in the head. It
moved backward, stumbling, but didn’t fall. She swung again, this
time putting her weight into it and knocked it over. She let out a
small cry of disgust. What was she doing, she thought. She started
to heave, and turned away with tear-filled eyes, “I can’t do it. I
can’t look at it anymore.”

Jeff stepped in and bashed its head
in. Walter wrapped his arm around his daughter and led her back
home. Jeff was quickly behind them.

“
That’s enough for
now.”

“
I’m sorry, daddy, I
couldn’t—

“
Shh, don’t worry
sweetheart. It’s okay. I’m happy you couldn’t. I wish I
couldn’t.”

“
So much for Barbie The
Zombie Killer.”

“
You’re such an
asshole!”

“
Oh come on.”

“
Can it. I swear the two of
you will never grow up.”

3 ALL MESSED UP

(back to
top)

He should’ve been dead days ago, if
not from loss of blood then surely by dehydration, but death just
wasn’t taking. He was in and out of consciousness; the only
constant was the pain he felt throughout his body. He thought he
had lost his mind. Surely he was dying, yet days had passed, or so
he thought. He couldn’t say with any certainty. He began to hear
voices and feel out of his body at times. Moments passed when he
felt as if something were in him, not in a physical way, more like
he was of two minds, but the other mind wasn’t his.

Then he felt it.

Ben sat up, no longer clutching the
wound at his stomach.

“
What are you?”

He received no answer, but felt an
understanding ripple across his mind and with that he stood up. Ben
stood tall and felt great, all things considered. He could feel a
cold sensation throughout his body. He could also tell that he was
dead. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. He checked for a
pulse anyway, and not surprisingly, didn’t find one. He stuck his
finger in the maggot filled bullet hole in his gut, swirling it
around. He felt no pain, and when he pulled his finger out it was
covered in a dark brown blood that had been coagulated for days.
Again, he felt a ripple of understanding surge through
him.

“
Damn, how the hell do you
even know what I was going to ask?”

Ben spun around looking for something,
or maybe someone, but he saw nothing. The sky held no answers for
him, so he turned to look down at the ground, and in a way an
answer was there. The dead had left. He could feel the
understanding wash over him. He was one of them. He wasn’t hungry
for flesh, but he wanted death. He still had all his senses, his
ability to speak and think. Clinically he knew he was dead—he could
feel it. He still didn’t really understand why, and whatever force,
or entity, or whatever was in his mind didn’t have much of an
answer. A few ripples surged through him, but nothing with the
definitive quality as the ones before it. Ben got the impression
that there was no real reason. It was part curiosity, part
indifference, and oddly part entertainment. Whatever darkness was
inside Ben wanted him to do what he’d always loved to do, and that
was, quite simply, to kill.

Ben climbed down from the roof. He
wanted to clean himself up and get a good look at himself in the
mirror.

The school was empty, as were the
grounds nearby. From what Ben could tell—and now feel,
somehow—there were no deaders around. He made his way to the
bathroom, turned the faucet on and cleaned his face and hands of
all the dried blood and dirt that had become a second skin to him.
He plucked the maggots off his body and flicked them into the sink.
Then he patted his hair down and tried to comb it with his hands.
He noticed a small clump came out as he wet it down and tried to
fan it out. Flicking the clump of hair into the sink he looked at
himself in the mirror angrily. The reflection showed his waning
pallor and sunken eyes. Even his skin felt and looked to have a
rougher quality too it.