The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel (12 page)

But then, like a phantom materializing within a cloak of fog, I saw a fuzzy silhouette form in the blinding whiteness. It's hands were reaching out for me, ready to pull me back into the warmth and safety of the group.

“He found me
.”
I thought as the fear leached from my body, leaving my formerly tense muscles feeling tired and spent. “
He found me
.”

“Carl!”

I reached through the shroud of snow and wind, stretching my fingertips forward until finally connecting with his outstretched hands.

Only, it wasn't the slick vinyl of gloves I felt beneath my hands. No, what I felt was so cold that it seeped through my mittens. And it had a rough texture, like something that had been cracked and chafed and abraded to the point that the flesh had begun to flake off.

Before I had the chance to realize what this meant, it seized my wrist and I was yanked forward as a blackened, gnarled face emerged from the obscurity of the storm.

At the same time, I heard – very faintly – an ancient voice screaming out in terror and pain.  

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THE CHILD

I don't know how long I was there in the hallway, kneelin' down in front of the keyhole but not really lookin' through it anymore. It was almost like the whole world just kinda stopped when I saw Mr. Carl shoot my Mommy: I wanted to cry but couldn't, wanted to scream at him through the door or just pound away on it 'til my fists were all bloody. But every muscle in my body felt like it'd just froze in place.

After a while, I thought I heard Mommy's voice, only it seemed like it was somewhere inside my head and not comin' from the other side of the door.

“Run baby.” She told me. “He'll kill you, too.
Run!
”

So I stood up and started running as fast as I could down the hallway only I was in so big of a hurry that I bumped into a little table and the vase that was sitting on it crashed to the ground.

“Jason!”

It was Mr. Carl's voice behind me, loud and booming and I could picture his gun pointing at me but didn't take the time to turn around and look.

“Jason, no!”

I crashed through the door and was outside again. For a second I just kinda stood there, not really knowin' which way I should go but I could hear Mr. Carl's footsteps runnin' down the hall so I knew I hadta go somewhere,
anywhere...
I couldn't just stand there and let him shoot me like he had Mommy.

So I ran across the yard as fast as I could, jumpin' over flowerbeds and these little pink birds that were stuck in the ground all over the place.

“Jason, come back!”

Mr. Carl's voice was getting' softer each second and I kept expectin' to hear the boom of his gun but kept right on runnin' anyway. He might've killed me, but I wasn't gonna make it easy for him that was for sure. I remembered something I'd seen on TV and started zigzaggin' back and forth as I ran to make it harder for him to shoot me, which is probably why I never did hear a shot.

And then I was back in the woods again and I felt a little safer cause I knew the trees would help protect me from his bullets and stuff. But I still kept runnin' though cause I didn't want him catching up to me.

“Jason!”

And my Mommy would have been so proud of me. I kept runnin' and runnin', just like Forest Gump, and before too long I couldn't hear Mr. Carl hollerin' for me anymore so I started slowin' down a bit. My legs were hurtin' real bad and my heart felt like it was gonna beat right outta my chest so I stopped for a second and sat down on this old tree that had fallen over.

I was catchin' my breath and listening to the wind in the leaves when I started thinking about Mommy again. I kept hopin' that I'd see her walk through the trees, her arms spread out for a hug, smiling so big that her eyes would look kinda squinty.

“I was just foolin'.” She'd say. “Just trickin' Mr. Carl so we could get away, baby. And you did good. You did so good.”

Only part of me knew this wasn't gonna happen. I could sit there and watch the woods until all the nighttime creatures started comin' out and I could holler for her until I couldn't holler no more and she'd never come. And it was all
his
fault.

If it hadn't been for him, Mommy woulda been there and she woulda been able to tell me exactly what I needed to do. She woulda knew where to go next, where to get food and stuff. But most importantly she woulda been able to hold me and rock me in her arms like I was just a little baby and tell me everything was gonna be all right. And I wanted that more than anything else in the world. To smell the perfume I'd gotten her last Christmas and that she wore every day, for her to kiss my forehead and sing me a little song.

Now, I'm in the woods too only all those blurry people are around me again. We're still walkin' and it still hurts every time my feet hit the ground but I just can't stop and rest like I did the day Mr. Carl killed my Mommy. I just hafta keep going on, like someone else is in control of my body and I don't have no choice or nothin'.

It's almost dark but up ahead I can see someone. It looks like a woman and she's got her back turned to us and I can't really make out what she's doin' but she's kinda crouched down.

We get closer to her and I can see these little sparks as she runs her knife across a rock or something'. There's a little pile of twigs and old leaves in front of her and every time she scrapes the rock, the sparks fall down onto them and she starts blowin' like she's trying to cool soup or something.

I feel really excited when I look at this woman, like I just wanna run up to her for some reason, only at the same time I feel really angry and I wonder if it might be because her hair kinda looks like my Mommy's. But all of the blurry people around me seem kinda worked up too because they're walking a lot quicker now.

And I start wonderin' if maybe the real reason we're trying to get to this lady as quick as we can is because she isn't blurry and fuzzy like everyone else. I can see the checkerboard pattern on her coat just as good as I can the trees and bushes around me and I can see every piece of hair on her head too and the way leaves are kinda stuck to it in places.

And she has this smell that's kinda like a mix between old fruit and sweat and the smell makes me even more madder, but I don't know why 'cause it’s just a smell.

We've almost made it all the way to her when she hears us behind her or something. She stands up real quick and spins around and her face looks like she just saw a ghost as she starts backin' away real slow. At the same time, she's lookin' around like maybe she's lost something and the blurry people are all rushin' toward her now and I am too.

She starts screaming and her voice hurts my ears so bad that I just want her to shut up, to stop yelling and be quiet, and it makes me even more mad that she won't.

She kinda dives toward this really long knife like the one jungle explorers use to cut through vines and stuff and she just touches its handle with her fingertips when all of the sudden we're all piling on top of her.

I can hear her clothes being ripped as we claw at her and she's still screaming and for a second I see her boob only I don't feel all embarrassed like that time when I walked in on my babysitter changin' clothes.

She's still screaming and kickin' and tryin' to push us away but there's too many of us and I start seeing blood squirtin' everywhere. It smells rusty and salty at the same time and its warm on my face and chin, so warm that I didn't realize exactly how cold I was before.

And I've got something rubbery in my mouth, something that tastes like I bit down on an old penny or stuck the tip of my tongue against a battery. But at the same time, I like the way it makes my mouth feel nice and toasty and as soon as it's not warm any more all I want is another piece, a little bit more make my tongue feel like it’s a cat sleepin' in sunlight.

The lady isn't fighting as hard now. Maybe she realizes we just don't wanna be cold no more and that she can help. Or maybe it's 'cause she's startin' to get a little fuzzy now herself. It's almost like her face is melting in front of my eyes, her nose and lips and ears kinda smoothing out into one big blur that starts to go down her body, covering everything in its path.

By the time the lady is just as blurry as everyone else, she's stopped moving altogether and I don't feel that excitement any more. None of the others seem to either 'cause we're all standing up now and starting to walk away. When we were with the lady, it didn't hurt no more but now I can feel it starting again, like little needles bein' shoved into the bottoms of my feet. And my eyes are starting to sting and my skin feels like its shrinking and crackin'.

Maybe she didn't want to be alone anymore or maybe she was starting to feel cold too, but the lady in the checkerboard jacket stands up and for a minute it almost seems as if she's about to fall down again. But she doesn't and she just kinda falls in with the rest of the group, just like kids used to do when we had to go back inside at the end of recess.

And I can feel that tugging again only its stronger than what it was before. It's almost like I've got an invisible rope tied around my waist and am being pulled through the woods by something a lot stronger than me. My new friends follow along behind me and I don't know if they feel it too or if they're just kinda playin' Follow The Leader.

Either way, I don't really care. All I know is that I want to be warm again, that I want to find someone else who'll share their heat, that I want the hurting to go away. Even if only for just a little bit.

And I somehow know that out there in the woods, hidden by the trees and rocks and shrubs, there are others like the lady in the checkerboard jacket. All I need to do is find them....

CHAPTER NINETEEN: CARL

For some reason, I find myself thinking about the day I shot Jason's mother. God, that seems so long ago... almost like it'd happened to an entirely different person or perhaps in another life.

Josie always talked about reincarnation, you know? About how she'd die and come back again as a little baby... how this cycle had been repeating over and over throughout the course of time and would just continue on until she had learned whatever it was she was supposed to. And I think she had the basic concept right; she just had it all muddled up with religion, superstition, and what-not.

The way I see it, a person can reincarnate a hundred times within the span of a single life. But there ain't nothing mystical about it. There ain't no divine plan guiding the way. It's all about having an experience so damn intense that it seeps into every pore and every cell of your being. And it changes you. Sometimes slowly, sometimes so quickly that you're left feeling as dazed as if you'd just been struck by lightning. But the change happens and you come out on the other side as someone other than the person you were before.

Hell, you don't even look the same in the mirror any more. Your eyes seem a bit older, hopefully wiser, and the emotions left over from this here experience bring out new expressions that re-sculpt your features. You see lines and shadows that weren't there just a day earlier, slight variations in your complexion and the contrast between your skin tone and the stubble growing across your chin. Even your voice sounds different... and, at some point, you realize that the reason for all of this is that the old you is dead now. You've been reincarnated and it didn't take your whole dang body kicking the bucket to bring it about.

Jason and Monica, the little girl in the forest... that was one of those experiences for me. Hell, unless you're some kinda nutjob a man can't take two lives in a single day and just expect to go on like nothing ever happened. And those books and movies I used to like so much? They lead you to believe that it gets easier with time: that eventually you can just pop one of those things in the head without giving a second thought to who they used to be. But, for me at least, it was always right there in the back of my mind. I'd try to push it away, to remind myself that whatever it was that made these people human had long since left their rotting bodies. But, truthfully, there was always this part of me that wanted to cry.

And that day, I did. After I shot Monica in that bedroom, I felt as if every sorrow I'd ever felt, every heartbreak or pain, just came rising to the surface like bubbles in a pond. I didn't want this anymore. I wanted to return to the way things had always been. Just give me my boring, old life back. Give me the Pit Stop, the customers bitching me out 'cause I'd shorted them a nickel, the never ending routine that marked my day to day life. Let that little boy have his mother back, let everything return to normal, and I would never wish again that my life was more exciting or unpredictable than what it was.

Of course, I knew that couldn't happen. Might have as well wished for a bumper harvest in the middle of winter. So I knelt in that there room and felt like those tears were pulling everything that had ever been worth a damn plum out of my soul. Left me feeling hollow and empty inside, how I expect a Jack-o-lantern would if it were able to think and feel.

I thought things had hit rock bottom. I thought there was no way in tarnation it could possibly get worse.

I thought wrong....

After I realized the boy had run off, I tried to find him. I ran through those woods, calling out his name until my voice felt like glass scratching against my vocal chords. I knew that I'd attract every damn rotter within earshot; but I didn't care. I'd fight my way through each and every one of them if I had to. Whatever it took to make sure that I didn't fail that little boy again.

I kept thinking about how alone he was out there, how dark would be coming soon, and how he wouldn't stand a chance against those things. I had these pictures of him in my mind, pictures that I tried to shake off like a dog flinging water: rotters tackling him to the ground, freshies leaning so close to his face that he would smell their decaying organs waft from their opened mouths. Him screaming, begging for help.

By the time the sun had sunk below the horizon, I was no closer than I'd been before. I'd seen signs that I thought might have been him passing through: broken twigs and crushed undergrowth, a scrap of cloth that could have been from his shirt. But they could have just as easily have been from someone else trying to hide within the forest. Or even from one of them.