The Dead & Dying: A Zombie Novel (20 page)

At the same time, I was keenly aware of everything. I knew that Roscoe was frozen, the knife mere inches from Carl's throat as he stared at the scene playing out before him. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe he didn't expect a mere piece of pussy to so completely eradicate his friend's features. I don't know.

At some point I had stood and stepped out of my jeans and was now kicking Jerry in the head with the tip of my boots again and again. Blood splattered up and dotted my panties and thighs and I became aware of someone yelling at the top of their lungs. The voice sounded like a demon unleashed from the gates of Hell, gravelly and overflowing with contempt and hatred.

  “You like that, you cock sucker? Huh, you like that? What's a matter baby, can't you take it? Come on, bitch, take.
Take it mother fucker! Take it!”

 I saw bits of shattered teeth slide down Jerry's chin in a foamy soup of spit and blood. His eyes were swollen slits encased in puffy dark bruises and his nose was mangled to the point that it would have looked entirely flat if it hadn't been for the shards of bone jutting through the broken skin.

He was trying to say something as he crawled backwards and his words sounded as if he were speaking through a mouthful of mush. But, quite frankly, nothing he could have ever said would have made one damn bit of difference.

“Yeah, you fucking cum rag, we're gonna have us a hot time tonight!”

I kicked him in the face again and noticed that his friend had let go out Carl's head and was standing now, apparently free from whatever paralysis had gripped him. His face was warped with anger and he held the knife in front of him in a stance that somehow reminded me of a fencing match.

“You stupid cunt. You're gonna pay for this shit.”

He ran toward me with a yell and I found myself doing the same, despite the fact that I was armed only with the ferocity of a woman scorned. Mere feet from each other he lunged forward with the hand holding the knife. At the same time, I spun around as if I were on a dance floor, moving entirely on pure instinct. The blade passed within inches of by body but by then I was directly beside him and my foot shot out, entangling itself within his stride. For a second his arms pin wheeled and then he was falling and, as he thudded to the floor, I heard a slight squish. Blood oozed from beneath his shoulders and the tip of his knife had rammed clear through his throat. It's gore streaked tip sliced through the flesh on the back of his neck and he twitched a few times as the last of his life gurgled out of the wound and across the dirty floor.

“Mprumph fuffin fiff!”

That had been Jerry's feeble attempt to form words again through the shattered remains of his face.  He was half laying, half sitting against a hay bale and his fingers played over the pulp of his features like a blind man trying to get a feel for someone's looks. His entire head was black and blue and swollen and bloody, like an infectious zit on the verge of popping.

I walked back to the large stump that the weapons were laying on and picked up Carl's pistol.

I felt calm.

I felt totally in control.

  I felt
justified.

I squatted in front out Jerry, just out of reach enough that his grasping hands couldn't find me, and spat in the remains of his face.

“You're not gonna like this, buddy.” I whispered to him. “At least not as much as me.”

I leveled the gun so that the little nub at the end of the barrel was perfectly aligned with the center of his forehead.

“Fuffin fiff!”

Without another thought, I pulled the trigger and watched as blood and brain spattered the bale of hay behind him.

“Who’s the fuffin fiff now, cock sucker?”

  It took nearly half an hour for Carl to come to. I put my jeans back on and had cradled his head in my lap, stroking his hair and being careful not to touch the softball sized lump that had formed on his forehead. During the time he was out, I sung every song I could think of to him:
Bridge Over Troubled Water,
Walk on The Wildside,
hell even
Party in The USA
despite the fact that I had almost always turned the radio to a different channel when it came on. Back when there was still such a thing as radio, that is.

Eventually, Carl's eyes fluttered open and he smiled weakly when he saw me looking down at him.

“Hey there, beautiful.”

He tried to sit up and winced in pain as his hand went instinctively to the bump on his head.

“Son of a bitch. Feel like I've been run down by a tractor.”

“Shh, it's okay baby. Everything's okay now.”

I saw his eyes scan the barn, watched as even more color drained from an already pale face as he saw the blood and bodies. Looking up at me, he wetted the tips of his fingers with his tongue and rubbed away what I assumed to be flecks of dried blood from my cheek.

“What the hell happened in here, sweetie?” he croaked.

“Well,” I answered slowly, “I think it’s pretty safe to say I'm no longer a pacifist.”

He glanced at Jerry's battered remains, tilting his head slightly as if trying to figure out exactly which part of the face was which.

“Yeah.” he said softly. “I reckon not.”

As Carl regained his strength, I told him about everything that had happened. At several points my voice cracked and I felt tears well up behind my eyes; but he would squeeze my hand and, after taking a deep breath, I would go on. When it had all be told, we sat in silence for a moment and listened to the wind as it whistled through the gaps in the walls.

“Shit,” he finally said, “remind me never to piss you off, darlin'.”

I laughed and kissed his cheek lightly, enjoying the scratch of his beard against my face. I had come so close to losing this man that everything about him suddenly seemed fresh and new again, as if I were seeing him for the first time.

“Come on, let's get outta here. My head hurts like the dickens, but I reckon I can manage.”

I put my arm around him and helped him get to his feet. He was still a bit unsteady so I pulled him closer, allowing him to use my body as a crutch as we shuffled across the barn and toward the door.

“You're one helluva woman, you know that? I reckon there's not another . . .”

My ankle felt as if it had snagged on something and I tried to kick free but then pain flared through the bottom of calf like I'd never known. I screamed as agony ripped through every nerve in my leg and tried to yank free again. But the white hot pain only intensified as I fell to the floor.

The thing that had been Roscoe had its hands wrapped firmly around my ankle and its teeth bit into the soft flesh between the hem of my jeans and the top of my sock. It gnawed and chewed and ripped as blood spewed from the wound and I tried kicking it away but it's hands were like vices as it buried its face again and again into my skin.

Over top my own screams, I could hear another. This one not of pain, but of rage. Carl suddenly loomed beside me and I saw his pistol, a lick of fire and the stench of burnt powder as the thing's head whipped backward with the impact of the bullet. Carl stood over it, tears streaming down his face as his finger pulled the trigger again and again and again. Bullet after bullet shattered the thing's skull, sending bit of bones flying into the air like shrapnel from a grenade and I pulled myself backward, leaving a bloody swath on the floor as blood continued to gush from my wound.

Carl's clip was empty but he stood there, still pulling the trigger as the firing pin clicked uselessly above the fallen freshie.

  “No, no, no,
no!”

 He sunk to his knees and began bashing the thing in the face with the butt of his pistol.

“No, it's not fucking fair, no, damn it, no!”

His words blubbered between sobs and I watched as his assault gradually lost steam. The pummeling became less forceful, less frequent, until finally, he threw the pistol across the room and hunched over the motionless body while his body hitched with sobs.

My leg felt as if it had been set on fire and the slightest movement caused severed nerve endings to flare in protest. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn't I shoot that one in the damn head as well?

“Carl.... ”

The sound of my voice snapped him to attention and he came scrambling across the floor on hands and knees. His face glistened with tears and something about him reminded me of a small boy who was lost in a world of darkness and couldn't find his way out again.

I reached for him and he took my hand, kissing it repeatedly.

“Carl.... ”

“Everything's gonna be okay, sweetie. Everything will be fine. I'll patch you up and we'll get ourselves to that little church I was telling you about.”

“Baby, I don't think I'm gonna make it to that church.”

“Yes!”

His voice was strained with emotion, cracking as he yelled and squeezed my hand.

“Yes you are. Don't you say that. We'll go to the church and we'll have ourselves a little ceremony. It'll probably be spring by the time we get there and I'll pick you a nice bouquet of wildflowers.”

Bubbles of snot blew from his nose and I tried to reach up, to wipe the tears from his eyes but my leg flared in pain.

“I... I love you, Carl. I want you to know that, baby. I love you. Always remember.”

“No, you're gonna be okay, sweetie. Don't talk like that. We're gonna be okay. You can pull through this.”

  I knew he was trying to convince himself of this more than me. But at the same time, I
wanted
to believe him. If nothing else than to simply help ease some of the pain I saw reflected in those faded, tired eyes.

“Just hold me, baby. Hold me tight.”

He hugged me then and we sat there in the middle of the barn, slowly rocking back and forth as our tears moistened one another's shoulders. How long we sat like that, I don't know; but eventually tears turned to sniffles and then then to a silence so complete that I could almost hear the sound of his heart breaking.

“You keep going.” I finally said. “You find that church and whatever it was you were looking for there, you hear me?”

“No, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you, Josie.”

I reached up and managed to stroke the side of his face this time, my fingertips trailing over the lines so gently I could feel the peach fuzz on his cheekbones.

“You promise me, Carl. If you love me, then promise me this. Find what you were looking for, baby.”

“No, I.... ”

“Carl, promise me.”

He was starting to cry again and he bit his bottom lip as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head back and forth.

“Promise me, baby.”

“Okay,” he finally blurted. “I promise. If that's what you want, then I promise.”

I managed a slight smile and tried to ignore the way the pain seemed to be creeping up my leg. It was all too easy to imagine the infection surging through my veins, poisoning healthy cells as it slowly made its way toward my brain.

“Good. Now sit with me a while, okay? Sit with me and, when the time comes, don't let me turn into one of them. Don't let me do this to someone else, okay?”

His lips were thin and taut, his teeth clenched together so tightly that tears were squeezed from his shut eyes like water from a sponge. But he curled up beside me anyway, pressing his body against mine so closely that I could feel his heart beating within his chest. He slung one arm across my waist and buried his face into my hair as he kissed my scalp and I was reminded of an old married couple bedding down for the night.

We stayed like that up until the very end. Up until I could feel the last of my life channeling its way up through my body, ready to escape into the ether with that final breath. And, just before that moment, I saw a beautiful light radiating from everything around me: a light that was as soft and gentle as a butterfly kiss; a light that warmed my spirit and assured me that, somehow, everything really would be alright.

Everything was so clear.

Everything was so beautiful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE CHILD

I don't really remember a whole lot about all the time Mr. Carl and me were in the church. I think we were there a long, long time but after a while it's like my memories just turned off or something. I remember thinkin' about shootin' him with his own gun; I remember him readin' Bible stories, only he read them in a voice that made 'em sound kind of creepy, like they were bein' told by a demon or an old, old, old man. But after that it's like there's this dark spot in my mind and no matter how hard I try to look into it, I can't see nothin'.

Except for bein' sick. I remember that real good. I remember how the inside of my belly felt like it was hot and cold all at the same time and I kept tastin' throw-up in my mouth only I never did really puke. And then it started feelin' like my muscles were turning to stone or something cause they got really hard and it hurt so much just to move a finger or blink an eye.

Mr. Carl was somewhere close by and his voice sounded super loud and made my ears hurt every time he'd talk. He kept sayin' over and over that it was all his fault, that he shoulda been better prepared, and that he shoulda never left me all by myself. It kinda sounded like he was angry and crying all at once and I wasn't really sure if he was talkin' to me or if there was someone else there with us.

I tried to ask if I could have some water cause my throat and lips was burnin' really bad, kinda like that time I snuck a drink outta Uncle Bobby's special bottle and got in all that trouble. Only when I spoke, my words didn't sound right which was really scary. It was like I could hear them in my head and knew what I was tryin' to say but when they came outta my mouth the sounds were all wrong and didn't make any sense at all.

So I concentrated real hard on the words and tried asking again, but this time it was even worse and I don't think I was actually sayin' anything at all... unless it was in some language I didn't understand.

By this time I'd got this really bad headache that felt like somethin' was inside my brain and beating on it with a hammer. I wanted to scream 'cause it hurt so bad only my throat felt like it was gettin' smaller and smaller and it was hard enough just to breathe so it was like that scream was just stuck somewhere in my body and couldn't get out.