The Turning: A Tale of the Living Dead (5 page)

“What are you doing?” he said
again.

“You need a shower,” she said. 
“You stink.”

She turned her back and shut the
door, leaving them both in that tiny space.  Jeff didn’t move, too stunned and unsure
of what to do.  Jenny took her shirt and pants off and she was standing, her
back to him, in nothing but a bra and panties.

Jeff felt an erection grow in his
pants.  He blushed. 

She turned back around, her eyes
scouring his body.  He felt her gaze, hot and heavy on his groin, until it
passed. 

Jeff closed his eyes,
embarrassed.  He didn’t know what to do.  He heard her slip from her bra and
panties and knew she was naked before him. 

Jenny leaned in and he felt her
breasts, small but firm, press into his chest.  Her nipples were hard and stiff
and they drilled tiny holes through his skin.  Her hands found his underwear
and she took them off and then he was naked, too.

When her hand slid down and took
his prick into a tight grip, he nearly fainted.  It only took a couple of tugs
and he was spasming.  He grabbed the wall as he ejaculated, surprised at what
was happening.  He painted the newly-cleaned wall in front of him with his
spunk.

“That was fast,” she said.  Jeff
blushed again. 

She pushed him back so that he had
to step into the tub.  She moved in next to him and he kept his eyes shut from
embarrassment.  Jenny turned the water on and he felt the warmth splash over
his feet.  Then she turned a knob and the shower jetted a hot stream.  She
moved next to him and used her hands to wipe down his spunk from the wall.  As
she did so, Jeff shuffled to the right, still keeping his eyes shut.

Jenny giggled.  “You have to look
at me sometime.”
Jeff opened his eyes and looked at her.  She was the most beautiful thing he’d
ever seen. 

“Thank you,” he said.

Jenny reached back and grabbed the
soap and turned around.  “You do my back and I’ll do yours.”
He lathered it up and rubbed the suds into her back, down to her buttocks—he
lingered there, because it was nice and why not?—and then down her legs to her
feet.  When he was on his knees, she turned around and offered him a full view
of her crotch at eye level.  It was the most gorgeous tuft of black hair he’d
ever seen, and inside it offered a promised land of pure delight.

She opened her legs slightly and
he dove in.  Seconds later, she bucked and groaned against his mouth until her
body shook and she cried out in pure bliss.  He cupped her butt and held her
tight to him, his face against her flat stomach, until the tremors subsided.

Then, without another word to each
other, they finished washing each other down and stepped out of the bathtub,
clean and bright to face a new day.

Their first stop was the bedroom.

4

“Thank you,” she said.  She was
snuggled next to him, her body warm and naked.  The last rays of the fading
sunlight filtered through the shade, a hazy shade of orange.

“Thank you,” he said.

They’d made love three times
already and he was spent.  In fact, what he wanted most was to eat something
and go to sleep.

“I loved him, you know,” she said.

“Loved who?”
“Bill.”
“Oh.”
“You were right to do what you did,” she said.  She propped up on one elbow
and met his eyes.  “It was a bastard thing to do, but I’m glad you did it.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he
said nothing.

“He was the first person to see
me, you know?  To really see me for who I am,” she said.  “We were together for
about a year, but I could tell things weren’t the same.  I don’t know.  He was
acting bored, wasn’t paying much attention to me, or not as much as he had.  He
always said it was his job or he was tired, but I had a bad feeling about it. 
Like he was going to break up with me.”

Jeff didn’t say a word.  He
listened, looking into her eyes.

“And then all of this happened,”
she said.  Tears pooled streamed down her face.  He wanted to reach up and
brush them away but for some reason he didn’t think he should.

“I’m going to tell you something,
something I only told him and nobody else,” she said.  Her breath hitched and
her chest shuddered.  Jenny lifted her hand and covered her face as if she were
ashamed.

This time, Jeff did say something.

“It’s okay.  You don’t have to do
anything,” he said.  He reached out and touched the arm covering her face.  She
pushed his hand away and glared at him, eyes red and wet and accusing.

“You won’t understand,” she said. 
“I shouldn’t say anything.”

He offered her a sympathetic smile
and said, “It’s okay.  Either way.  I’m here.”
She collapsed into his shoulder and shook against him as she cried.

“You’re just like him.  Just like
Bill,” she said.  Jeff reached up and stroked the back of her hair.

“He listened and he didn’t judge
me,” she said.  She was shaking hard. 

“You don’t have to say anything,”
he said. 

“I was raped,” she blurted against
his chest.  “When I was thirteen, I had a boyfriend, one of those little school
crushes, and we met out in the woods outside of my house one day and we kissed
and it was sweet and gentle and innocent and then he shoved me to the ground.” 

She was shuddering now, her breath
coming in great gulps as her words tumbled from her lips, the confession coming
fast and hard, unstoppable in its forward trajectory.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, over
and over again.

“And he got on top of me and he
pulled my shirt over my head and I kept telling him no but he didn’t stop.  And
then his friend came out of the woods, his best friend Chris and it was like
they planned it and Chris grabbed my arms and held me down and then his other
friend John came out from hiding and he grabbed my legs and held them down and
then Paul—that was his name, Paul—pulled my pants down and I was naked and he
then he took his pants off and got on top of me…”

She broke off, crying hard.  His
chest was sloppy with her tears but he didn’t care.  They flowed out and
trickled down into his arm pits, tickling him.  He took no pleasure in it,
though.  She was hurting, reliving what had happened a few years ago, and all
he could think of was that he wanted to take the pain from her.  She was so
sweet, so pretty, so nice; how could anyone have hurt her like that?
“And when he finished, his friends took their turn,” she said, her voice
barely audible and hoarse and her skin cold and shivering.  “That’s what
happened.  And Bill, he was my first since then.  He understood.  He was so
gentle and sweet.”

“It’s okay,” he said again.

“And you took him and threw him
over the rail,” she said. She stopped shaking and leaned up, her gaze cold. 
“He was my first love and you threw him over the side like he was a piece of
meat.”

He looked away.  He would have
withered under that gaze if he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t
know.”
She said nothing, settling back against his chest.  He felt the warmth slowly
return to her body.

“Pull the covers up,” she said. 
“I’m cold.”

She fell into a fitful sleep as he
held her, not moving.  He wasn’t tired at all but he was hungry and confused
and feeling pretty lousy.  He thought he'd done the right thing, but now he
didn't know.  What if she decided to throw him out?  Where would he go?

  Jeff gripped her sleeping body
tighter.  He didn’t want to think about that.

She woke a little while later.  It
was dark and Jeff was still awake, still holding her.  Outside, the dead
stumbled and moaned, going nowhere in particular, the sound of their groaning
becoming as consistent as crickets chirping at night. 

Almost.

“I’m sorry,” Jenny said.  She
stroked his chest.  “You didn’t deserve that.  None of it.”

“No, you were right.  I should
have asked before I did anything.  I wasn’t thinking.”
“You thought you were protecting us,” she said.  “That was sweet.”

“I still should have asked.”
“Yes, you should have,” she said.  It wasn’t harsh, but gentle, assuring him. 
“I’m sorry I freaked out on you.”
“It’s okay,” he said.

“No.  It’s just that, I haven’t
slept with anyone else except Bill.  This was hard on me,” she said.  “I
shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
“This whole week’s been hard on everybody,” he said.  “I think we’re both
allowed to freak out every now and then.”
She laughed, her chuckle musical and lilting, chiming in the air.  It was the
best thing he’d heard in a long time.

He reached up and stroked her
hair.

“Let’s make love again,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

And moments later, he was in her
again and he realized that what he’d felt just moments ago had been wrong. 
When she came, soft and whimpering,
that
was the best thing he’d heard
in a long time.

That was how it went for the next
several days.  They spent their time in bed, having sex, holding each other, or
eating.  Soon, another week passed.

They didn’t seem to care much. 
They were there, in their tiny little paradise, love and warmth providing their
sustenance.  And they would have been content like that, staying there forever
if the food would hold out, but it wouldn’t, and soon they were down to Jenny’s
canned goods and there weren’t many of those left.  They had a decision to
make, a decision that was soon made for them.

And then, one day, the front door cracked,
and the living dead poured through.

5

Two days before that, Jeff stood
on the porch, surveying the area, watching as the zombies shuffled about, doing
whatever they were doing.  He kept to the shadows as best he could, but every
now and then one would spot him or come close enough to sense his body heat and
it would howl and stumble over in his general direction. 

The view outside the apartment was
of the side street, a dead-end, where his small car was parked along with
several others.  On the other side of that was a row of trees and one of the
main streets of Alameda, State Street, and just beyond that was another series
of apartment buildings and the small shopping center.  State Street, going
east, led to the Posey Tube, a tunnel that ran under the bay and led into
Oakland.  Going west on State Street passed through many suburbs and eventually
reached the other side of the island, the side that sat on the bay and faced
San Francisco.  Behind him, side roads led to the southern end of the island
and two bridges into Oakland.  Other than the Tube and the bridges, the only
way off was by boat. 

Just next to his apartment complex
was a small warehouse that served as a Food Bank for the local community.  They
gave out groceries three days a week and Jeff imagined there must be tons of
stuff stored in there.  It held the answers to their food needs, but getting to
it was the problem.

That little dead-end street was
clogged with zombies.  One day he counted them and when he got to a hundred, he
stopped and shook his head.  There were too many of them.  He watched though,
when he wasn’t inside with Jenny, sleeping, eating, or fucking.  He noticed
that it was pretty much the same zombies all the time.  Some of them were
residents he recognized from the apartment complex and others were customers of
the Food Bank he’d seen in the past. 

One day, as he watched, he saw a
cat, a skinny little thing with tiger-striped gray and black fur, zip between
the legs of one of the zombies, and head for the Food Bank.  It darted and
weaved and the living dead, drawn to its body heat, moaned and bent to catch
it.  They were too slow, however, and it was too fast.  The cat darted through
them and made it to the Food Bank and slid under it. 

Jeff hadn’t seen it since, but
he’d learned something very important:  zombies were slow.  You could get past
them and through them, as long as you were quick about it and they didn’t
corner you.  There were too many of them down there, though, and if he somehow
got down without them seeing him, they’d crowd around him before he could take
two steps.

Still, it was something to think
about.

Jenny’s hand softly touched his
shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she
whispered.

He told her about the Food Bank
and the Tube and the zombies and the cat.  He told her that since they were
running out of food, they needed to consider a way to get to some, and since
the Food Bank was right there, he figured it would be their best bet. 

“The only problem is getting over
there,” he said.  “There’s just too many of them.”

Jenny looked out at the street,
got seen, and ducked her head back.  A chorus of moans filled the air as she
smiled at Jeff and said, “I’ll be right back.”

A few seconds later, Jenny
returned with a bottle of tequila.  She held it up and grinned.

“You want to get them drunk?” Jeff
said.

“No, stupid.  We throw it at
them,” she said. 

“Are they allergic to alcohol?  Am
I missing something here?”

Jenny rolled her eyes.  “Ever
heard of a Molotov Cocktail?”

Jeff looked at her, at the bottle
and then over the railing.  The zombies groaned, greeting his peeking head like
the paparazzi catching a Hollywood star in the throes of adultery.  He ducked
back and grabbed Jenny.

“I could just kiss you,” he said.

“What’s holding you back?”

Seconds later they were in the
bedroom, the bottle of tequila outside, and the door shut.

They spent the next morning
pouring out whatever alcohol Jenny had in her apartment into small glasses and
stuffing them with rags.  By the time they finished, they had a dozen bombs. 
They moved them out to the porch to store them when they looked up and saw the
sky had turned black and orange in the middle of the day.  The smell of smoke
and burning filled their noses as they leaned over the rail towards the east. 
In the distance, orange licked the sky and belched obsidian clouds.   

“Oakland is burning,” Jenny said.

“God,” Jeff said. 

They watched the skies until the
sun set and darkness crept over the land, holding each other.  Even there, in
the night, the atmosphere was a bright orange as the fires burned closer and
closer.

“Do you think it will make it over
here?” Jenny said.

Jeff nodded.  He knew it was only
a matter of time.  Now they had another thing to worry about:  how to get out,
when to do it, and where to go?

  The next morning, Jeff sat on the
edge of the bed as Jenny slept.  He hadn’t been able to sleep much, worry
lancing his heart and fear troubling his mind.  He didn’t know what to do. 
They had to get out of there, and soon, and their plan to get to the Food Bank
was a good one, but what about after that?  The fires would surely jump over to
Alameda, and then it was only a matter of time.  They had a week, tops, before
they’d have to go somewhere else.  But where?

He ruminated, running scenarios
around in his mind, over and over again.  He thought north was best, where
there were less people.  Maybe they could find some Army base up there, or
other survivors, where there weren’t many people and therefore less zombies. 

It seemed their only real hope.

Tears filled Jeff’s eyes as put
his head in his hands.  Jenny woke and put an arm over his shoulder.  He looked
up and told her what he’d been thinking, what he thought they should do.  She
listened and nodded, putting her arms around him.

Ten minutes later, the front door
cracked and the dead poured into the living room, moaning and clacking their
teeth in hunger.

Jeff and Jenny ran into the living
room in time to see the first one, a big Fat Zombie with a swollen and split
belly, its guts hanging out, dried and brittle, come through the door.  It was
naked but for a pair of Speedos and sandals.  It staggered in as Steve crawled
after it, the living dead behind Fat Zombie pushing in, stepping on Steve,
breaking bones in his hands and arms. Many tripped and fell, spilling into the
kitchen and getting up slowly, fifteen in all, with more following and clogging
the door with their numbers.  Their arms reached out and clutched for fresh
flesh to feed on.

Jenny screamed and they ran into
the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them.  Jeff tossed the bed over and
shoved it against the door.  He spun and helped Jenny push her dresser behind
the bed, anchoring it.

Dead hands found the door and
thumped and clawed, pushing it open a crack as Jeff ran to the foot of the bed
and put his back to it, bracing his feet against the wall to keep the door from
opening.

Jenny screamed again as the weight
of the dead pushed the door open further, shoving Jeff back, his attempts to
keep them at bay futile. 

He gave up, jumping away from the
bed and the door and grabbing Jenny by her arm, steering her toward the porch. 
She snatched the shotgun, leaning against the wall, and the box of ammo next to
it, carrying them with her.  They were through the porch door just as the Fat
Zombie pushed into the room, its grayish skin scraping on the doorframe,
leaving clots of torn, greasy flesh behind.

Jeff slammed the door shut,
joining Jenny outside.

On the porch, they each had a pair
of tennis shoes and a jacket each.  They scooped them up and got as dressed as
they could, both of them wearing sweat pants and tee-shirts.  Once dressed,
Jenny set the shotgun down, grabbed the lighter next to the box of cocktails,
lit one and tossed it over the railing. 

The bottle hit and burst and a
circle the size of a compact car sparked up and roared.  The zombies on the
street, four dozen in all, moaned and stumbled away from the fire.

It was just as they’d planned. 
They would toss the Molotov cocktails and burn a path for them to run through
to the Food Bank.  There was a window on the side of the building, as high up
as Jenny’s chin, and they figured to into it and get inside to safety.  After
that, they didn’t know what to do.  

Inside the bedroom, the zombie
fell and tumbled and crawled over each other to get to the humans on the
porch.  They rushed in, clawing over the bed and the dresser, moving slow but
steady, intent on their meal, pure, motorized instinct.  They would keep coming
until they were put to final rest or they claimed their objective. 

Jeff grabbed a cocktail, lit the
strip of torn shirt sticking out of the end, and threw it over the balcony.  He
caught a Police Zombie on top of its head and the officer went up with a
whoosh.  It moaned and stumbled into another zombie in a housecoat, a Housewife
with her hair up in rollers and half her face torn off.  She caught fire and
fell back and walked away from the apartment, blazing hot. 

“The bedroom!” Jeff screeched. 

Jenny grabbed the shotgun and spun
just as the first zombie, a Skinny Little Girl with pigtails and a right arm
that stuck from her side, stripped clean of flesh and gleaming white in the
afternoon sun, appeared in the doorway.  Jenny screamed and shot Skinny Little
Girl in the chest, blowing her back into the bedroom and into a wall of the
living dead.

“Shoot the head!” Jeff yelled as
he tossed two more cocktails out.  They hit and burned hot and bright.  So far,
they’d cleared a space to land in but the dead, despite being put off by the
fire, still hung close enough to make their escape nearly impossible.  If he
could get them to spread out some and not cling together, then they might have
a chance.

He heard the shotgun roar twice
more but he didn’t dare look; he had to concentrate on what he was doing.  He
threw another cocktail a few yards farther out, right smack dab in the middle
of a cluster of four zombies, all rotting and in various stages of
decrepitude.  The flames licked their legs and they scattered, stumbling and
shambling away from the fire.  Zombies may have been attracted to heat, but
they seemed to know the difference between body heat and actual fire.  They
instinctively were attracted to one and repelled by the other. 

Jenny grunted and yelled, “We need
to go!”  Jeff stooped down, opened the box of ammo, filled his jacket pockets
with the shells and turned to face Jenny. 

A dozen zombies filled the
doorway, stepping and crunching over the three Jenny had killed, reaching for
her and him, eager to feed. 

“Fuck it,” Jeff said.  He lit a
cocktail and threw it at their feet.  Instantly, the Fat Zombie, who’d made his
way back to the front of the group, caught fire.  He fell back and moaned as
the flames licked up his body and caught the curtains on fire.  In seconds, the
whole entrance was ablaze, the heat from the flames scorching Jeff’s face.  He
looked at Jenny.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He squatted down and picked up the
box of Molotov cocktails.  There were seven left, along with the lighter.  He
fished one out, lit it, and threw it out into the midst of another cluster of
zombies. 

“I’m going to lower you down and
then drop the box to you, okay?” he said.

Jenny looked at him, too afraid to
move.  He set the box down and grabbed her shoulders as smoke filled the porch,
choking the both of them.  He shook her hard.

“We don’t have any choice!” he
yelled at her.  “When you get down there and get the box, then you light a
couple and throw them.  Clear a path to the Food Bank.  I’ll come down after
you.”
“I can’t,” she said. 

Jeff knocked the gun from her
hands and lifted her over the rail in one quick motion.  She screamed and
kicked against him as he moved, letting her body slide down from his grip as
she slipped to the street.  He let her go as quickly and gently as he could. 
Jenny hit the ground on her feet and dropped into a crouch and looked out at
the dozens of zombies surrounding her, no more than fifteen feet away, their
expressions locking onto her through the flames.

“Here!” Jeff yelled.  He bent over
the rail as far as he dared, the box of bombs in his hands.  He let go of the
box as she raised her hands to catch it.  The box fell and thumped her hands,
jamming her right pinkie finger and hitting the side of her head.  But she
caught it, and none of the liquid spilt.  She looked up and smiled at Jeff as
he clambered over the side of the rail, tossing the shotgun into a bush next to
Jenny as flames and smoke chomped like a hungry mouth at his backside.

Jeff let go and fell to the
ground, hoping he didn’t roll his ankle or break anything.  He landed fine,
rolling into a ball and coming up on his feet just as Jenny lit a cocktail and
threw it to her left, clearing some space for them. 

He grabbed the box from her and
gave her the shotgun.

“You take that,” he said.  “You’re
a better shot than me.”

He lit a cocktail and threw it to
his right, sending the zombies clustered there scattering away.

They were fifty yards from the
Food Bank.  It might was well have been fifty miles, because between them and
the building was over three dozen zombies, all staggering into the area, drawn
by the noise and prospect of a hot meal. 

Jeff gritted his teeth.  There was
nothing left to do now but fight.  He lit another cocktail and let it fly,
smashing it against an eyeless and jawless zombie ten feet in front of them. 
It burst into flames and tottered to the right, igniting three other zombies
next to it, clearing a bit of space for him and Jenny to squirt through.