All Together Now: A Zombie Story (2 page)

When I looked where he was pointing I felt faint and my vision clouded with black spots. If this had happened a week ago, I would've thrown up. But I've seen a lot since then.

At first I could see only the zombies lying on the roof of the truck's cab, Mommy and Daddy. Both of them had the dark-rimmed, all-white eyes of the dead, sunken because the pale grey skin surrounding them had gone lax and hung off their skulls like dough.

Mommy was wearing a blue summer dress, stained maroon all down the front. Daddy had broken his neck and his head lolled on his shoulder. An unnatural bulge protruded beneath his jaw and stretched the skin there to near bursting.

Then I saw what Levi meant by "food."

Hanging upside down behind Mommy and Daddy was a car seat. It was still strapped in, despite the seat belt straps on either side having been gnawed through.

The soft grey lining of the car seat was stained red and black and covered in flecks of skin and hair.

"They're trapped in there," Levi said.

"How can you tell?" Michelle asked.

Levi shrugged. "If they could've got out, they would've. Let 'em starve."

He kept walking. Michelle followed.

I stood a while staring at the car seat, but when I heard a faint crack in the windshield the zombies were pounding on, I got moving.

The third zombie wasn't trapped. He came right at us.

4

WE DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS a zombie at first. He staggered as he crossed the field. From a distance, he could've just been injured.

He was about a football field from us when Michelle said, "That man's headed for the highway. We should warn—"

The thing growled, the sound a combination of hoarse moan and sharp snarl, screamed from stiffened vocal cords.

Michelle had the gun up and aimed before the zombie could turn toward us.

His right arm was missing from the bicep down. His mouth stretched too wide. As he got closer I saw his jaw was broken and hanging permanently open, held in place by strips of rotting flesh.

None of them run, really. Most of the time they shamble slow, but they move a little faster when motivated.

If we'd been running, the zombie never would've caught up to us. If he hadn't been in our path, we would've let him be.

Some people enjoy killing them, like maybe they're making the world safer one zombie at a time. But when the whole world is filled with those things and more people turning every day, I doubt one more or less zombie makes much difference.

I don't like killing them.

'Killing' isn't really the right word. How do you kill something that's already dead?

It isn't easy, but they can at least be put down and afterward they don't bother anyone anymore. Whether they're dead then or were before, I don't know. I'll leave it to the philosophers to decide.

Killing zombies isn't hard. They're slow and dumb and have no weapons, aside from their teeth and fingernails. But you have to be very careful and know what you're doing.

I've seen people fire round after round into their chests and the zombies keep coming. You have to kill the brain. Otherwise they don't die, or stop being undead, or whatever.

I've seen them walk around on fire and it doesn't bother them. Hack off their legs, and they'll crawl after you without stopping to notice they can't walk.

They feel no pain.

So far as I can tell, they feel nothing except hunger. They don't think, they don't sleep, and I've never seen one go to the bathroom.

They kill and roam in search of more things to kill, and that's all they do.

Michelle had the zombie locked in her gun sight, but only as a precaution.

Levi and I flanked him.

I had my lucky baseball bat, but Levi carried an axe, so I let him take the first swing, and the second, both aimed at the thing's legs. The blows were intended to disarm (disleg?) rather than kill.

The zombie crumpled to his knees, his white eyes never leaving my face, his craven moan never changing pitch, his one remaining arm stretched toward me.

Levi hacked at that arm and I swung my metal bat straight into the zombie's forehead, like hitting a baseball off a batting tee.

Though the bottom half of his one arm now hung by the thin membrane of skin Levi hadn't severed, the zombie
still
had both biceps raised toward me.

I brought the bat down again. When I raised it, it was covered in the same blackish red that sprayed from his head in a fine mist.

The zombie convulsed.

I swung the bat one last time and when it connected, the thing's skull made a loud cracking sound like an ice-weighted branch snapping. The impact traveled up the bat and stung my hands.

The zombie went limp and silent.

Levi wiped his axe on his purple "New Life Christian Church" T-shirt, then dropped it to his side and kept walking.

I should've kept walking, but I didn't.

Maybe it was the clothes the zombie was wearing: brown slacks, a blue and black striped polo shirt, and black dress shoes, as though he'd been at a church supper. Maybe it was the wedding band on his left hand.

I knelt beside the corpse and rooted in his pocket until I found his wallet.

According to his license, this man had been Gary Boyer. He had four credit cards, a gym membership, and a photo from his human days. He was standing with a woman, two small children, and Donald Duck in front of that giant golf ball in Epcot.

"Are you coming?" Michelle asked as she passed.

I couldn't speak just then, so I dropped the wallet and got to my feet.

From a distance behind us came the quiet moans of Chuck, ever following.

5

THE KIRKMAN SODA BOTTLING PLANT was the third Harrington exit off I-65, but off the first was Ernie's filling station.

For the record, I didn't want to go. I was just as hungry as Michelle and Levi, but we'd been avoiding buildings the whole walk for a reason.

A zombie alone in a field is one thing, easy to spot and relatively easy to put down. But the only way to truly know how many zombies are in a building is to go inside.

The other problem is the people who are still living, crouched in whatever shelter they can find, terrified, maybe insane—the last week has had that effect on people—and armed.

If they see something come into their shelter walking on two legs, they might shoot first and check to see if it was a zombie after.

Ernie's has a glass front, so we could see most everything from outside. But we couldn't see what might be hiding between the aisles of motor oil and candy and travel goods, or in the bathrooms, or in Ernie's office.

It was Michelle who made me see the logic in it—but don't put this on her. In the end, it was my stomach that did the convincing.

"Daddy's plant is five or six miles from Ernie's," Michelle said. "But it will take us longer to get there."

"Why?"

"Because of Bridgeport Heights, Autumn Creek, and Tree Side Point."

"What?"

Michelle stared at me, waiting for me to catch on. When she saw I wasn't going to, she rolled her eyes and said, "The subdivisions Daddy owns off the next exit. Plus there are two other subdivisions and an apartment complex. We'll have to go around them."

She was right, of course, and I felt stupid for not thinking of it.

It's nothing but fields and farms from Brownsborough to Ernie's, but the second Harrington exit leads to neighborhoods that stretch out on either side. Here I was protesting going into one building and trying instead to march us into an army of rotting suburbanites.

"It's already late afternoon and the sun will be down before we can get to Daddy." Michelle put her hands on her hips and sighed. "We may need to find someplace to stay tonight. But first we need food, and Ernie's is our best bet. It's the only thing off this exit."

"There's the Harrington Inn," Levi said, shifting a gnawed toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

"That's on the opposite side of the overpass," Michelle said. "And the next building on the same side as Ernie's is the jail, and that's at least two blocks away."

"Sounds safe," I said, throwing my hands up. "While we're at it, why don't we swing by the Java Jive. I could use a latte, maybe a muffin. If we hurry, we can still catch the 7 o'clock movie. I want to see the new
James Bond
, but only if you guys want to. We can see something else."

"Funny," Levi said, not laughing or even smiling.

"I'm hungry," Michelle said through gritted teeth, her eyes locked on mine. "Tonight, I'll be even hungrier. Tomorrow morning I'll be weak and we have a lot of walking still to do. We'll go slow and be safe. If the place is crawling, we'll backtrack and go around."

Every so often, it surprises me this is the same Michelle Kirkman I grew up hating almost as much as I hate her father. She's been a rich brat as long as I've known her, but now that money doesn't mean anything, she's different.

My dad used to say you know you're hungry when gas station food sounds good. There was more to our argument, but I don't remember the rest and in the end Michelle's plan made sense.

It was after six when we got to Ernie's.

We could see it from the last few fields before Harrington proper starts. It was a small building with an awning stretched out over six pumps, and neither humans nor zombies milled around outside.

Atop the awning were bold red letters spelling out "ERNIE'S." The sign was neon, but Harrington hadn't had power for days and the red letters were as dull and dark and lifeless as the rest of the world.

In a backyard three houses down from the jail, two adult figures stood beside a swing set. They weren't moving or talking, just standing and staring in that mindless way of the dead.

They were far enough away from Ernie's not to be a concern.

Michelle had her gun out and Levi and I had our axe and bat at the ready, but it was unnecessary. We were able to creep right up to Ernie's and around to the front without being seen.

Or so we thought.

6

I STARED THROUGH ERNIE'S FRONT windows until I was sure nothing was moving inside.

"How do you want to do this?" I asked, but Michelle was already opening the double doors.

"Hello?" she called into the food mart.

No response came, spoken or snarled, so she went inside and let the glass doors swing shut behind her.

"Stay out here," I said to Levi. "If something's coming, we need to know about it. And keep an eye out for Chuck."

Levi stared blankly at me, then looked away.

"Or just stand there not saying anything," I said, and went inside.

I was so used to the smell of rotting corpses, both walking and non-walking, that at first I didn't register the stench coming from Ernie's office.

Michelle was crouching in an aisle, stuffing cans of tuna, bags of chips, and beef jerky into her backpack. I took my own pack off and set it down. I wanted to fill it, but first I wanted to make sure we were alone.

I took a flashlight from one aisle and batteries from another. When I had it working, I went first to the men's room and found it empty.

In the women's room, I raised my bat before I realized the figure coming toward me also had a flashlight and raised bat. For the first time in a week I really looked at myself. I had streaks of dirt on my face and my blonde hair looked brown.

Below the left corner of my mouth was a giant zit, gorged white. In 6th grade I had a bad case of pizza face and my mom bought me heavy duty soap. But I hadn't bathed in days, and Ernie's didn't sell Neutrogena.

I checked the sink's faucet, but nothing came. There was clean water in the toilet, though, so I popped the zit and freshened up.

Aside from my reflection, the women's room was vacant.

Next, I checked the office. That's where I found Mrs. Ernie.

I never did know Ernie's last name, but I'd been in there enough times to know his wife was a short Vietnamese woman named Sue. She was slumped against Ernie's desk, a perfectly round, blackened hole half an inch above her right eye.

There was plenty of daylight in Ernie's office, making it easy for me to play detective. Against the wall was a ladder that led up to the roof. The hatch at the top was open.

I could tell by the dried blood and skin beneath Mrs. Ernie's fingernails, that she'd been dead before getting shot.

I went back into the mart to gather supplies.

Levi stood inspecting the row of dark refrigerators on the back wall.

"Anybody want a soda?" he said, grinning, but neither Michelle nor I laughed.

Levi produced two bottles of water and tossed one to Michelle and one to me. For himself he took a beer, which he chugged. "Warm as piss," he gasped when he finished, but that didn't stop him from grabbing another.

"Thanks for standing guard," I said, moving closer to the glass doors so I could see the street out front.

Michelle tossed a deodorant stick to each of us and took one for herself. "If you expect me to stay around you guys, you'll hang onto those," she said.

Levi moved behind the counter to get a pack of smokes. He had them open and was lighting a cigarette before Michelle saw what he was doing.

"Put that out," she cried, hurrying over as though Levi had started an actual fire. "Put that out right now!"

"Why would—Hey!" Levi yelled as Michelle smacked the cigarette out of his hand to the floor and stomped it.

"What's the matter with you? I just wanted—"

"Smoke will attract them," Michelle said. "And besides that, it will kill you."

Levi stared at Michelle dumbstruck. A grin broke across his face and he burst out laughing so hard he choked.

"Shut up!" I said. By the way I said it, the other two knew I wasn't asking.

But I wasn't looking at them. My eyes were trained on the street in front of Ernie's.

"Get down right now." I dropped to my knees and lay on my stomach.

7