Beyond the Barriers (25 page)

I lowered the weapon and turned in a full circle to take in the mess. I wanted to break something, wanted to smash my fist into anything that would shatter.

I heard a noise then, just a thump, but it was loud enough to set me on edge. Something or someone was still in the house. I walked to the bathroom next to the living room, past what had at one time been a nice couch. Now it was a ripped-up hunk of Italian leather that needed to be burned. It probably had rats living in it.

The door was slightly open, so I pushed it the rest of the way with the barrel of the gun and kept my focus everywhere at once.

Nothing. Just an empty room. I heard scratching at the front of the house, and slid around the corner of the kitchen to see what it was. When Scott slipped in with his big Remington extended, I nodded at him. I motioned with one hand to tell him to slow down, then put a finger to my lip and pointed upstairs. He nodded back that he understood and took point. I stared at the closet where access to the house lay. Looking at the closed door, I decided to check there first. No sense in leaving an opening unexplored before going upstairs.

Putting my hand on the wood, I almost jumped out of my skin when something hit the door hard enough to shake it. As I stepped back, I raised the handgun. I was pretty sure that every hair on my body was standing at attention and ready for inspection.

I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, but it did no good. My hand was shaking from the scare. Taking another breath made it stop. Scott stared at me with big, round eyes, like he had seen a ghost. I reached for the door again, and he shook his head.

Closing my hand on the knob, I jerked it open, and stepped back just in time to avoid being bowled over by a shambling horror.

It was hard to tell how long the creature had been in the closet. Its body was covered in rotted skin, and its eyes were nothing but dried-out white orbs. It stumbled forward, and I drilled it through the head with one shot then another before it could acknowledge the blast of lead. The second bullet went through the bridge of its nose and exploded out the back of its head. Blood and congealed chunks that looked like Jell-O splattered over the wall in a pattern that would make a four-year-old finger painter proud.

The body slumped back and fell into the closet. I still had to get in there and open the access to the space under the house. I didn’t want to have to crawl over a floor slick with blood. Grabbing the man by his ankles, I pulled him back and away from the tiny room.

Scott looked like he wanted to throw up. Maybe he wasn’t used to the up-close stuff. I offered him a mad grin and set the man’s feet on the floor. He was just as rotted as the woman I had killed in the street. His eyes were off center where the bullet had punched through his forehead, and he was covered in dirt and blood. He had green streaks all over his clothes, like he had crawled through the grass to get there.

I wanted to sweep the rest of the house before I went in. No sense having one of those things come downstairs while my ass was hanging in the air. I wished I had brought a flashlight. When I opened the door to the garage, it was hard to see anything in the murkiness. No movement, but it looked to be just as wrecked as the rest of the house.

I went upstairs on the balls of my feet. The doors were wide open except for one—the bathroom. It was odd to creep through my own house. It felt empty and alone, and I felt failure pressing down on me. The failure of a race that had given up the fight and decided to huddle together in tiny enclaves.

I had to pause and take a deep breath to steady the pounding of my heart. Was that all we were? Rats scurrying around, trying to carve out a better barrier to hide behind?

I poked the gun in each of the two bedrooms and the bathroom, but they were clear. Dressers held nothing but dust. My old clothes were gone. No underwear or socks. I had been wearing the same pair for so long that they were getting holes in them.

We went back downstairs, and I got on my hands and knees and tugged the small doorway open. It was just a big square of wood with insulation attached to the sides so it would form a seal. There was no way to determine for sure if anyone had been in here, but it did not appear to have been touched. I hung my head over the side and tried to get used to the darkness to see if anything or anyone was in the space.

I waited for a full minute, but there was nothing alive there. I crawled in, slithered through the dirt to the place I had left my stash of goodies, and grabbed the bag. I hauled it back out with me and dragged it and myself up. As I moved back, my feet hit the legs of the corpse, and I just about let out a scream.

“Well, what is so important that you had to drag us here for it?”

Smiling, I opened the bag. I took the laptop out and set it aside, as well as the portable hard drive. Taking the picture out, I slid it from the frame and set it on the dirty carpet. Allison would have gone insane if she saw how badly damaged the floor was. No amount of professional cleaning would restore it to its original condition.

There were cans in the bottom that clacked together, and when I pulled them out and set them down, Scott just about started drooling. He stared at them and at me.

“We should,” I said, popping the lid on the pineapple chunks. It had a little ring on top for easy access. Grinning, I took a sip of the juice, which was nirvana. I had eaten whatever could be thrown together for the last day, and the stop at the Walmart saw me wolfing down dog food gruel that tasted like crap. Nothing but meat at the cabin. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had fruit.

I dug a couple of pieces out and handed the can to Scott. He didn’t waste any time taking a sip, then rolled his eyes back like he was having the best sex of his life. He ate three or four chunks as well, but he chewed on them slowly, one at a time, so he could savor them. The can didn’t last long, but we enjoyed every second. I still had mandarin oranges, peaches, and a can of refried beans. I tossed him the can of beans.

“What, ‘cause I’m fucking Mexican you give me the beans?”

I just about spat out the bit of pineapple.

“Come on, man, how about those peaches? You got two cans.”

I laughed and handed him one.

“Thanks for coming with me.” I smirked, and he grinned back. I felt a friendship forming with him. He was a good guy with a sense of humor, and I could see that he would be a great guy at my back and vice versa.

“Better than nothing, man.”

“Gives you nasty farts.”

“I don’t need much help with that.”

He laughed.

I laughed at his face, which he had screwed up as if he were deep in thought. Before I started cracking up for real, I slipped outside, but stopped dead in my tracks.

It couldn’t have been the creeping around; it had to be the gunshot that drew them. Whatever it was, we had a serious problem. About twenty of the rotted things were closing in on us.

“Ah fuck!” Scott whispered behind me.

* * *

The day had gone too well. We’d only had one of the things to contend with, and it was locked in the closet for so long it was probably completely brain dead—if it even had brains. Being stuck in there for a long time couldn’t have been good for it. It basically fell out, and I finished it off. The ones in front of the house were much different.

They wore tattered clothing, the ones that were dressed. Some only had on tops or bottoms. There was a large woman with a gash running across her forehead and dried blood caked all over her face. She wore the remains of a pair of corduroy pants, green but covered in refuse. Her shirt was missing, and her breasts were shriveled things that looked like big raisins. Next to her was a man in a full three-piece suit that had seen better days. I expected it to reek of mothballs if he got close enough—that and rot. They were all rotted; some were falling apart. It was a pathetic group that had their eyes set on me and Scott. A feast for the dead. I didn’t plan on being dinner.

Dropping the bag, I started popping them one at a time. I aimed and took care that I had each shambler in my sight before I stroked the trigger. Scott wanted to run; I could see it in his body language. I had him pegged in the corner of my eye, but he stuck by my side, which raised his status quite a bit in my mind. It was easy to give in to panic and make a run for it, but a true soldier did the best he could with what he had. And we had each other.

I brought another one down—a child this time. A kid with long hair that was faster than the others. He or she was already halfway up the driveway when I took it in the throat. It stumbled to a halt as half of its neck disappeared in a spray of gore that I never wanted to remember.

More were on their way in their shambling mass. We would have to make a run for it after all. At least they were slow, but if one of the ghouls was around, it might use its strange influence to push them at us.

I took to the tall grass with Scott right behind me. It was tough going, as we had to high-step it over the mass of green that was taking over the front yard. I hauled ass around the corner and came to a stop as more of the things came out of the greenbelt surrounding the yard. There were dozens of the shambling creatures, and they all had hungry eyes set on our flesh.

Even if I could find a place to shoot from, we didn’t have enough ammo to take them all out. We couldn’t call for help; no radios. Now if I had asked about those, it might have been the genius move of my life, but I was so convinced that the little communities were keeping the zombies at bay that I got hasty and didn’t plan well enough. Shit!

I stopped in my tracks and stared at Scott. “Can we run through them?”

“It just takes one bite, man, and when they start dragging at you, I’ve seen people brought down by three of the fuckers.”

I popped the first few that were closing in on us. One fell with a neat hole between its eyes. Another lost the side of its head but came on, so I shot it again, and it fell in a heap.

I looked around desperately and spotted something I didn’t expect. A splash of red in the tall grass next to my rusting lawnmower. It was near the house and within easy reach. I let out a yelp as I spotted it and ran to grab it. It was still pretty heavy, like it was at least half full. I wasn’t sure how long ago I had used the stuff, so I wasn’t sure if I had left it in that state. Still, I supposed with all the cars lying abandoned, folks had no problem finding enough fuel to keep their cars running. What did they need my piddly can for?

The top was one of those pop-off caps that allowed the can to breathe, so it might have been full. For all I knew, with the fumes pouring off for the last half year, it could be half water. I didn’t have time to worry about it. I jerked the cap off and splashed the fluid all over the ground in front of the ones coming out of the greenbelt. I splashed it in high arcs that cascaded in a beautiful display of rainbow that coated a few.

Scott turned and covered my back by bumping three or four booming rounds of buckshot into the monstrosities on the side of the house. We were surrounded, and I had doubts about us escaping. There was no way to get through them unless I burned a path, and that was what I intended to do. If it came to it, I would lie down and put the handgun to my head.

I dashed, avoiding as many of them as I could while laying down the line of fire. I didn’t have a lighter, and I hoped Scott did.

“You got some flame?”

“I don’t smoke,.”

Oh shit.

He ran to my side and stared at the horde before us. He looked at the grass, at the gas-drenched zombies, and then at me. Grinning, he lowered the gun, then took a step right up to one of them—a man missing half of his left arm and most of one cheek.

“Hello, asshole. Welcome to the bonfire.” Then he fired the shotgun into the ground at the thing’s feet. The resulting blast ignited the grass. The gas had become vaporous, and the flame spread quickly. It was probably just my imagination but I swear the zombie went from slack-faced to horrified in a half-second. It turned to move away from the flame but was consumed. It howled deep in its throat—an almost forlorn cry that stilled the day.

“We need to move!” I yelled at Scott. He didn’t need any further prodding and launched himself at the fence. We had to leap over the spreading flames, and I was scared that my pants would catch fire. I ran for it, but the blaze was spreading rapidly. It was also saving us, because the things were staggering away from the flames. There were a couple of them standing near the fence. Scott and I came on like a pair of linebackers. I hit one with my shoulder and barreled into a man around my age or maybe a few years younger.

Another snagged me from behind. Hand on my shirt but there was no grip and I shook it loose. I kicked back and felt a satisfying thump against a body. A glance over my shoulder told me it had been pushed back into the fire. It stared at the flames that licked at its cotton shirt, then shrieked and ran right into the rotting thing behind him, a woman in her sixties if she was a day. Then it was chaos as the zombies became the prey—a prey to fire. We were used to being on the run. Now it was their turn.

Scott kicked one in the chest. I slipped behind a zombie and pushed it toward the rapidly spreading flame. The guy was so rotted that his skin caught on fire instantly, and the smell of sizzling bacon was in my nose. I was disgusted at myself for the way I practically drooled.