Clickers vs Zombies (26 page)

It didn’t take very long, and once he was inside the new body, and had searched his host’s memories, Ob laughed for a very long time—for there, among the faces of the people his host new, was someone that Ob recognized. Someone he’d encountered before. Someone who had previously bested him.

“Jim Thurmond,”
Ob said, still laughing.
“Well, aren’t you going to be surprised!”

Humming a happy tune, Ob took his new body for a walk, deciding to kill as many people as he could until Jim showed up.

San Pedro, California

Jim crouched down behind a row of bushes, watching Tammy’s house and trying not to vomit. Less than five feet away from him, just on the other side of the hedgerow, two dog-sized Clickers were slurping up the liquefied, still-bubbling remains of a man that Rick had watched them kill just moments before. It wasn’t the sight that horrified him the most. It was the smell of the venom, the stench of dissolved tissue and bone, and worst of all, the sounds the creatures made as they devoured the slop.

He knew that the Clickers were virtually bulletproof. He’d seen it for himself during his perilous journey here. He’d watched as a man emptied an entire magazine at one of the creatures. The Clicker hadn’t even slowed down. Instead, it had ignored the bullets and severed the man’s legs just above the kneecaps. That had been mild compared to some of the other horrors Jim had witnessed. Upon escaping his apartment, the first thing he’d been overwhelmed with was the sounds. A soundtrack to the apocalypse. Cars crashing. Horns blaring. Breaking glass—and breaking bones. Wailing alarms. Volleys of gunfire. The guttural laughter and cruel taunts of the dead. The living—men and woman, adults and children—screaming out in agony or terror or quite often both. Then he’d heard a different sound.

CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…

Moments later, a horde of Clickers had rushed down the street, scattering both the living and the dead in their path. The living fled. The zombies tried to fight back, but were vastly outnumbered by the sea creatures. They attacked with weapons—everything from guns to clubs—and those who weren’t armed simply flung themselves at the crab-things, breaking their teeth on the hard shells or trying to immobilize them through sheer numbers and weight. Jim had cowered beneath a mini-van, lying in a half-congealed pool of blood and transmission fluid. His eyes flicked upward, verifying that the van did indeed have a bad transmission. Then he’d turned his gaze to the right, following the blood trail to where a pile of intestines lay cooling in the street. There was no sign of their owner.

A garbled cry caught his attention. Lying still, Jim watched as a zombie without a lower jaw ran toward the Clickers, swinging a golf club in an attempt to smash through their shells. Seconds later, two of the creatures seized the corpse in their claws and pulled it apart like taffy. Another zombie ran out into the street with a can of gasoline, and dumped the fuel over one of the smaller Clickers. Then the zombie lit a match, seemingly uncaring that he too was covered in gas. Both monsters were engulfed in the blaze. Jim felt the heat from his hiding place. He cringed, squinting his eyes, but there was nowhere for him to retreat.

As he watched, another zombie charged into the fray, swinging a rusty axe. The corpse managed to crack open a few shells before a massive Clicker reared up on its back legs and squealed with rage. As they turned toward it, the creature’s segmented tail whipped forward, jabbing the zombie in the chest. The axe slipped from its grasp, landing on the road with a loud clank. Even as the zombie struggled to free itself, the Clicker raised its tail, lifting the zombie off the ground. The dead man hung suspended in the air, thrashing and kicking as the monster pumped venom into his body. The zombie opened its mouth to laugh and blood welled out, splattering the Clicker and the pavement below. Blisters formed all over its body. The corpse continued to laugh even as its flesh began to bubble and hiss, sloughing off the bones and splattering onto the road. To Jim, it appeared as if the zombie was being cooked from the inside out. The zombie didn’t stop laughing or jittering until its liquefied brains oozed out of its ears. Finally, the Clicker tugged its tail free and the skeleton fell to the pavement, exploding into jelly. Gore and poison dripped from the stinger. Jim was close enough that he could smell them both.

Eventually, the zombies began to gain the upper hand through their sheer numbers and the ferocity of their attacks. Jim grimaced as a dead woman lifted the fallen axe and finally managed to crack through a shell. The zombies swarmed, shoving their hands through the crack in the carapace, and pulling out fistfuls of meat. The Clicker shrieked, and then died. Seconds later, it rose again and began to attack the other Clickers. After a few more of the crab-things had joined the ranks of the undead, the battle turned in the zombies’ favor. Through it all, Jim lay there beneath the mini-van, shivering and waiting.

When it was over, and the street was deserted once more, he slowly crawled out from beneath the vehicle and cautiously checked his surroundings. Satisfied that the coast was at least temporarily clear, Jim stretched, working out the kinks and aches in his muscles. He found himself standing alone in the midst of the carnage. Slowly, he’d made his way to Tammy’s, careful to take a path that provided lots of cover to hide behind.

And now here he was, concealed behind some shrubbery, while two Clickers feasted just a few feet away from him. He held his breath, trying not to move. His senses reeled at the briny stench wafting off the creatures. Their black, stalked eyes waved to and fro, reminding Jim of ball bearings affixed to sunflower stalks. Then movement caught his eye, and a second later, he forgot all about the Clickers.

A man wearing a hardhat and dirty overalls darted across a neighbor’s yard and crept up to Tammy’s front door. It took Jim a moment to realize that the stranger was dead. He had no obvious injuries or signs of trauma. It wasn’t until he spoke that the truth revealed itself. There was no disguising the maniacal cruelty and otherworldliness in his voice.

“Hello in there?”
The zombie knocked on the door with one meaty fist.
“I need help. Please let me in. I’m not one of them. I was working down the street, putting in the new sewer line.”

Jim’s breath caught in his throat, and his heart throbbed in his chest.

“Hello,”
the zombie called.
“Please? I know you’re in there. Please, you’ve got to hurry! They’re coming.”

“No,” Jim whispered. “Don’t open the door.”

The Clickers paused in their feast, eyestalks swiveling, seeking the source of the sound. One skittered toward the zombie. The other turned in Jim’s direction.

The zombie’s pounding grew louder.
“Open the door, bitch!”

The Clicker hurried toward it, even as the other raised its claw and parted the shrubs. The zombie turned toward them. Jim’s grip tightened on his pistol.

A dog barked further down the street. Something rustled through the hedges, zipping right between Jim and the Clicker. Seconds later, a gunshot echoed. Jim, the Clickers, and the zombie all turned as one, to see a teenage boy and a dog standing a hundred yards away. The boy gaped, holding a still smoking pistol in his trembling hands. His eyes were wide and panicked. He shouted something, but Jim couldn’t understand him. The dog stood at his side, shaking, head lowered, ears flat. He fired again, and the pistol jumped in his hands.

Hissing, the Clickers ran after the duo, speeding forward on their segmented legs. The boy fired again, and then fled. The dog issued a low growl and then took off after him.

Seeing his chance, Jim sprang out from behind the hedgerow and charged toward the house. The zombie, hearing his footfalls, turned in surprise.

“Hey, buddy. Where’d you come from?”

“Drop the bullshit,” Jim said, sliding to a halt. He stood with his feet apart and raised the .45, aiming for the creature’s head. “I know you’re one of them.”

The dead man held up his hands in protest and did a remarkable pantomime of appearing confused.
“No, I’m not. What’s your problem, friend?”

Jim squeezed the trigger, splattering the zombie’s head all over Tammy’s eggshell white vinyl siding. The corpse slumped into the yard and lay still.

“You’re between me and my son. That’s my problem.”

Jim kept the weapon trained on it for a moment longer, making sure it was really dead. Then he glanced back down the street, verifying that the Clickers were still pursuing their other prey. Satisfied, he raced to the door and knocked.

“Tammy? It’s me! Open up.”

There was no response, so he knocked again, louder this time.

“Tammy? It’s Jim. Open the door!”

He paused, listening. After a moment, he tilted his head and put his ear to the door. He heard a soft thump from inside the house.

“Guys, come on. It’s me. Everything’s okay. I got rid of him. Hurry up now.”

Then he heard Tammy cry out, “Danny, no!”

“But Mommy, it’s Daddy.”

“Danny, get away from the door. It’s not your Daddy anymore.”

Frowning, Jim knocked again. “Tammy, Danny—it’s me. It’s really me. Are you guys okay?”

“You’re not Jim,” Tammy screamed. “You’re not Jim just like Anthony wasn’t Anthony. It’s a trick.”

“Tammy, what are you—”

“Leave us alone!” she sobbed through the door.

“Tammy, god damn it, let me—”

CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…

Jim paused. “Oh no…”

He turned to see the two Clickers returning down the street. One of them dragged the upper half of the dog’s corpse in its left pincer, leaving a crimson trail of meat and fur on the asphalt. More and more of the fraying corpse scraped onto the rough surface with each step. Jim gasped when he realized that the dead dog was moving. The front paws kicked, scratching ineffectively at the Clickers’ shell. From its mouth came something that sounded like speech, but the words were nothing Jim recognized. Of course, a dog’s vocal chords weren’t designed for speech, but that didn’t stop the zombie from trying.

He turned back to the door. “Tammy. Tammy, for God’s sake, those things are coming back. I promise you, I’m still your ex-husband. I’m Danny’s father. Please open the door.”

Her only response was a muffled, frightened sob.

“Okay,” Jim sighed. “We met at Mike and Melissa’s New Year’s Eve party. You remember? It was the year 2000, and everybody was worried about Y2K. I’d just broken up with Carrie, and you had just broken up with Rick.”

CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…CLICK-CLICK…

“For our first date, we went to that little coffee shop across from the Chinese Buffet. We sat there all night, and I stole two coffee mugs as souvenirs. You invited me back to your place, and we stayed awake all night, just talking. The next day, I left my Danzig and Soundgarden CDs there, so I’d have an excuse to come back again. Do you remember?”

Jim risked a glance to the street. The Clickers were only two houses away now. They hurried toward him, squealing and hissing. The zombie dog slipped free of the claw and splattered onto the pavement. The remainder of its organs spilled out in a steaming flood, but still it moved, trying to crawl after them with its two front paws. Jim put the gun to his head and continued.

“When we found out you were pregnant, and that it was a boy, I wanted to name him Timmy and you wanted to name him Benjy. We settled instead on Danny. His…his first word was Daddy. His first curse word was son of a bitch. He learned it from you.” Jim smiled at the memory. “Somebody cut you off in traffic and he said it from his car seat.”

The Clickers closed in, scuttling across the next door neighbor’s yard. Behind them, the dead dog inched along, determined to join the fray. It bared its teeth at Jim, and he was certain that it was grinning. He pressed the gun tighter against his head. His finger was sweaty on the trigger.

“Tammy…Tammy, you’ve got to listen to me. I’m Jim. I’m the guy you married. I’m the father of your child, and I’m so sorry that it didn’t work out between us. You don’t know how sorry I am. All I want is for you to be happy. If you’re happy, then Danny is happy, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters to me. But it’s the end of the world, Tammy. Remember yesterday? You said if it was the end of the world, you’d want to spend time with Danny and me. Well, here we are. Here we are and—”

He heard the chain rattle and the bolt being thrown. Tammy peeked out at him, her face shining with tears. Jim lowered the gun and forced the door open. Shoving past her, he slammed it closed and locked it again.

“You’re you,” she gasped. “Not like Anthony. You’re really you.”

Frowning, Jim nodded in confusion.

“Daddy!”

Danny raced to him, grabbing his leg and hanging on tight. Jim reached down, picked up the trembling boy, and looked him in the eye.

“Listen to me, Squirt. It’s going to be okay. I promise it’s going to all be okay. But right now, we’ve got to do some things. Help me out, okay? I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?”

Danny nodded. “Okay, Daddy. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Me, too, buddy.” Jim sat him down. “Me, too.”