Darkest Days: A Southern Zombie Tale (19 page)

The undead converged on the fallen man and the teenager peering from the garden center used the distraction to reach the relative safety of his white Pontiac Grand Prix. If he wasn’t the bravest cart pusher Wal-Mart ever hired, he was arguably the most resourceful. When WLDX (a station which he only listened to on the rare occasions that his hometown went on a homicidal rampage) announced that Fayette was effectively destroyed, he turned right, exiting the parking lot. Already pointed in that direction, he headed to Winfield, and hopefully, to safety.

***

In McDonalds, the carnage was less severe. The first zombie had pushed open the door, walked up to the counter like countless customers before, and (upon Debbie the cashier saying “May I take your order?”) lunged across the counter to eat her. Her shriek alerted everyone around to the abnormality of the potential fast-food addict. Robert saw the attack from the grill at which he was stationed and grabbed a nearby broom. In a flurry of action, he quickly used the makeshift staff to beat the first attacker to the ground. The handle of the broom cut the air above the counter, smashing the ravenous mouth and destroying teeth barely held in by decaying, gingivitis-ridden gums. He then vaulted over the counter and delivered a powerful kick to the side of the head. The creature did not die, but at least fell down.

Behind him, Debbie ran behind the stainless steel partition and disappeared in the back. The cook watched his enemies grow in number as more forced their way into the lobby. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, he followed Debbie in retreat. The crowd wanted more than chicken nuggets as the unfortunate drive-through cashier found out. The next opening of the window resulted in her body being jerked through by two blood-encrusted hands. As the animal-like claws ripped at her fragile body, she thought about nothing. A cold panic had robbed her of all cognizance.

In the bowels of McDonalds, Robert and Debbie found themselves rushing into the cooler. The thick stainless steel door swung shut and Robert pushed some large cardboard boxes of powdered egg whites in front of the entrance. Debbie ran and pushed the mesh shelves so that they toppled across the pathway of the door. The metal briefly groaned before culminating in an extended series of clatters as the contents reverberated around the room. Robert continued to toss boxes on top of the debris, oblivious to the crash only a few feet away. He eventually tired himself out and sat down. His muscles felt depleted and the cold, crisp air burned his lungs as he tried to catch his breath.

“Deb, they can’t get in.” He reassured her as she paced the length of the cooler. “Even if they do, we can retreat in there.” He motioned to another passage behind them.

A second door led to the freezer. Doing so would only buy them a little time though. The difference in temperature was considerable and if they did go in, they would eventually die from exposure to such a low temp. Robert remembered how cold it was when he was inside there unloading trucks. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

Debbie could almost see a light bulb above his head click on. “What is it?” She asked.

“There is a door from the freezer that can only be opened from the inside.” Robert almost cried with joy.

“How does that help us?” She did not follow his train of thought.

“The door is opened whenever a truck arrives. A series of metal rollers from the truck are slid through and the truck driver pushes our supplies down the slide. Then on the inside, we stack the boxes against the freezer walls.” He paused to take a deep breath. “If we open it up, we can slip out and run to my ride!” He stopped and cautioned her. “Well, have to be quick. The door is four feet by four feet. That means we’ll have to crawl through before they see us trying to escape.” He smiled at the frightened black girl. “Are you ready?” He tried to act confident, extending his hand to her.

She nodded even though her heart had already sped up. Even in the forty degrees of the cooler, her palms sweated. Her ebony fingers wrapped around his much lighter ones and they entered the next room. A blast of cold air immediately chilled her arms since she only wore a thin McDonald’s uniform. Frosted boxes of meat reached the ceiling on the right and boxes of French fries rose like a wall on the left. The two employees walked through the valley of frozen product until they reached the far wall.

Robert looked at the small door with the extended handle and turned toward Debbie. “Would you like to go first?” He offered. “If anyone has the time to make it to a car, it will be the first one out. They’ll be caught off guard.”

Debbie shook her head in response. If he didn’t make it out, she would be trapped. She didn’t even know which vehicle he owned.

Robert tensed as he touched the cold, metal handle and pushed it down. When the latch no longer impeded the door opening or closing, Robert swung it outward. A pair of hands roughly grabbed his collar. The fry cook pulled back as quickly as he could but the creature’s grip held. The door hung open and a twisted, resurrected villain tumbled through the opening.

“God!” Robert slipped on the icy floor and landed on his back. The ghoul landed on top of him and snapped at the exposed flesh. “Close the door before another one gets in!” Robert shouted as he held the thing’s face back with the palms of his hands.

Debbie felt frozen from shock but the sharp crack of his voice forced her to look. Though the new window opened out to the parking lot, more of them moved toward the entrance at their own lazy pace. She ran to the door and stretched her arm out into the considerably warmer night air, pulling the door shut. It seemed an eternity had passed before her fingers touched the handle. Every inch she stretched forward, she knew at any moment another monster would leap out and attack. The juxtaposition of escaping cold air and humid warmth outside made her skin tingle as if the empty space she reached through danced with an electric charge. Her fingers curled around the metal cylinder and pulled the door closed while her heart beat so fast that she felt faint. The seal around the opening closed and the latch clicked back into place.

Robert also felt the slow drag of time, as every second he struggled for his life. Rolling during the attack, the zombie was now beneath the boy. Robert maintained enough leverage to sit on its chest and grab a hand full of hair, pulling its head up and then slamming it into the solid floor underneath. The arms clawed and groped still seeking out food as he slammed its head again and again. The fear that overtook him crowded out all thought. Instinct told him that only cracking the foul monster’s skull could expel the fear. Each blow sapped away the anger, the feeling of helplessness, the terror of the unknown. When the cloud of rage dissipated, leaving Robert’s mind rational once again, the body was motionless. All that was left was a puddle of blood and a chunky mixture of brain matter and skull fragments.

Debbie kept her distance from the remains and lamented, “So much for an escape route.”

Robert noticed her staring fixedly at the twice-dead body. He dusted himself off and kicked the body for good measure. “That was close.” He stated as if he had narrowly avoided a traffic ticket. Then the cook turned his attention back to Debbie. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, quickly adding, “I’m just scared. I’ve never seen anything like this before.” The girl motioned to the zombie with the rapidly freezing gray matter leaking onto the floor.

Robert stepped forward and hugged her. She did not pull away. The situation had affected her so much that she welcomed the comfort of a co-worker that she had never even spoken to until now.

***

Cara watched trees blur by and an occasional corpse futilely reach out for the passing truck. They had been on the road awhile and had almost arrived at her home. Her imagination had feverishly replayed several possible scenarios. In the theater of her mind, the first scenario involved her and Bryant dying en route to the house. The second scenario did not comfort her any more than the first. She walked in the front door to find her family dead. The third was that everyone is alive and well but the house becomes encircled. Taking a break from her morbid predictions, she wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and flicked her tongue over her dry lips.

The large home appeared around the next curve. Moonlight and a streetlight reflecting off the white paint gave the house an eerie glow. No lights were on within and nothing moved on the lawn. Cara hoped that meant that they had left and found shelter somewhere more secure, but both cars rested within open garage doors dashing momentary promise of a positive resolution.

The entire property looked deserted and desolate, but Bryant sounded upbeat anyway. “Those things aren’t around, so they should be fine.” Unfortunately, his words rang hollow because he was trying to convince himself as well.

The truck idled in the driveway producing a steady hum of a dilapidated motor. Bryant twisted the silvery key, killing the engine. An uneasy silence fell over everything. Now that they had an uninterrupted moment to take in the surroundings, nothing looked normal. It was like the entire neighborhood was dead. Neither knew what to expect as they walked up to the front door. The couple could find the living, the dead, or the resurrected.

Cara paused before turning the brass knob. She swallowed, preparing her throat for speech, wanting to request a gun. Before the words escaped her lips, Bryant extended a pistol, handle first, toward her. The girl, debatably a woman, gingerly took the weapon knowing that it might be the one to kill her parents if things were at their worst.

Bryant watched her hold the gun as if she did not want to touch it. “Listen, we’re going in armed.” He tried soothing her with words. “If the radio is right, all hell has broken loose and your parents will appreciate the extra protection.”

At the mention of her parents, she snapped her head around to face him. He smiled back at her, knowing his expression did not fool her. She could smell the fear on him. Her eyes sized him up in a slightly different way than he was used to. Instead of appraising his handsome face or his young, lean body, her eyes picked out the revolver shoved into the belt of his jeans and then the shotgun resting in his hands. It was a chilling moment to Bryant, realizing just how far the crisis had progressed.

Her hesitating hand tried the knob, which would not turn. Cara pointed the barrel down as her other hand dipped into her pocket and produced a jingling set of keys. In the quiet of the empty street, the tumblers in the lock clicking into place sounded impossibly loud. She slipped the keys back into her pocket, raised the gun back to eye level, and swung the door open.

Both of them screamed, but screamed different things. Cara’s voice produced an inarticulate wail of despair, while Bryant’s voice more was coherent when he shouted, “Oh my fucking God!”

At first glance, someone unfamiliar with the Creed residence might assume that the room had originally been painted red. This assumption would be wrong of course. In the recent past, some arterial spray even managed to hit the ceiling of the living room. A strong smell of iron hung in the air. Both adolescents felt their gag reflexes operating even though the stench of rot had not yet tainted the home. In the center of the room two bodies rested. One had been covered with a sheet, wrapped up in an almost protective way. The other was left uncovered, apparently, where it had fallen.

Bryant walked over to the first body. “It was one of those walkers.” He called over to her. He continued his amateur analysis of the corpse. “It looks like it has been shot.” He noted the small caliber hole in the center of the forehead. The primary color, red, covered the mouth of the deceased monster. Bryant could already piece together what had happened.

“Don’t look under the sheet.” He said to her. “Let me.”

Cara ignored him and peeled back a corner of the bed sheet that she recognized from her parents’ room. Slowly peeling the cover away, she caught sight of a familiar shade of hair, now sprinkled with dried crimson flakes. She changed her mind about wanting to see who was underneath but the electrical impulse was lost on the way to her muscles. The hand refused to obey and continued the unveiling. Finally, Cara stared down into an exposed face. Her mother’s eyes were closed and the mouth was lax. The skin felt cool to the touch and the blemish in the center of her forehead turned out to be another bullet hole.

Fresh, hot tears streamed down her cheeks and she felt Bryant’s hands on her shoulders leading her away. He sat her on the couch, struggling to find a spot without pooled blood. Cara heard his voice, far off like he was talking to her through a wall. “Stay right there. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Bryant did not even leave the room. He merely resumed examining the body that Cara had uncovered. The boy knew who the woman was - he had dinner with her. Pulling the sheet back further, he saw a length of intestine, which had rolled out of a gaping tear in her abdomen, leaking half-processed waste through a teeth shaped hole. He pulled the sheet up and over the face again, leaving it as they found it.

Cara sat motionless except for the heaving of her chest and the quiver of her lips as the emotion bled out of her through her tears. Her mind’s eye kept showing her the face of her mother, forehead marred by a small, black hole.

During this, Bryant reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. Before she could prevent it, an involuntary shudder rippled through her thin frame. Bryant’s hand jerked back as if he had been burnt.

Her red eyes found his, and she tried to explain, “I’m sorry. I . . .”

“No, it’s alright. I think if anyone had touched me and I wasn’t looking directly at them, I’d have jumped too.” He turned, pulling the curtain aside and peeked out the window, pretending that he wasn’t hurt. “The street’s still clear.” He reported in as conversational a tone as possible.

Cara remained silent, not knowing how to vocalize what was wrong. Maybe it was pride, but would he listen to such an excuse? Maybe this maelstrom of emotion was the normal grieving process? Most likely, she did not know how to explain her feelings because she was dealing with more than any sixteen year old ever had. Abruptly, she stood and walked to the staircase with her gun drawn. She would not be weak. She would not play the role of a hysterical damsel saved only by the ultra-masculine hero.