Mark Clodi (32 page)

“Oh God! I hope that wasn’t Max’s wife!” she yelled to Cory who was getting back to his feet while Amelia backed away from the front door. Glancing at the boy she saw that he was fine and then shifted her eyes again to the front door, she did a double take and stammered, “How? What…how. How did you get here?” at the figure who had appeared on the other side of Max’s storm door.

Nancy smiled at her and said, “Well, well look what the cat drug back to us! So you and Max hooked up huh?” Calling over her shoulder she said to an unseen person, “V, it is Amelia from work! Yeah again! Tell Julie to move the troops around, looks like Amelia took one of your recruits down too.” Then back to Amelia, she said, ”You know when you got away I really did not think you would make it far. Where is Max?”

“Max?” Amelia stammered, her spirits sinking, “He is not here? Cory get in the car, quick!”

A zombie raced out from the far side of the house, not at Amelia or Cory, but to put himself between them and the car. Cory took a few steps towards the car, then another zombie appeared on his side of the house, “Amelia! There are more of them!” Cory backed away from the zombie, unfortunately he was also backing away from Amelia, which left her effectively surrounded by them with Cory outside the circle.

“Give it up deary, I think we have you surrounded, tell the boy to stop and we will make it easy for you. Jimbo, I took the last one, you can have this one, she's even pretty, you'll like her.” said Nancy, as she stepped through the door outside.

“Never! Run Cory!” Amelia stepped up and swung at Nancy with all her might. Nancy raised her arm and tried to catch the fire poker, however Amelia had learned to expect such defensive reactions in the last few days of fighting and at the last minute she lowered the poker to hit Nancy in the lower leg, with a sickening crack Nancy went down. Nancy screamed and grabbed her leg with both hands as another zombie Amelia recognized stepped over her, ‘V’, Nancy had called her. “C’mon V, that is your name right? Just let us get out of here. Please.” Amelia begged.

“Fucking crucify her ‘V’, no getting away for her, I want her dead! That bitch broke my fucking leg!” frothy spittle sprayed out of Nancy mouth as she screamed.

Veronica never took her eyes off Amelia, “If things were different maybe I could do that, things have changed, we need food now. Well now that Nancy is wounded and needs to heal up. Sorry, it is nothing personal. I won’t let them eat the boy though, when we catch him. And we will.”

Amelia looked around and sure enough Cory had bolted like she said, the zombie on that side of the house was returning, getting back into position as if he had tried to chase the boy down and then given up.

“Then there is nothing I can do.” Amelia heard herself say, after that she let out a cry of rage and swung at Veronica, deliberately pulling her blow back and then edging forward, which caused Veronica’s blocking arm to miss. The blow took Veronica in the middle of her chest and ripped into her white blouse, though her blouse and skin, lodging as near as Amelia could tell in her right breast. Veronica gasped, tried to grab the fire poker and swung her right hand at Amelia ineffectively before stumbling to her knees. Amelia didn't stop, she edged past Veronica and jumped over Nancy's legs as she leaped into the house, barreling into Jimbo, Jimbo wrapped his arms around Amelia, trying to get a good hold on her. “Stop fighting, I'm gonna let you go, get up into the attic if you can.” the wriggling human woman, didn't stop fighting and Jimbo let her go, she did, however, run up the stairs when he released her, dropping the fire poker onto the floor.

“You fucking let her go Jimbo!” screamed Nancy from on the front porch.

“Yeah, I did.” said Jimbo, not bothering to add the 'fuck you' to his reply. “Where is she gonna go Nancy? She's stuck just like poor Max's wife and we can take them anytime we need to.”

Chapter 47

Pain, that was all there was, pain. Sarah grasped her leg and tried to stem the bleeding, one of the kids handed her a towel and she pressed it against the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood. She should never have moved over by the attic door to try and listen to what they were saying, who knew that they could jump so high and tear through a ceiling like it was paper?

Tears were streaming down her face when she heard the woman below begging for help. Leaning over and clearing insulation out of the way she saw a young woman down below with a pleading look on her face.

“Please! Please help me! let me into the attic, I haven't been bit, I'm not a zombie.”

A chill went down Sarah's spine. 'Bit? Bit? Was she bit? Oh God!', she had thought one of them had stabbed her, lifting the towel she examined the wound closely while the woman continued pleading below. One edge of her wound clearly showed a jagged incision made by human teeth.

“What do you mean you're not bitten?” Sarah yelled through the hole, “What difference does biting make?”

“It is...I'm not one of them, let me up, please!” Amelia begged, looking behind her she saw Jimbo and Veronica bodily in front of Nancy preventing her from coming up the stairs. Veronica had Amelia's poker and was waving it in Nancy's face as they argued. “Please, she is going to get up here and there is no where else I can go!”

“What do you mean about the biting?!” Sarah demanded once again.

“It is, well, they bite you, that is how it happens, how you turn into one of them.”

“Oh God. Oh no-no-no!”

“You were bitten?” Amelia called up.

“No-no-no!” as she sobbed she pushed the two by four that had been blocking the attic access and the ladder swung down to Amelia.

Amelia wasted no time scrambling up the ladder and pulling the door back closed behind her.

“When were you bit?” Amelia said.

Sobbing Sarah didn't answer. “When. Were. You. Bit?” Amelia asked again.

“Just now, just right now, they, one of them pulled my leg through the ceiling and bit into it.”

“Okay, I was with this woman who got bitten, she, she lasted awhile, we might be able to get you some help if we can get past them.” Amelia stopped, knowing, without outside help, they were not going to get by the zombies in the house.

Turning to the kids, she said, “Hi. What are your names? I am Amelia.”

The kids, with pale tear stained faces looked well beyond scared, they mumbled their names, quietly. “It'll be alright, it will be okay, don't worry alright?” The lie sounded hollow even to Amelia as she spoke it. “Lets get your mom over there, on that piece of wood and away from this hole, okay?”

The kids helped her move Sarah to the plywood where they had been sleeping.

Chapter 48

Amelia said ‘Run!’, Cory ran. No way he was going to leave her though, no way at all. He doubled back around the house after running around the nearest corner, the zombie that had tried to chase him gave up really easily and Cory was now standing in what he thought was the backyard of the house behind the one he and Amelia had tried to go into. He saw two zombies in the backyard of Max’s house, a girl and a slow moving guy, the guy started around the side of the house and Cory thought he could take out the girl on his own, he started climbing over the fence when a hand grabbed onto his ankle and pulled him back down into the backyard, towards a bushy evergreen tree, Cory struggled to grab something, anything to stop his journey, nonetheless he ended up under the boughs of an evergreen tree, where he was unceremoniously flipped onto his back to look into his captors eyes.

“You’re just a..you’re justa kid!” Cory exclaimed.

The young man who had grabbed Cory, shrugged and said, “Don’t go nowhere or I’ll hafta whack ya.” And proceeded to sit down next to Cory, where upon he pulled a hand held electronic device out of his pants pocket and started playing it.

Cory sat for a few minutes thinking, they both started when they heard screams from in front of Max’s house, but the other boy put his hand on Cory’s wrist, as a reminder to stay put.

“I don’t think they got her, sounds like they are screaming at each other.” The boys eyes glazed over a little, though his hand did not leave Cory's wrist, his eyes regained their focus, “Oh yeah, she got away, they are fighting, she's in the house.”

“How do you know that?”

The boy just looked at him and shook his head side to side, saying nothing. Again Cory forced himself to think calmly, this kid was not normal, he knew that, the guy had barely struggled to get him off the fence and drag him under this bush.

“You’re a…uh, I mean you are one of them? Right?” he asked tentatively. The other boy nodded ‘yes’, but did not say anything. Curious, despite his situation, he sat up and tried to get a look at what the other boy was playing on his gaming device. “Is that ‘Silent Hill’?”

Again the boy nodded yes so Cory continued, “My mom wouldn’t let me play that, she said it was too violent, I have a DS though it ain’t out for that yet anyway.”

“They don't make it for the DS, they only make games for little kids for that. I didn’t get this until yesterday, I picked up a DS too, hardly had a chance to play anything until last night. My name is Bobby, what’s yours?” said Bobby, his eyes never leaving the screen.

“Cory. Are you with them?”

“Yeah. No. Kinda. I am with Jimbo, and Jimbo is with them. It is complicated. I am like a ‘field agent’. Jimbo says I am his secret weapon, his eyes and ears in the field. Like ‘Ghost Recon’ or something. All I know is I got a DS now too, it is in my bag. What happened to your shoes?”

“Ah, Amelia left them at the hotel room, there was this other lady, Diane, she got bitten and hurt real bad and started to turn into one of them, um, I mean one of you. We left in a hurry I guess, I was asleep. She remembered my games though. I have new shoes in the car.” replied Cory. “So what is it like? You know, changing?”

Bobby put the game on pause and said, “Cold. Really cold, I kinda don’t remember much about it, but I am always cold now, unless it is just after I eat, then I get warm for awhile, I feel almost like I have the flu, unless I eat. Eating is pretty gross, I don’t like it, even though it makes me feel better.”

“Do you have to? I mean what happens if you stop or ate normal food?”

“I don’t know, you can do that when you turn. I think Jimbo wants another field agent.”

“Oh.” said Cory, “When?”

“Dunno, when he can sneak out, I think he wants to do it himself, you get something over anyone you make, so if I did you, you would kinda be mine, even though Jimbo has me, it would not really be the same as him having you too. Probably later this afternoon. Maybe. He might not want another little kid. I dunno.” Shrugging his shoulders he went back to his game.

Thinking to himself about what to do Cory, came up with a plan, not much, but something. He scooted around to sit beside Bobby and stared intently at the screen for awhile, watching him play. After awhile Bobby hit a ‘boss’ monster and could not get by him, he turned to Cory and thrust the machine at him, “Your turn! Start a new guy though, don’t use mine, I have only been playing an hour, so catch up.”

“I think we need another one, then we could play co-op, that’d be awesome.” said Cory.

“No dork it is single player, not even a death match mode, but another PSP would be awesome, ‘cause there are a lot of games that do co-op or head to head play.”

“Uh, we passed a Target store on the way here, stopped by there to get my shoes, they have em too. About eight blocks or so.” said Cory his eyes never leaving the screen as he entered in his user name.

“Yeah? Well okay! We can sneak off when we get tired of this one. No one will know.”

Staying quiet and working his way up to the boss Bobby had been stuck on took Cory forty-five minutes or so, he had watched Bobby play through some of the levels and took full advantage of what he had seen. He also made good progress on the boss monster, almost beating it his first time around, but not quite, much to both of their dismay. A little later they decided to get up and head to the Target store, with Bobby saying, “You don’t try to run away, I can catch you and Jimbo said to make sure you stuck around, okay?”

“Sure, okay, but what happens if we run into, you know, others?”

“We hide, that is all, I will scout things out and if it is all clear you follow. You can’t outrun me barefoot.” said Bobby.

'Probably he was right.', thought Cory, however he would do his best to find that out for sure. Cory made extra sure to watch how to get back to the house and waited for his opportunity. The boys walked and sneaked their way back towards the Target store, stopping in a convenience store when Cory said he was hungry and thirsty, Bobby went in alone and seemed surprised when Cory was still there when he came back out with the food Cory had asked for, double quantities. The boys went around to the back of the store and sat down on a curb, where Cory ate and Bobby sat staring at the food, finally Cory said, “Well? You gonna try it or not?”

Bobby smiled a little and picked up a snickers bar, unwrapping it he smelled it and said, “It is like, different, it doesn’t smell bad, you know, like nasty or something, but kinda like a spring day, good, but nothing that you would want to eat.” He raised the candy to his lips and nibbled a little off the end. “Still chocolaty. Not good enough though, I don’t think I can eat it.”

Cory shrugged and said, “Is it that bad?”