Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (13 page)

Johnny stops abruptly and slides
in the mud. His eyes go wide at the horde and he checks over his shoulder to
see the other mass getting closer. “We’re completely fucked,” he breathes.

“What are we going to do?!”
April shouts. “Johnny,” she shakes him, “what the
fuck
are we going to
do?!”

As the mobs approach from both
sides along the maintenance road, they moan out a symphony of wet rasps. Johnny
and April stand transfixed, unsure of their next move as the formations twist
and jerk closer.

“Jump!” Johnny shouts as he grabs
her hand.

“What?” she asks in a shriek.

“We’re going to have to jump,”
he says, grabbing her hand.

They launch through the air as
their legs flail, descending quickly to a heap of debris in the canal. They hit
hard, legs first, a few feet from wood pallets that twirl in the frothy rush.
Johnny is the first to pop his head up, followed almost immediately by April.
They gasp for air as they swim through the roaring water, trying to make their
way to the pallets that surge under whitecaps and spin when they glance off the
other waste in the water.

Johnny struggles for the
pallets, inching his way through as April trails a few feet away. With the tips
of his fingers, he snags one of the cross supports and drags himself halfway up
onto the makeshift raft.

“Come on, just a little more,”
he yells at April as he reaches out to take her hand.

Her head bobs up and down in the
swirling waves and she gasps each time she pops up from the murky wash. She
reaches out, her fingers reaching, grasping at the air.

“Help,” she gurgles, bobbing
below the spiral.

Her body sinks beneath the
water, a dark swatch of clothing barely visible through the swampy depths.
Johnny claws through the whitecaps, trying to reach her, searching for
something to grasp. The torrent beats at his face and stings his eyes, leaving
his sight blurred and unfocused. “April!” he yells and releases the pallet raft
before diving down beneath the slapping rush.

A faded image appears to his
right as he turns under the water. The dark clothing, the light hair – he
reaches out, dives down, and kicks his feet hard. With a burst of energy, he
grabs her and wads her shirt in his hand. He swims to the top of the rain
peppered water with April trailing behind and gasps for air once he feels the
wind on his face. He pulls her head up, but he can’t tell if she’s breathing.

She is unresponsive. Her body is
slack as he tries to keep her head above the water. With the raft in sight, he
kicks out, bridging the gap between the hellish canal and the pallet. He pushes
her body up and raises her arms above her head.

“April!” he yells again and
slaps her face. “April!” The dead moan from the road overhead as Johnny slaps
her again. “Goddamn it, April! Don’t you do this to me. Don’t you
fucking
do this!” he spits.

A faint movement - a shrug of
her shoulders and she is coughing, hacking up dirty water and struggling for
breath. Her eyes blink repeatedly as she turns her head toward him in a daze.
She coughs, spitting up foul water that traces along her chin and she looks at
him in shock. She mouths inaudible words and coughs again.

“Oh thank God,” he says
exasperated. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, do you hear me?”

She coughs and nods her head in
a daze as the raft pounds through the current, dipping slightly at the corners
as it makes its way along the canal. Her breath is short as she stares up at
the sky, watching the thunderheads roll like oceanic waves, pummeling the
horizon. Below the darkening storm, she can see the dead gather at the edge of
the roadway, hovering along the concrete wall, wavering like drunken teenagers
at the cusp of jumping. Every face is a nightmare, exploding with rancid decay
as they lap out at the air, trying to lick their way closer to the pair. She
closes her eyes at the dead, trying to blink them away.  

Johnny hangs from the edge of
the raft, kicking and maneuvering around the obstacles in their wake. His legs
scream out in pain and he pushes through, gritting his teeth to focus on the
objective.

“Over there.” He motions toward
a high-rise in the distance. “Those are the offices where I work. We might be
able to hole up in there for the night.”

“I thought we were going to try
to make it to the coast,” she says, coughing up the last remnants of wastewater.

“I can’t make it,” he says. “I
need to rest.”

She peers back at the dead,
“They’ll follow us.”

“We’ll have to take our chances,”
he says as he looks over his shoulder at the creatures.

 The rush of the canal brings them
to a series of outlets, sanctioned off from above by chain link fences and
gates marked
Do Not Enter
. The water settles as its diverted, making it
easier for Johnny to steer the raft. He spots several maintenance ladders along
the way and waits for an opportunity to grab onto one.

“I’m going to get us to that
mound of junk over there,” he says, pointing toward the wall of the canal.
“We’ll take one of those ladders up.”

“They’re going to be
everywhere,” she says with a look of alarm.

“We’re going to have to make a
run for it,” he replies, pushing the raft onto the mound of debris. “Follow me
closely and don’t look back. If this is going to work, we’re going to have to
run like hell.”

“Out of the kitchen and into the
fire,” she comments.

“Yeah, something like that,” he
affirms, spitting the rain from his mouth.

He guides her to the ladder as
water rips into the makeshift island, dislodging pieces of junk and taking it
into the current where it spirals off into the distance. Checking his waistline,
he’s relieved to find the pistol still firmly tucked into his belt. He moves it
from the small of his back to the front of his waist and gives it a small tap
before following April up the ladder.

Above, they hide behind a
cropping of bushes adjacent to the street and survey the area. Between crashes
of thunder, lightning strikes guide the way, sending flashes out into the city
streets. The dead are everywhere, shambling through the rain like derelicts
lost in perdition.

“This isn’t going to be easy,”
he whispers as he watches the bodies shuffle along.

“I didn’t think it was going to
be,” she replies.

He plans out a route in his
mind, paying heed to the dead as they wander and change directions. “Up along
the street there.” He points. “And through the alleyway that leads out back.
There’s a service tunnel that should get us in.”

“We’re just going to stay the
night, right?” she asks.

“Just for the night,” he
answers.

“I think we should keep going,”
she says, glaring at the bodies. “I mean, I can almost smell the ocean from
here.”

“It’s at least another eight
miles, April,” he says. “We need to get some rest if we’re going to make it.
And there’s food and water there.”

“But we
have
food and
water,” she protests. “I don’t see why we don’t keep moving. We could be on the
beach in a little over an hour.”

“Damn it, I’m beat,” he says,
keeping his voice down. “We’ll sleep for the rest of the night and get up with the
dawn. Maybe by then the storm will have passed.”

She stares at his face, looking
at his tired eyes and drops the subject. “Okay, fine. But first thing in the
morning, we’re out of here.”

“Exactly,” he replies. “On my
mark, run as fast as you can.”

“All right,” she gives a little
shake of her head.

“Now,” he says and stands,
hitting the pavement with intent.

At the first sign of movement,
the dead twist their heads. A great shuffling wall of bodies move, drawn to the
sound of wet, slapping feet. The sound of wet clothes and rigid bones stomp out
through the storm like an army marching toward attack. Deafening howls pierce
the air when the corpses emerge from the shadowed nooks as bees from their
hive. The buzzing hymn of rot and decay shakes the ground, followed by a clap
of thunder as April and Johnny tear off through the street.

“Holy shit!” he stammers as the
dead ooze out from every crevice. “This way, hurry!” he shouts.

A corpse lashes out from beneath
a parked car as Johnny passes, grazing the cuff of his pants, nearly making him
stumble as he dodges the hand. The rasping creature hisses as April vaults over
its arm and lands on the curb a couple of feet away and glances back at the
rotting thing as it scurries out onto the asphalt.

The night sky crashes with
electricity, sending a bolt of lightning across the tops of the high-rises.
April can taste the ozone in the air, mingling with the damp smell of mildew
and moist earth that bombard her senses. Through the flow of water along the
alley, she sprints, splashing up that which the drains refuse to take away.

She’s right at Johnny’s back
when he takes a quick turn into a small alcove between two buildings. Her shoes
slop and squish as the soles slip on the concrete when she turns in to follow
him. They descend along a narrow pathway under the high-rise and into a dark
tunnel, inches deep as it begins to flood.

“Through here,” Johnny says as
he pulls open an iron gate.

April runs through and turns
back in time to see countless bodies stacking up in the narrow corridor.
Shoulder to shoulder, the dead squeeze their way through. As one body falls,
another takes its place, swallowing up the straggler with the sheer mass of
death from the numbering horde.

Johnny pulls at the gate and
closes it, holding on tight until the bodies rush against the obstruction.
There are too many faces to count as they slam into one another, pressing
weight against the strength of the bars. Wide eyed, Johnny steps back as arms
flail through the gaps in the gate.

“We need to secure it with
something,” April Shouts.

Johnny breathes deeply and
smiles, “I think they’re doing a pretty good job of that, themselves.”

She steps back and suddenly
grins, looking over the first row of corpses, up toward the alley, and sees
countless others fighting their way toward the front. With their numbers, the dead
press firmly against the gate, securing it better than any lock.

·10

“This should lead up to the
first floor,” Johnny says, guiding the way up the stairs.

“This was a bad idea,” she
replies. “I knew we should have just kept going.”

“It’ll be fine,” he says, trying
to comfort her.

“How do you figure that?” she
asks, stopping on the stairs to turn and glare at him.

He points his thumb back from
where they came, “That’s not the only way out of here. There are plenty of
emergency exits, not to mention the front doors and the other service tunnels.”

“Did you see how many of them
are out there?” she asks. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t find a way in and kill
us for being so stupid.”

“I’m doing my best here, April,”
he says with a frown.

“I know,” she replies with a
small shake of her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“It’s all right,” he waves off
her apology. “Let’s get upstairs. There’s an employee lounge on the third
level. We should be safe in there for the night.”

On the first floor, Johnny peeks
through the narrow length of window on the door. He waits patiently and
inspects the other side. As he places his hand on the knob, he sees movement. A
faint shadow plays across the hallway, followed by another jerking shadow close
behind.

“There’s someone in there,” he
whispers over his shoulder.

April peeks in from around the
side of the door as a face slams against the glass. Hands bang hard against the
door making her jump back in fear.

“Shit!” Johnny backs away.
“Well, I guess we’re not going that way.” He leads April in front of him by the
shoulder as he watches the door.

With a faint click, the door
inches inward and a corpse begins to lumber through. Behind it, there are three
more bodies closing in.

“Run!” Johnny shouts and pushes
her forward.

“Run to where?!” she says
panicked.

“Up!” he screams.

Their feet bang out against the
steps as the bodies ooze through the doorway. Each floor that they pass has the
same images in the glass. The dead are everywhere, working their way toward the
noise of the desperate pair as they flee.

“What are we going to do?” she
asks.

Johnny keeps pushing her forward
as the bodies slam against the doors at every level. Horrid, gnashing faces
smear against the windows as April and Johnny pass, causing them to keep tight
against the railing as they ascend.

April’s legs are getting weaker
with every flight of stairs. The stinging builds and her calves begin to cramp.
“I have to stop. I can’t keep going,” she pleads with him.