Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel (23 page)

Emma imagines all of the people
who would have packed into the platform, waiting for their respective trains to
arrive. She imagines what it would have been like if the station hadn’t been
shut down for fear of spreading the disease. She imagines that it would have
looked a lot like what happened when her mother was killed.

The images come back like
dreams, flashes of pictures in her mind that make her tremble inside. She sees
her mother flash before the slit in the blanket, feels herself being tossed
around, and hears the rasping moans of the dead. She shivers from the memories.

Emma watches the stout man pull
at the doors of the train station. Sweat beads up along his face as he wrenches
the handle and places his foot on the doorframe for leverage. He slams his fist
against the glass. “Why won’t you fucking open?!”

“I’m pretty sure because it’s
locked,” the woman says. “Look, we’re obviously not going to get in this way.
Why don’t you give me a lift to that window up there, maybe its unlocked?”

The man breathes heavily, “Yeah,
sure.”

He interlaces his hands together
and bends down to one knee. With very little effort, he is able to lift the
woman to the window ledge.

She fumbles with the frame,
lacing her fingers under the trim and pulls with all her strength. Slowly, the
window begins to open outward. When enough space is afforded and she is
confident that she can fit through the space she has created, she lifts herself
up and slides between the window and the frame. Her legs dangle for a second as
she turns over and pulls on something inside the room, heaving herself inside.

The rest of the group waits
patiently in silence for the woman to appear. There is a shrill scream coupled
with loud bangs and finally, splintering glass. Someone crashes through the half
opened window, flails in midair, and falls to the ground below.

A resounding crack is heard as
the person lands on the side of their face, twisting their head at a disturbing
angle, and breaks their neck.

Emma jumps back a few feet as
the body lands and begins to convulse. Its arm spasms and its shoulders twitch
for a few seconds before it finally lays still. The group is wide eyed and
staring as the body stops moving.

The group converges around the
corpse, afraid to look at who it might be. The back of its head is a tangled
mess of hair and coagulated blood, showing fragments of skull through sprawling
scalp.

“No…” Emma mouths the words
silently to herself.

“What’s everyone staring at?”
the woman asks from the window. “Get to the doors, I’ll be there in a second,”
she says with a smile.

“Christ, Scarlet! You just about
gave me a goddamn heart attack,” the stout man shakes his head at the lifeless
corpse and tosses a look to the woman.

The boy laughs at the exchange
as he walks next to Emma. “Don’t worry,” he says, “they’re always doing stuff
like that to each other. They say that it cuts the tension.” He shrugs and
smiles at Emma.

“Oh,” Emma answers, not quite
grasping the concept.

Through the sets of glass doors,
they can see Scarlet fishing through the drawers at the security desk. With a
jerk of her hand, she reveals a key ring and dangles it in front of herself for
everyone to see.

Within seconds, Scarlet is at
the door, fumbling with the keys until she finds one that fits the lock.
There’s a faint click as she pushes on the door, but it is still stuck and will
not open. The stout man points down toward the floor and taps on the glass with
his other hand to make sure she sees him.

“Thanks, Greg,” Scarlet says,
her words muffled between the glass.

She pulls the lever at the
bottom of one of the doors and opens it inward. “Come on in, and don’t mind the
mess in the bathroom,” she says with a smile.

Greg chuckles, “You really need
to start announcing it before you throw a zombie through the window that looks
almost exactly like your twin.”

“No problem.” She grins. “I’ll
just say, ‘body at twelve o’clock’, so you won’t get me confused with a rotting
skin sack.” She shakes her head, looks to Emma and kneels down to eyelevel, “We
really should thank you for what you did back there. That was some good
thinking, using a toy car to distract those things. So what’s your name?”

“Emma,” she says.

“Nice to meet you, Emma,” the
woman extends her hand and brushes the child’s hair from her face. “I’m Scarlet
and that is Greg,” she says, pointing to the stout man. “And this here is
Billy.” She grins. “He’s our leader.”

The boy gives a wide smile,
“She’s just kidding, of course.”

“Of course,” Emma replies.

“But it
was
his idea to
use the flashlight to signal you,” Scarlet says. “And without that, we’d all
still be sitting there waiting for the food to run out.”

“Ah, it was nothin’,” Billy
blushes.

“So what was a young lady like
you doing out there all alone?” Scarlet asks.

“I was heading east like my
grandpa told me to,” Emma replies. “He said to go toward the forest and the
mountains. He said I would be safer there.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Greg
agrees. “It would be a hell of a lot better than sticking around the city with
enough corpses to give the Chinese Army a run for their money.”

“What happened to your
grandpa…?” Billy asks.

“He died,” Emma replies,
lowering her gaze to the floor. “I… I couldn’t do anything.”

“Of course you couldn’t,
sweetie.” Again, Scarlet brushes the hair out of the child’s face. “There’s
nothing any of us could do.”

“Hey, there’s a man out there,”
Billy says, guiding everyone’s attention to the street entrance on the other
side of the station.

“No, it’s just another skin sack,”
Greg says, watching the way the man staggers.

“I think he’s right, Greg,”
Scarlet says as she runs to the door with the keys jangling in her hand. “That
guy’s alive.” She unbolts the door and searches through the ring for the key that
fits the security gate. “Hey! Over here!” she yells.

The man stumbles and turns his
head. He looks out of breath, and at the edge of collapsing. He drags his feet
in exhaustion and trips. He catches himself and staggers a few more feet as
Scarlet unlocks the gate.

Greg squeezes through once the
gate is wide enough to accommodate his girth. “Why do I think I’m going to
regret this?” he says, sliding around the protrusion. Nervously, he scans his
surroundings, keeping a watchful eye on the dead as they scurry toward the man
on the street. “Hey, buddy, you okay?”

Johnny looks up to the man with
glassy eyes. “I’m fine… I just…” He stumbles and Greg catches him.

“I got ya,” he says, lifting
Johnny beneath his arms.

As the dead near, Greg quickens
his step, almost dragging Johnny along with him. A paranoid feeling makes the
hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention as he can almost feel their
rotten fingers graze his back. He shakes it off as he trudges forward with new
found strength.

“Hurry, Greg!” Scarlet shouts as
she pushes the gate open a little farther.   

He turns Johnny around and
places his hands under the man’s arms and drags him through the front door.
Once inside, Greg places Johnny on the cool floor and helps Scarlet with the
gate. Bodies approach with vigor, raising their acrid voices as they close in
on the entry. With a grinding clank, Greg and Scarlet manage to close the security
gate as a corpse reaches out. The body lurches forward and inches its fingers
between the clasps of the gate.

“Push!” Greg shouts, his face
reddening from exertion.

With a snap, the creature’s
fingers are clipped off between the bars. Scarlet twists the key, locking the mechanism,
and quickly closes the glass door as the creature gnashes out at the barrier.

“Too close,” Greg pants. “
Too
close!”

Scarlet leans down in front of
the man and places the palm of her hand on his forehead. “He’s burning up,” she
says to the others. She gazes down at him and looks into his fluttering eyes.
“You’re going to be just fine. What’s your name?”

“John…” he breathes, his tongue
clicks against the roof of his mouth.

“Okay, John, just rest. You’re
safe now,” she says in a low voice, trying to comfort him. “We’re going to need
some water.” She turns her attention to Greg. “He’s really dehydrated.”

“I’m on it,” Greg replies,
scoping out the terminal.

“Um, guy’s,” Billy says, staring
at the front entrance, “they’re coming.”

In unison the group stops what
they’re doing and turns toward the doors. Decrepit faces gather in the glare,
blotting out the sun, obliterating the reflection in the glass. Hands grasp at
the bars, smearing their waste along in tiny strokes through the crisscross
patterns of the security gate.

“Good Lord!” Scarlet exclaims.
“Is it going to hold?”

“I have a feeling we’re going to
find out,” Greg replies from the row of vending machines along the terminal
wall.

The dead begin to pull at the
obstruction, making the steel gate clank against the door supports. A corpse
bites at the bars, dislodging a few front teeth in the process, causing the
incisors to stick to the metal and course their way downward along a thick
trail of waste.

“We’ve got to go, we have to hide,”
Billy pulls at Emma’s shirt.

“It’ll be fine,” Emma says,
staring at the dead. “We have to stay with the others, they might need our
help.”

The boy gives a quick nod, “Yeah,
okay,” and cowers behind the girl, looking over her shoulder at the creatures.

“Hey, kids,” Greg says, noticing
their agitation. “Why don’t you go in the back? I’m sure there’re all sorts of
things to play with back in the offices.” He feigns a smile.

“But what if they get through?”
Emma asks.

“Ah, don’t worry about that.” He
waves his hand dismissively. “They’re not going to get through all that steel,”
he says with a nervous laugh.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Billy says,
grabbing onto Emma’s shirt again.

The boy pulls Emma along as she
looks back to the adults for reassurance.

“Go ahead, we’ll be fine,”
Scarlet says.

“See? It’s okay, let’s go,”
Billy tells Emma.

Reluctantly, she follows him
into the office area, signs of worry crossing her face as she goes. She knows
very well what that many dead can do, she’s seen it firsthand. She glances back
over her shoulder again at the mass of the dead shaking the gate fiercely and
gives off a little sigh, reserved to do what she’s been told.

Greg kicks out the Plexiglas on
one of the vending machines and roots around behind the narrow grid until he pops
the lever to open the machine fully. He fishes through the grates and comes up
with a couple of bottles of water. Satisfied with his find, he brings the
bottles to Scarlet.

As he hands off the water, he
asks, “So what do you think? Will it hold?”

“God, I hope so,” she replies
with a worried look. “There aren’t many places we could run if it doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” he replies, placing the
second bottle of water on the floor next to Johnny.

“So what kind of stuff do you
carry in there?” Billy asks, eyeing Emma’s pack.

“Just the usual kinds of stuff,”
she says with a shrug.

“Like what?” he asks.

“Um, well,” she begins, routing
through her pack. “I have a wilderness survival guide.”

“Eww, a book?!” Billy looks sickened.
“Books aren’t any fun” He shakes his head.

“Sure they are,” she replies.
“They tell you all sorts of things that are very helpful.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks
sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“No, they really do,” she opens
the book. “Like this here,” she points down at one of the pages, “this shows how
to build a campfire in the snow. And there’s an entire chapter on plants and
stuff you can eat if you’re stranded in the woods.”

“But we’re not in the woods, so
I guess your book’s kind of pointless.”

“No it’s not,” she protests. “A
lot of the plants that grow in the forest also grow here in the city, but
people kill them because they think they’re weeds.”

“Still sounds dumb and boring.”
Billy shrugs.

“What’s dumb and boring is
not
having a book like this.”

Billy changes the subject with a
shrug of his shoulders. “That gun’s pretty cool,” he says with a bright smile,
eyeing the shiny rifle slung across her back.

“Do you know how to shoot?” she
asks.

“No,” he says. “My parents
wouldn’t have let me have a gun.”

“See? If you read this book, you
would know how to aim and load it. You would also know how important it is to
keep it oiled.”

“Really?” he asks, his face
brightening.