Z Children (Book 1): Awakening (4 page)

“Mom.” Marcel’s
voice was low and full of unmasked fear.

My head
swiveled, turning to look at what held my children’s attention. The mostly
glass door and the large, adjacent windows making up the front of Dr. Lynn’s
building seemed little barrier between us and the blood-covered children and
brutalized adults. They were pushing against each other, pushing against the
glass, small hands made red, smeared prints. The parents had succumbed; even
that father, so determined to save his Tessa, stood in the crowd filled with
void eyes.

I saw Nurse
Kayla in the center of the undulating, sickly huddle. She was the largest; her
stomach, now bulging out of the button-up scrubs, pushed a red-haired child’s
face against the window. The child was trying to futilely shift his head
sideways, his mouth ferociously snapping open and closed, trying to bite at the
fat body pinning him down.

“Get in the
car,” I said again, trying to keep my voice calm. “Dad, get them in the car.”

My dad opened
the rear door and literally picked Marcel and Sophia up and tossed them onto
the backseat. I watched them scramble inside, each getting seated in their
booster and buckling- Marcel on my side of the car, Sophia on the opposite. My
dad started limping around the car. Just as I was turning the key in the
ignition and he was closing his door, I heard the shattering of glass and a
distinct tinkling that said: barrier broken, glass falling on concrete,
seriously demented, flesh-eating children and adults escaping.

I backed out of
the parking space, my eyes flitting between the car mirrors and the doctor’s
office. Were they people? What the hell was going on? The children seemed to
move a little faster than the shambling adults, their younger bodies apparently
more agile and resilient to whatever was affecting them. Many of them were
small enough to squeeze around the slow-moving adults and exit the building
first, avoiding some of the sharpest shards of window glass.

I watched Nurse
Kayla fall as others pushed to escape the building. The great mass of her body
fell against the angled stalagmites of window glass. An especially tall shard
exited the center of her back; her blood wasn’t normal looking. It was nearly
brown on the glass and then it oxidized quickly and turned into wet, shiny
obsidian. Nurse Kayla thrashed about like a large, beached whale. The
red-haired boy she’d been pinning against the glass stayed behind as the rest
of the ‘people’ pushed to freedom. He crouched down on top of her body, making
small jumps on her back to shove her down against the spiked glass. Nurse Kayla
did not scream, as if she felt no pain, but it must hurt…
surely it must
hurt?

The boy seemed
to lose interest quickly, crawling off the still-flailing body of the nurse and
joining the crowd pursuing Bessie. His face tilted slightly upward as his nose
tried to catch the lingering scent that was our uninfected flesh. I was pulling
out of the lot now, watching the shambling bodies in the rearview. Some were
close enough to bang the trunk with curled, stained hands. We all screamed as
Sophia’s door was wrenched open. The boy—the boy that had attacked the newborn
babe—launched himself into the car; his body landed on the floorboards between
Sophia and Marcel’s feet. In my panic, I jerked the steering wheel, jolting my
passengers, but the sharp movement kept the murderous boy on the rough
carpeting a few moments longer.

My dad, not the
most limber man on the planet, shoved himself over the center armrest between
our seats. His arms strained for the boy who was now trying to crawl toward
Marcel, his mouth already wide open and reaching for skin. The kid had on
striped pants and bright yellow suspenders against a white polo shirt. He was
dressed for success and I got the feeling his parents banked on the best for
their kid—all name brands and private schools—hoping he would grow up
successful and spread the wealth, maybe even choose one of the nicer nursing
homes to dump mom and dad in when that time came.

Two strong hands
gripped those brightly colored suspenders and lifted the boy off the carpet.
“Kids, pick your feet up. Get them out of the way!” Sophia and Marcel both
yanked up their legs, perching their shoes on the edge of the booster seats,
obeying their grandpa without question. All the while, the boy growled and
moved erratically.

The car was
still moving; I didn’t want anyone…
anything
else to try and get into the
car. Sophia and Marcel’s eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, bulging out
of their sockets. Without being asked, Sophia pushed her already ajar door wide
and my dad simultaneously pendulum-swung the boy out. His body flew in a low
arc, his head slamming against the metal doorsill as he exited the vehicle by
force.

The impact
caused the boy’s head to bust open like a piñata,
brown-quickly-oxidizing-to-black wetness oozing out. Several droplets flew into
the air, catching Sophia in the face. I hit the gas, going from ten miles an
hour to fifty, leaving the unmoving carcass of the yellow-suspendered boy and
the rest of the rabid, slow-moving bunch behind us.

I slowed down as
we entered the elementary school zone, the yellow lights weren’t flashing, but
slowing was habit. At first glance, the school, offset from the road by a wide
partition of grass and the student drop-off lane, looked normal. After closer
study, my heart did a free-fall into my stomach and the need to vomit came back
with a vengeance. The windows were plastered with children, beating themselves
against the glass, trying to exit the building. The main entrance was propped
open, the school office likely taking advantage of the fall breeze, but those
double doors, let things in
and out.

I pushed my foot
down, compressing the gas and speeding up rapidly. Children were flooding out
onto the lawn. A few kids seemed healthy, normal, running as quickly as they
could from the voracious appetites of their demonic counterparts. The looks on
their faces made my stomach roil with acidic anxiety; the ‘I need to vomit’
feeling intensified. I was suddenly yanked in two directions; my mother’s
instinct wanting to get my own children to safety as soon as possible, but also
wanting to rescue those few kids running from the Reaper.

But I knew that
I couldn’t get to them in time; even if I turned the steering wheel to the
right and barreled over the grass partition at full speed, it would be too
late. Or maybe that’s just what I was telling myself, relieving my mind of the guilt
I felt from not trying to help them, those kids that obviously needed saving.
My priorities were in the car; I had to protect Sophia, Marcel and my dad at
all costs. No one in the world could rank above the three people sitting inside
Bessie with me. If that made me a terrible person, oh well.

I was driving
fast now and had there been a cop nearby, I knew I’d see flashing blue lights,
but I didn’t, so I kept driving fast and furiously through the streets. I
headed for our house outside town limits. The neighbors didn’t have children;
we should be safe there for a while. I hoped.

When I pulled
into the driveway of our little house, I saw no activity in the three other
homes nearby. That should have struck me as odd. About this hour every day, Mr.
Roseburn should be outside raking leaves. He was neurotic about that, hating
each individual leaf that fell onto his pristine lawn. This past summer, he’d
even had four perfectly healthy trees removed, just to minimize the falling
leaves that would plague him in autumn. He’d wanted to cut down a large tree on
my property and hadn’t been pleased when I’d told him no.

I idled for a
moment, waiting for the automatic door to rise and reveal the small single-car
space, then I pulled Bessie into the garage. I hurried my children and father
out of the car and up the concrete stairs and into the house; all I wanted in
that moment was to have the garage door down and our house door bolted, a
tactile barrier between ourselves and whatever the hell was going on in the outside
world. As I was threading the chain lock, Sophia and Marcel started untying
their shoes.

“No, leave them
on,” I barked, quickly realizing my tone was not soothing, “I don’t know how
long we’re going to stay in the house, so leave your shoes on. Okay?” Their
little heads nodded in unison. “How about going into the kitchen and getting a
snack. I just re-stocked the treat drawer.” We had a small drawer that was only
opened as a reward for good behavior. It had sugary, chocolate-coated granola
bars, puddings and single-serve packs of cookies. Sophia loved the peanut
butter filled cookies; Marcel was more a butterscotch pudding guy.

They raced off
toward the promise of a sweet treat and I turned to my dad. I didn’t need to
say anything for him to understand the questions warring inside my head. “Maybe
there’s something on the news?” he said, his voice sounding like he actually
was calm instead of just trying to put up a good façade like me.

“Yeah,” I took a
deep, centering breath, “that’s a good idea.”

We only had one
small television; I’d never let the kids watch much TV—just Saturday morning
cartoons and a kid’s channel movie now and then. For the most part, we’d go to
our town library after school every Wednesday, listen to story time and rent a
film from the small collection. Sophia and Marcel had gotten in the habit of
picking the same movies over and over again. It got a bit tedious, but at least
I could be sure the movies were clean; so if I were cleaning or concentrating
on something else, I didn’t have to worry about language or distasteful
content.

The television
came to life with a crackle; I really should replace the thing, but money was
tight and until it broke completely…

“
…reports are
coming in from all over the country…
”

My dad flipped
the channel, heading toward what he considered the most reliable news source.

“
A beloved
Pediatrician, Dr. Bush, was found dead this morning by local police inside his
ransacked office outside…
”

Click.

“
…CDC is
scrambling to figure out what is affecting the U.S. population and why the
epidemic has not touched other countries, but…
”

Click.

“
…bitten,
please immediately report to the nearest hospital or…
”

Click. The hand
holding the remote lowered to my dad’s side and rested against his thigh.

“
People have
described the attackers as rabid, animalistic…the ‘living dead.’ Authorities
have no answers as we enter into the fifth hour past the first reports of the
rapidly spreading infection. The CDC has offered one preliminary finding—that
there is no patient zero. There are patients, thousands of young children
ranging in age from four to six, originating the sickness. It seems to spread
through bodily fluid exchange. If you are bitten or come into contact with
blood, saliva or any other fluid from one of the ‘infected,’ report to an
emergency care center immediately.

“
We do not
know what has caused the children to fall ill, but we are being assured that
Washington is doing everything in its power to halt the epidemic. There seems
to be no prejudice in victims of the infection. The CDC has asked us to help
our viewers recognize the warning signs of, what the government has coined, a
‘Z child’ or an infected adult. Be on the lookout for vague expressions with
eyes that might be coated in an opaque blue-white film, a graying of the skin
with some signs of post-mortem decay, primal behavior, such as an increased use
of olfactory senses and heightened saliva production, causing the appearance of
excessive drooling.

“
The infected
will not respond to social settings, recognize their names or react to
negotiation. Their only drive seems to be the most basic need: to satisfy
hunger. They are ferocious, unrelenting and dogged in their pursuits. Do not be
fooled by the childlike appearance of the Z children or the friends’ faces that
may mask the Z infected adults. They are not your children or your friends.
They are, in the words of two eye witnesses, zombies.

“
Get to a
safe location, secure food and water. Our team at Channel Nine is dedicated to
bringing our viewers the most up-to-date information on this unfolding national
crisis.
”

“What’s a…
Z
child
?” a high voice said quietly behind me. My dad quickly turned off the
television.

“Nothing,
sweetheart.” I walked toward Sophia and knelt down. “It’s nothing you need to
worry about.”

Then I saw the
dried blood on her face and my heart plummeted into my stomach. I picked her up
and rushed toward our only bathroom. The door was closed. “Mom, Marcel’s going
potty.” She grunted as I turned quickly, ran into the kitchen and plopped her
butt on the counter next to the sink. “Mom…what’s wrong?” Her voice was
anxious.

“I just want to
clean your face off. It has some dirt on it.” My dad was beside me now, already
wetting a paper towel and handing it to me.

“It’s not near
her mouth, Suz.” He placed a hand on my shoulder as I wiped the dried black
blood from Sophia’s face. I didn’t realize I was shaking until his grip
steadied me.

“Yeah.” I sighed
in relief. “You’re right. It just freaked me out.”

Sophia didn’t
say anything; she just gave me a quick kiss and hopped off the counter. Amazing
how resilient children are.