Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 2) Read online

  Now she was sad she was so normal that she couldn’t even ride a bike for a day.

  Why hadn’t she spent more time trying to be better than average? Better than ordinary? Why hadn’t she spent more time trying to get fit or to be better than she was?

  Why had Alice settled for “good enough” when she could have been great?

  “Don’t do it,” Kyle whispered.

  “Don’t do what?” She snapped.

  “Don’t think about taking the cars,” Mark said. “Owners are home.” He pointed at the front door, and Alice noticed the barbed wire that lined the ground outside. The windows were boarded up and there was a small hole in one of them where she thought she might see an eyeball. Was someone watching them?

  She didn’t have time to think about it because a shot sounded, and she realized the house was, in fact, occupied.

  “Run!” Kyle shouted, and Alice hopped on the bike and started pedaling again, sore bum be damned.

  ***

  Another mile down the road was a small gas station that had, unlike the rest of the road, signs of infection.

  “For being a random-ass stop on the road to nowhere, there are a lot of fucking undead,” Mark muttered. They kept riding their bikes, ignoring the lurkers who were wandering around the parking lot.

  “Bet there’s still a bunch of food inside,” Alice commented.

  “You want to weave your way through those guys?” Kyle asked.

  “You might be surprised to hear this, but I’m quite sprightly,” Alice told him. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be an issue.” He chuckled, but she kept looking at the gas station. She eyed the dozen or so Infected walking around the parking lot. There were more inside. She could see through the windows, and the parking lot was full of cars.

  Lots and lots and lots of cars.

  So the virus had spread. Confirmed. It wasn’t just Holbrook. They were miles outside of town now, and there were more and more signs of it. She wondered how far most people had gotten before the roads became blocked, before the virus got people in town. How many people had managed to escape? How many had managed to save their families?

  Were the big cities worse? Were lots of people trapped inside? How much warning had people had that something like this was going to happen? Had there been any warning?

  “I’m seeing cars, you guys,” Kyle said. “I don’t know about you, Mark, but I’m about done with biking to safety.”

  “Yeah, I can’t take much more,” Alice agreed. She ignored the look of disappointment Mark sent her way. He wasn’t trying to be a jackass, she reminded herself. He was used to soldiers. He was used to people who were in better shape, who could move quickly in groups.

  She and Kyle were not his people.

  Alice looked at Mark and waited. He was their leader. They were a team, but he was their leader and they all knew it.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “You know, I’m a bit tired of bikes myself. What’ll it be, boys?” He rubbed his hands together, eyeing the cars.

  Alice raised an eyebrow.

  “You know what I mean,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she pushed her shoulders back and looked at the cars. “I know what you mean.”

  Chapter 8

  The gas station was a haven for the Infected, it seemed.

  Life in rural America wasn’t interesting, as far as Kyle could tell. It seemed boring and there wasn’t much to do besides chase your cows or go shooting. What if you wanted to go to the movies? What if you wanted to get a new video game when it released at midnight? What if you wanted to go to restaurants? How could you do any of that?

  Then again, maybe none of that other stuff mattered if you had a quiet place to live and some good quality Wi-Fi.

  There was a part of him that thought it might be nice to hide away in the countryside with his video games and computers and solitude.

  There was a part of him that thought it might be nice not to be around people all the time.

  There was a part of him that thought it might be nice to just be alone.

  But he wasn’t alone, not now, and probably wouldn’t be again for a very long time.

  And at the moment, what Kyle wanted more than solitude was the beat-up red Pontiac Sunfire sitting to the right of the gas station doors.

  He didn’t want to use his bullets right now. Who knew when he’d get more? He had a box and a half left of ammo, but that didn’t mean anything. If he found himself in a tricky situation, he’d want to be able to shoot. He’d want to be able to get out of there as quickly as possible, with as little fuss as possible.

  He shouldn’t use them now.

  “That one,” he pointed to the Sunfire. “We should get that one.”

  “No offense, kid,” Mark said. “But I don’t think we exactly get to choose which car we want. You know how to hotwire one?”

  “I think we’ve already established that I don’t.” After Alice had crashed her car on Saturday, they’d been screwed because none of them happened to have that particular skill. Apparently, stealing cars wasn’t as easy as it looked on television.

  “What should we do?” Alice asked quietly. “Should we just, you know, kill them all and then search their pockets for keys?”

  “Seventeen, I counted,” Mark said. “You think we can take them on our own?”

  “Might as well try,” Alice said. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

  Kyle nodded and tucked his gun in his waistband. He should get a holster. He could totally pull off the tech-guy-turned-bad-boy look if he got a holster. His hair was going to start growing out, longer than it already was, and he would look even more badass with a holster.

  He grabbed a hammer from the bike trailer and, without looking at Alice or Mark, headed toward the nearest undead, ready to take it out. He walked quickly, with determination. He was a man on a mission. He was a man who knew what needed to be done, and he was just the one to do it.

  He picked a young man for his first target, or the remains of a young man. Kyle guessed he was about 20, maybe 21 when he died, when he came back to life. The guy was in piss-poor shape. Open wounds and bites covered his arms and his foot was at a weird angle to the rest of his body.

  This wasn’t going to be much of a challenge, but after this weekend, Kyle could do with a little bit of a break. The Infected shuffled toward Kyle, obviously sensing what was about to happen. Maybe these things were smarter than they looked after all. Kyle raised the hammer, and when the zombie got close enough, he slammed it into the side of the boy’s head.

  The connection was instantaneous. He hadn’t missed. He’d gone for the brain, the way you were supposed to, and the Infected collapsed on the ground. There were a few other zombies mulling around and the sound of Kyle killing the boy had piqued their interest. They began moving toward him, slowly at first, but a couple of them were faster.

  Kyle would search for keys later. He grabbed the hammer from the skull. It came out easily. He’d hit the kid hard and damaged most of the bone, shattered it. Blood dripped from the end of the hammer, but Kyle didn’t care. He was ready for this, ready for what was going to happen next.

  He didn’t see or care what Mark and Alice were doing. Maybe they were killing, too. Maybe they were just watching. He was too busy with his mission, too interested in finishing what he’d started, too intent on making this happen his way.

  Kyle had gone through too much in his short life to be happy with what was happening. He was never one of those nerds who hoped the apocalypse would come so he could survive it.

  Fuck surviving.

  Fuck the undead.

  It had been two days and he was already sick of what was happening. He was already tired of feeling sweaty and gross and hungry. He was tired of feeling like he was a stupid tech guy who didn’t have any real-world skills. He was already tired of feeling like a loser who hadn’t been able to get into the military because his lungs were too messed up.

  He was tired, and he was ready to r
elieve some stress by killing those which were already dead.

  “You shouldn’t be alive!” He screamed and hit another infected with his hammer. That time, he missed the brain. The Infected reached for his arm and grabbed him. The creature’s cold fingers wrapped around his arm, chilling him to the bone.

  Their eyes met.

  Kyle felt sick.

  The Infected’s eyes were bloodshot and swollen. Kyle wondered what kind of man the creature had been when he was alive. Had he been a good man? A bored man? A tired man? Was he a family man or was he a loner? Was he an absent father? Was he a good friend?

  More importantly, why the fuck did Kyle care now?

  He jerked his arm free and hit the zombie again. This time, the hit rang home. The zombie growled as it died for real and hit the ground with a sound of finality. Oh, that sound felt good to Kyle’s ears.

  He sensed the presence of another one behind him and he jerked around just as a grandmotherly-type reached for him. No way, no how: he was not dying by Grandma’s hand today. He realized too late he had left the hammer impaled in the second zombie’s head and that now, he had nothing to fight with.

  “Hey, slick!” He turned and caught the crowbar Mark tossed his way.

  “Thanks. Where’d you get it?” Kyle asked as he took out the old woman. She was easy, and he began to feel better about himself and his fighting prowess. He’d never been confident before, never felt like he was good at anything, but this?

  He could get used to this.

  He hit another Infected and smiled as the body fell to the ground in a pile. A fifth one approached, and he took down that one, as well. His arm was starting to hurt, but he didn’t care. He was on fire. He was on a roll.

  “Grabbed it from one of the cars,” Mark said. “Hurry up, will you? We’re ready to go.”

  Kyle grabbed the crowbar from the body and turned back to his friends, who had apparently been much faster at taking out their own set of zombies than he had been. The gas station parking lot was littered with bodies and the Infected who were inside the station couldn’t seem to get out of the glass doors.

  “That won’t hold them forever,” Alice murmured. Kyle and Mark started searching for keys and came up with sets for the Honda Accord and the Sunfire. Kyle noticed Mark was pocketing the money from wallets as they searched for keys.

  “You never know when you’re going to need it,” Mark said, as if that explained everything.

  “Dibs on the fire,” Kyle said in response, taking the keys from Mark. He was glad when Mark didn’t protest, when the man simply let him take the keys. Maybe Mark could sense that Kyle needed this. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter.

  Quickly, they unloaded the bike trailers into the trunks, taking all of their water bottles, snacks, and random supplies. Kyle kept looking over his shoulder as they worked. He wasn’t even sure why, except that he was nervous someone had heard all the noise. They had been loud when they killed those Infected. They hadn’t silenced their attack.

  Would someone come see what the fuss was about?

  Would someone want to come and check to see who the newcomers were?

  No, that was silly: ridiculous, even.

  No one cared about a bunch of gas station zombies-turned-corpses.

  Kyle looked at the doors to the station, where several zombies were pushing and shoving against the glass. He bet it was going to break soon.

  He bet no one even missed them.

  Chapter 9

  Mark went to the corpse that had overalls on and kicked it with his foot. The corpse rolled, almost obediently. He barely had to touch it. Mark squatted down and checked its pockets, trying to think of it only as a zombie and not as a human. If he thought about it as a man, as a former person, his heart might not be able to handle it. Mark had learned long ago to separate those feelings, to separate the living from the dead.

  This was no longer a person.

  It was no longer someone’s son, someone’s father, someone’s lover.

  It was only a thing, only something that could be broken and tossed away. It was only a body. It was only a pile of clothes and skin. Nothing more.

  It was nothing more.

  He pulled the wallet from the body. Despite the heat, the leather was cool in his hand. He pulled the cash from the wallet and shoved it in his pocket. There wasn’t much, but a little bit would add up quickly, and he had learned long ago to take advantage of any resource he could. He wasn’t under the impression he’d be able to use cash anytime soon, but he planned to save it up as he found it, just in case.

  Then Mark looked at the driver’s license and checked the address.

  “What are you doing?” Alice asked.

  “Finding us a place to live,” Mark held up the license and tapped the address. The zombies inside the gas station were getting louder, more anxious to escape. The glass was starting to sound weak, like it could break at any moment, and he knew they didn’t have long. Still, he tried to stay calm, tried to keep his head together.

  “Because he’s dead,” she said, her voice filled with awe as she realized what Mark was saying. “Because we already know he’s dead and the house is going to be empty.”

  “Maybe he has a family,” Kyle said.

  “Or maybe they’re still inside the gas station,” Mark said quietly.

  The three of them turned at looked at the littlest people infected by the death plague, their tiny hands pounding on the inside of the glass.

  It was time to go.

  Mark reached into the corpse’s pocket and pulled out its keys. The key ring was much too full, in Mark’s opinion. No one needed a tiny troll on their keychain. They just didn’t.

  “Follow us,” Mark said to Kyle, who nodded and went to the Pontiac Sunfire. It roared to life and Kyle pulled out of the parking spot and to the side of the lot, ready to follow their lead when they pulled out of the parking lot.

  Mark headed to the Honda and climbed in the passenger seat.

  “You’re going to let me drive?” Alice said, surprised.

  “Why wouldn’t I let you drive?”

  “Because I crashed my fucking car the other day. What if I crash this one, too?”

  “Do you often get in wrecks, Alice?”

  “Well, no, but…” Her voice trailed off, and he knew what she wanted to say. He knew she was going to say she was scared, that she was worried she’d kill them both. She was going to say she didn’t want to mess this up for them, that he should just drive because it would be safer, but Mark was not going to let her play the victim.

  “Drive the car, Alice.”

  He closed his door and waited while she came to grips with what was happening, then got in the car.

  “Do you know where this is?” He asked her, showing her the address.

  “390 432nd Street,” she read aloud.

  “I wasn’t paying attention to street signs while we walked,” he admitted, miffed and a little embarrassed to say it out loud. That was part of who he was: Mark was a watcher, a thinker. He was good at catching details other people missed, and he was a little humiliated he hadn’t paid attention to this one.

  “I don’t know which way to go,” she said. “I can’t remember if the intersecting streets have been going up or down. We’re on Marshall Road and the intersecting roads have all been numbers. I can’t remember what the last one was, though.”

  She sounded stressed, tense. They didn’t have time to over think this, though. They had taken their time killing, but now it was time to leave. Now it was time to move.

  They heard a sound. The glass was breaking. The zombies that occupied the interior of the gas station were starting to step out of the building and into the fading sunlight.

  “Time to go,” Mark said. “What’s your guess, Alice?”

  “East,” she said. “We should keep going east.”

  “Drive east, then,” he said, and she turned the car out of the parking lot and onto the gravel road. She drove quickly, bu
t with skill that told him she’d been on gravel before. She kept the car at an even 40, not going too fast or slow, but when they neared the next road, she slowed so they could read the sign.

  “410th,” Mark said. “We should keep driving.”

  They kept going and going. The car had a half tank of gas, which Mark was grateful for, but he hoped it would last long past them finding the house. They needed to catch a break and right now, it felt like they just weren’t. He half-expected the car to break down before they made it to the guy’s place, but he shouldn’t think like that. He really should be more positive, he knew.

  That was always one of his ex-wife’s complaints. She always said he was negative all the time, but she didn’t understand what it was like to be in the U.S. Army. She didn’t understand that he couldn’t play Happy Husband and pretend everything was all right when he had lives on the line. He had to look after his men and that meant evaluating situations with honesty.

  If something wasn’t right, if something was too much of a risk, he had to be honest about it even when it meant changing the course of a mission or when it meant abandoning the mission altogether.

  Then again, maybe she’d been right. Maybe that was why their marriage had failed. Even now, after reintegrating into civilian life, he still wasn’t happy. Maybe he never would be. He wasn’t sure.

  Alice drove, but didn’t talk, and Mark was grateful for that. He didn’t really have anything to say and he doubted she did, either. What was there to talk about, anyway?

  Hey, you smell like death. Maybe you should shower.

  Hey, so what did it feel like to kill that first one?

  Hey, what do you think is going to happen to use?

  Hey, how long do you think we’re going to make it until we die?

  He didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to sit back and relax and close his eyes with the air conditioning blowing on him until they got to this dead guy’s house. He fucking hoped it was empty like he thought it would be. He hoped the guy didn’t live with his elderly mom or a family who was hoping he’d come home.