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

  He couldn’t do that.

  Not today.

  He couldn’t show up on this doorstep and look for a place to stay and have a family still be in there. He couldn’t be that guy. He couldn’t get some woman’s hopes up that her son or husband or boyfriend had come home after all this time, then crush her soul when she saw the look on Mark’s face.

  He refused.

  He wasn’t sure when they’d arrive or how much longer they had to go. There was no GPS system in the car and his phone had died long ago. He should have packed a fucking car charger, but in his rush to leave the apartment building, Mark hadn’t grabbed much.

  Now he wished they’d taken their time, but it was a moot point. At the time, they were focused on escaping. They were focused on getting out. They were focused on survival. Now they were in the clear, sort of, he wondered how long it was going to be before they got bored and wanted to watch a movie. How long was it going to be before they wanted books? How long was it going to be before they wanted to draw or explore or go for a walk without worrying about dying?

  He glanced at the bike in the back seat. They’d managed to fit one in there, but only one, and there was no way a bike was going to fit in the Sunfire. At least they had the one bike. If Mark wanted to be alone, he’d be able to take a solitary bike ride down the road. Hopefully, it would enable him to be fast enough to escape from a group of Infected. They’d only seen small groups so far, but he knew there would be bigger ones, especially as the cities ran out of fresh food and the creatures began to leave in search of food.

  When that happened, Mark knew they’d want to be as far away from the cities as possible.

  They’d want to be in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.

  Judging by the emptiness of the road they were on, that was exactly where they were going to be.

  They passed another road.

  “412th,” Alice said. “Looks like we’re headed in the right direction.

  “Good.” Mark didn’t know if he could handle having to go back the way they’d come from. They’d ridden so long that if they had to backtrack, he might lose his fucking mind. Besides, the houses they’d passed on foot had seemingly been occupied. It would be a colossal waste of time to drive back, find that the house on 432nd road did have residents, and have to keep going.

  Darkness was falling quickly and Alice switched the headlights on.

  “No brights,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves,” she murmured. Neither one of them talked as they drove down the road. In the rearview mirror, Mark noticed Kyle keeping up, driving close behind them.

  It was good they had two cars. Having an extra for backup made Mark feel a little better about this fucked up journey they were on.

  A house.

  All they wanted was a damn house.

  Eventually, they’d have to think about securing the perimeter and maybe planting a garden, but for now?

  For now Mark just wanted a break. He wanted to drown himself in a bottle of whiskey and pass out so he didn’t have to live in a world where the dead wouldn’t stay dead.

  He had enough ghosts haunting him without having to kill more.

  He had seen enough death to last him an eternity.

  Chapter 10

  Alice slowed when they reached the right street. Her heart leapt in her chest, but she was quiet. Mark looked like he was about to fall asleep in the passenger seat, and in case he did, she didn’t want to wake him up.

  This was it.

  They were going to find a place to stay, to live.

  She tried not to get too excited, not to get too happy. What if the house was occupied? There was a chance it would be and then they’d be right back where they started. They’d be worse off, actually, since it was starting to rain, and they wouldn’t have a place to stay.

  She slowed the car and made the turn. Driving on a gravel road made her nervous. She didn’t like how easy it was for cars to slip and slide on the little rocks. Kyle slowed behind her, and she saw his car’s wipers start to turn on.

  She thought she’d do the same thing, but instantly, realized she’d made the wrong choice. It wasn’t raining hard enough that she didn’t need fluid, and apparently her car was out. The indicator light on the dashboard was off, but she was definitely out. Her wipers screeched as they ran across the windshield, smearing dirt and moisture so it was nearly impossible to see.

  “Fuck!” She cried out.

  “What is it?” Mark sat up, instantly alert.

  Alice motioned to the windows, and he told her to pull over. They stopped, getting out of the car in the rain, and Kyle pulled up beside them.

  “What’s the problem?” He yelled out the window.

  “Just a little wiper issue. Hang tight.” Mark had it under control. He tore off his shirt and used it to wipe down the window. Then they got back in the car.

  “Later, we’ll add water. It’ll work as wiper fluid until we can find some.”

  “Won’t it freeze when it gets cold?” She thought she remembered something from Driver’s Ed about that. “Aren’t you not supposed to add water?”

  “Aren’t dead people supposed to stay dead?” Mark asked, and Alice was silent after that. She kept driving down the road, thinking about what was going to happen when they finally found the house, but then it happened.

  They found it.

  “There,” she said. She stopped in front of the driveway. The mailbox was painted with the number, and even though the numbers were faded, the address was clear.

  “390,” Mark said. “This is it.”

  “Should I pull into the driveway?”

  “Might as well. They’re going to know we’re here soon enough, and if we stay in the road, we’ll be attracting even more attention.”

  She pulled into the driveway and up to the detached garage. She stopped the car in front of it and got out, bringing her bat with her. She needed a fucking gun and was jealous the guys each had one. It was long past time for her to have a real weapon. The bat was fine, but she could shoot. She made a mental note to focus on figuring out how to get a gun. Maybe one of the corpses at the gas station had one.

  Maybe there’d be one in the house.

  Alice looked up at the two-story farmhouse. It was white, of course, with plain clapboard siding and a big porch with a swing. Mark and Alice eyed the house while Kyle pulled up beside them.

  “No use in being sneaky now,” Mark said. “It’s painfully obvious we’re here. If there’s anyone alive inside, they know we’re here, and no one’s shot yet.”

  “Guess it’s time to bring out the welcome wagon,” Alice mumbled, and walked up to the front door. Kyle walked around the house, checking the perimeter, and Mark came with Alice.

  The porch squeaked beneath her feet, but they could fix those easy enough if they decided to stay. Maybe they’d stay. She hoped they’d stay. The rain was coming down heavier now and it pounded against the roof.

  It was time.

  She rang the doorbell, but nothing happened. Mark stood there silently, his eyes glued to the door. Alice rang the bell once more, but again, nothing happened.

  “Did he have keys?” She asked, and Mark handed her the key ring. She looked at it and burst out laughing. “Tough guy liked trolls, did he?” She shook the keys and the tiny orange-haired doll danced in the air.

  “Be serious,” Mark said, but even he was fighting back a grin.

  Alice tried a couple of keys before one fit, then she turned the deadbolt. A loud click sounded, but she didn’t hear anyone inside.

  “I hope it’s empty,” she said.

  Then she unlocked the lower lock, the one on the knob. She turned the handle and pushed the door open. It swung into darkness, and then they heard the sound.

  “Not empty,” Mark said quietly. “Not empty at all.”

  ***

  Alice was only a teenager when her brother was murdered by his best friend. She still remembere
d the police ringing the doorbell on that rainy night, still remembered the sound her mother made when they told her what had happened.

  The cop’s eyes had been wounded. He didn’t want to be the one who had to go tell this family that their kid was never coming home. He didn’t want to be the one who had to tell this mother that her baby boy was dead, that her son had been brutally murdered. He was just an ordinary cop: just a normal guy trying to do his best every day.

  He probably had his own wife, his own kid, his own problems.

  Still, he’d held Alice’s mother when she collapsed with grief. He’d stroked her hair and hugged her and told her how sorry he was. The guy’s partner tried to get him to stop, mumbled something about appropriate contact or some such, but he had ignored him. He had ignored him and held Mom while she cried, and Alice had never forgotten it.

  The sound Alice and Mark heard when they opened the door was the same one Alice remembered her mother making. It was the same sound she remembered hearing in her dreams for months after Tim’s death. It was the same sound that still, she couldn’t quite shake out of her memory, no matter how much she drank or how much she studied or how much she tried to forget.

  Alice filled her mind with other things so she didn’t have to remember. She filled her mind with movies and music and language. She used her Spanish-learning app every day, hoping a new, strange vocabulary would push away the bad memories, but none of it worked. She thought it had worked, thought she had been making progress, but when they stepped inside the house, she knew it had all been a waste of time.

  “First floor,” Mark said, and walked in the house ahead of Alice. She glanced up the staircase, but knew he was right. The sound hadn’t come from upstairs. It was too close. She closed the door behind them as they entered the house. Mark had a small flashlight, somehow, and he flicked it on.

  “Stay close,” he whispered. He moved quietly through the living room, avoiding things that were strewn across the carpet. Did Mark know he moved with the grace and agility of a predator? He reminded her of a cougar, of some sort of wild cat, of a beast that was aware of its surroundings at all time because not being aware could mean losing its prey.

  Not being aware could mean death.

  Alice stumbled along behind him, feeling large and gangly and clumsy. She wasn’t a tiny woman, but any means, but she also wasn’t a giant. She shouldn’t feel so awkward, but Mark’s over-pronounced agility made her feel like a toddler just learning to walk.

  She nailed her shin on the edge of a coffee table she hadn’t noticed and bit back a groan. Mark heard and turned back to her. He lifted a finger to his lips, then continued stealthily moving through the room.

  When he reached the back of the living room, Alice saw him stop to listen for more sounds in the kitchen.

  The groan they heard came again, closer this time. Yeah, it was definitely coming from the kitchen. Alice tried to push down the nausea that was welling up inside of her. If they had to fight today, she was going to have to deal with the fact that it would bring up bad memories: memories that were best left buried.

  With the dead coming back to life, though, she shouldn’t have been so surprised.

  Mark silently handed her the rifle and took her bat from her. He didn’t have to tell her why. She’d handled guns enough to know that trying to shoot something at close range with a rifle wasn’t going to be easy. Not only was aiming at whatever was in the kitchen going to be incredibly difficult, but the Infected could grab onto the barrel and make getting a clear shot even more impossible.

  No, he’d go for the head with her bat, which was fine with her. She felt better with a gun in her hands, more sure of herself, more steady. She just wished she knew what they were walking into.

  It made her nervous, going into a dark kitchen with the rain pounding against the roof. The storm was picking up speed and that wasn’t a good thing. It certainly wouldn’t stop the virus from spreading. It only made the creatures harder to see if you were out in the storm or stuck in a building without electricity.

  The rain only made it harder to get away.

  She saw Mark silently counting to himself, and she wondered what he was waiting for, but just as he prepared to move, just as he was about to step into the kitchen, they heard the slamming of a door and two gunshots.

  “Get down,” Mark cried out, and Alice dropped to the floor.

  Chapter 11

  Kyle couldn’t get inside the house. The back door, the kitchen door, was locked. He tried to turn the knob, tried to push his way inside, but it was no use. He wished for strength, wished he was big enough to simply kick the door in. That’s how the movies worked. Why couldn’t real life be more like that?

  When you were in the movies, when you were running on adrenaline, you could do anything.

  Money problems? A montage would show you working hard and accomplishing your dreams over the course of a week or two.

  Lady problems? Surely, that’s nothing a nice haircut, a new outfit, and a better attitude couldn’t cure.

  Door in your way? Knock that fucker down. You don’t even have to look: just kick.

  Kyle gave it a try, but he knew it was useless. He was going to be too late. Alice and Mark were in that house and Kyle needed to warn them about the Infected he’d seen in the kitchen.

  He had fired through the glass twice. He hit it, he thought. In the head? Probably not, but the fucker had gone down. The window wasn’t especially high, but it was dark and raining, and there was no way he’d be able to climb through it and over the glass without seriously injuring himself.

  Kyle ran around the house. He tripped twice but kept going. It was darker than it should have been. Despite the rain, the moon was shining, and it cast a glow over the open yard, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from bumping into things. He tried to hurry, but the journey around the house seemed to take forever.

  Finally, Kyle barged in the front door and hurried through the house to where Alice and Mark were standing in the kitchen. They turned as he entered and Mark raised a baseball bat.

  “Don’t shoot! It’s just me.”

  “Fuck,” Alice said. “You freaked us the fuck out. Thank God you’re all right,” she rushed to Kyle and wrapped her arms around him. She didn’t seem to mind that he was wet. If she did, she didn’t say anything. She just held him for a second. “Do you need your inhaler?” She asked. Then she lowered her voice and added, “All that running.”

  He did need it. He had barely run. It had just been a quick jaunt around the house, really. He hated to feel weak, hated to feel like he would be sick without it. Luckily, Alice and Mark pretended not to look while he fished the little plastic device out of his pocket and took a puff: only one. He didn’t need to be wasting it.

  “You shot it,” Mark said.

  “Scared the fuck out of us,” Alice added.

  “Sorry. I saw it and didn’t think you’d be able to hear me over the rain.”

  “It was a nice shot,” Mark said.

  “Too bad about the window, though,” Kyle jerked his head toward the open frame. Glass was covering the counters, the sink, and the floor where he’d shot the Infected. The body was on the floor. It wasn’t moving.

  “Did I kill it?”

  “Nah, Rambo over here did that,” Alice pointed Mark, who was still holding the baseball bat. “It’s a pretty effective weapon, to be honest. I think he’s just happy he got to take out some of his aggression.”

  “I don’t have aggression,” Mark said. They all knew it was a lie, but it wasn’t the time to call him out on it. What would the point be? They were already stuck in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t need to start fighting with each other, too.

  They stared at the body for a second. Blood covered the t-shirt and leggings. The woman’s hair, which had probably been lovely once, was now matted against her head. Her hands were swollen and they looked wet. Kyle looked up at the sink and saw that it was filled with dishes.

  “Was
she washing the dishes?” He asked aloud.

  “Why didn’t she stop?” Alice looked completely shocked. Kyle knew she hated doing dishes. Alice wasn’t the type of person who was going to die, come back from being dead, then start doing chores she had hated before. That didn’t make sense to her. It didn’t make sense to Kyle, either, unless the Infected still retained a sense of identity. Maybe they retained a sense of who they were before.

  “Muscle memory, maybe,” Mark offered.

  “So they both turned, but not at the same time,” Alice finally said. “Both her and her husband. The overalls gas station guy. He was definitely turned from a bite. I saw the marks on his arm. If they’d gotten this thing at the same time, he wouldn’t have been able to drive away, right? Doesn’t that mean he turned later? He turned at the store?”

  “Maybe she’d contracted it and he went out,” Kyle reasoned. “But what caused her infection? How did she get it in the first place?” Kyle asked the questions they were all thinking, the question that had been haunting them. Part of him wanted answers, hoped for them, but he knew they’d never get them.

  Something this big?

  Something this huge?

  They’d be lucky if they ever heard from people in another state again, much less government officials. They weren’t anyone special. They didn’t have any tragic quests to go on. Maybe they should. That would be more interesting than setting up camp at the first empty farmhouse they could find.

  “People had been sick for awhile,” Alice said. “The news stations have been saying for weeks this flu season was worse than usual.”

  “Yeah, and they also told everyone to go get their fucking vaccines,” Mark said.

  “When did the vaccines come out? Could it be a faulty batch?” Alice had an interesting idea. Kyle didn’t know a lot about vaccines, but his mom did, and he’d listened to her talk about the dangers of shots for years. He hadn’t been particularly happy to get his meningitis vaccine when he left home for college, but it hadn’t been a big deal. He hadn’t had any side effects. He wasn’t sure if the idea of side effects was really valid. It kind of seemed like a convenient excuse, at least in his mind.