Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) (2 page)

Joe turned and dove to the side as the two guys who had earlier held the zombie at bay aimed their pistols at him and fired. He pulled the trigger in mid air, sending a bullet into the zombie’s back, the impact forceful enough to send the dead man rolling off the girl and to the side.

A numby
bang
rocked Joe’s shoulder when he hit the ground. Fortunately the long, brown rain-ruined suede trench coat he wore was padded top to bottom so the pain wasn’t as sharp as it should have been. He cocked the hammer.

The girl rolled onto her side and tried to get up, but the awkwardness of the neck collar and attached pole screwed up her balance and she fell back down, landing on her stomach and face.

The two men with the pistols opened fire.

Joe sent off two shots, tagging each of them in the heart. Their chests exploded almost simultaneously in a burst of blood and they hit the floor.

The zombie rushed on all fours and tackled the girl, slamming its forehead into the back of her skull. She lay there, still.

Joe got to his feet, cocked the hammer, and took three huge strides over to it. He yanked the dead man up by the collar. The creature turned its head toward him, its bloodshot eyes filled with malice. It reached for Joe’s arm.

Joe pulled the trigger.

The shot took off the top of the dead man’s head, everything from the eyebrows up. The syrupy splash of brain matter and the soft sound of bone hitting the concrete followed right behind.

Her tearstained eyes opened slowly then rolled back in their sockets. When they rolled forward again, a soft smile rose on her face.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Joe stood, sighed, and aimed the gun between her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

Billie Friday: Punk Girl

Where were you when it all began?

The words had sat on Billie Friday’s computer screen for the better part of an hour and, try as she might, she couldn’t quite figure out what to say next. How could she? How could anyone describe the transition between blue skies and sunny days to a world of perpetual gray and a moon that never shone? How could someone describe graduating from high school with hope and promise, a planned life of being a veterinarian by day and DJ by night, to going into hiding and secreting yourself away from legions of the walking dead?

“This is pointless,” Billie said and shoved her thick-framed glasses further up her nose.

The goal had been to write a letter, a short one, something she could print then copy and distribute to the lingering survivors of the human race, a letter asking them to stop and reflect on where they had been before the devastation began, the hope being to urge them to continue living—continue
surviving
—in a world gone awry and where the notion of a normal life was nothing more than a farfetched dream.

If she was to do only one thing with her life, one thing that made a difference, this would be it.

“Face it, girl, you got no class. No style.”
If you did, you’d be able to write this thing no problem.

She glanced over to the small, standing mirror beside her computer monitor. The girl staring back was but a shadow of the one she’d known in a life that ended a year ago. Her bob-cut pink hair, normally a perfect sphere around her head, sat in disarray. The bags under her eyes were so big that they hung below the frames of her glasses. Yet, she supposed, she
shouldn’t
look any different. Anybody stuck hiding out in the bottom corner suite of an abandoned apartment building would look the same.

Fortunately, for her, the power was still up in this part of Winnipeg. The suburb, North Kildonan, dubbed by those who lived there as the “Haven,” had become a secret safe area for those trying to piece together some semblance of a regular life. She only knew of a handful of living souls in this part of the city and they had a rule about not interacting with one another, each person to their own abode, unless there was an emergency. If they had joined together and formed some kind of communal living arrangement, and if they were discovered by the undead, they’d most likely be wiped out. This way, being scattered, if something did happen, the losses would be minimal, hopefully only a single casualty, and therefore only a single person added to the undead’s number. Given the rate of the undead’s multiplication, that was a good thing.

From what she could tell from the bits she caught on the Internet, the situation was similar worldwide. Pockets of people hid out here and there, communicating via message boards and news lists and email. Thankfully, the zombies were, frankly, idiots, so there was no fear they’d learn of the survivors’ whereabouts or what plans were in motion to try and overcome the army of the dead.

Where were you when it all began?

There were those words again.

Billie remembered exactly where she was. It had been the last day of high school, the excitement of prom night hovering on the air. The only damper to the feeling was the thought of squeezing into a formal dress, something she’d hated since as far back as she could remember. No date, just her and some friends, ones she’d known since elementary school.

It had been late afternoon and school had just let out. The sudden relief of having made it through twelve years of schooling—fifteen, if she counted her two years of preschool and one of kindergarten—lifted her heart and melted the stress and weight that had plagued her all year as she studied her butt off so she’d one day be accepted one province over into the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine.

As always, she made her way home alone, a walk she looked forward to every day, a chance to unwind and plan her evening. And, as always, the plan was to get home, make a tall glass of chocolate milk and hide in her room so she wouldn’t have to face her parents when they returned from work. It wasn’t that she hated them, but she was tired of hearing from them day in and day out that she should quit dying her hair (though during the school year as per school rules she had to dye it “natural” colors, which then led to her dying her hair white and raising a ruckus with the principal and teachers; “Hey, white
is
a natural color!” she told Mr. Landon. “Only if you’re eighty!” he shot back), stop listening to Green Day and that “devil music,” and for once, just once, tie her shoelaces before leaving the house.

She also wanted to avoid her geeky sister, who always sided with her parents. Audrey took this same path home, but whether her sister was ahead of her or behind, she didn’t know.

Taking a deep breath, she stopped her stride when the air shifted and suddenly grew
heavier.

“Now it’s gonna rain and guess who’s going to be stuck in it?” she muttered.

With each step, the air grew thicker and thicker, the smell no longer that of clean earth and green trees and grass, but something . . . off . . . like the kind of smell that surfaced when you swore you just passed a BFI bin but there was nothing there.

The rain picked up and soon thick, sticky drops of gray doused her clothes and blanketed the street and sidewalk, hindering all visibility.

Keep going straight,
she told herself, mouth clamped shut for fear of accidentally imbibing whatever this gross liquid was.

A group of teenagers was running down the sidewalk up ahead. Sprinting, she quickly caught up to them. They must have heard her coming from behind because when she veered to the right to avoid crashing into them, they tried moving out of the way and went to the right as well. Billie smashed into a heavyset redhead. Instead of banging shoulders and running past her like she expected, the redhead went limp on impact and toppled to the ground. One of the redhead’s friends stopped to try and help her up. Billie and the others kept running, but guilt quickly smacked Billie’s heart. She knew the right thing to do would be to turn around and see if the redhead was all right. When she spun around, she could no longer see them, the sheet of odiferous gray rain coming down so thick that it was like trying to find your way around in a steam room.

Great, now they’re gone and I
—

Boomp!
Her feet smacked into something and she tumbled over, her elbows skidding across the grass as she broke her fall, her skin stinging.

Soaked to the bone in this funky gray substance, Billie looked over her shoulder and saw the bodies of the redhead and her friend lying there.

“Audrey!” she screamed and with slippery hands pawed at her sister’s face, trying to wipe away the gray slick covering it. She hadn’t recognized her earlier, not with the liquid gray coming down.

Audrey lay there, unmoving.

Crying, Billie scooped her hands under her sister’s small body and, squatting beside her, set her feet up against Audrey’s side, ready to lift her.

Audrey coughed.

“Audrey! Thank God!” Billie shouted.

Her sister coughed again, then belched and threw up a pasty mix of puke and blood. It splashed onto Billie’s hand and arm but she didn’t care. Her sister was all right!

The redhead convulsed once, coughed, and puked up a similar wad of blood and mucus. She, too, slowly got to her feet and started moving toward Billie. The redhead bumped into Audrey. Audrey didn’t flinch as the redhead walked past.

“What’s . . . what’s happening? What’s happening?” Billie kept moving back and stopped when she bumped into something. Turning around, she saw that that
something
was another student, a black guy around six feet tall. His eyes were solid white.

The gray rain poured down.

Billie darted away from him and tore through the thick, gray droplets, not caring where she’d end up other than away from whatever had become of her sister, the redhead and that guy.

Home. She had to get home.

The ground went uneven beneath her and she knew she was running on grass. Then the ground dropped as she ran over the curb. Her foot folded beneath her and she hit the slick pavement.

“Ow!”

She scrambled to her feet and tried running again but had to settle for a limpy jog as her left foot refused to land flat on the ground, the pain in her ankle simultaneously sharp and hollow.

She kept on toward them, wondering what she’d say once she met up with whoever that was and how she’d describe the sudden change in appearance of her sister and the others.

With each footfall, she chanted her sister’s name, a part of her wanting to go back to try and save her, another scared to death of going near her.

The shadows grew larger and soon five people appeared: two adults and three kids, all gray and wet. The adult woman walked toward her and raised a hand, reaching out to her. The man walking beside her did the same. Then the kids followed their parents’ example and stumbled toward Billie, their arms raised, some shoulder height, others only up to their folks’ stomachs.