Cage The Dead (7 page)

“Take this!” Gaia said as she handed the flashlight to Nick and held the shovel tightly in both hands, feeling the perspiration mounting on her palms as she squeezed the wooden shaft so tightly that she thought sawdust might just emerge from one end.

The first one reached them and she managed to thrust the pointed edge of the steel shovel right through its head, but the momentum of the bull rushing zombie knocked the digging implement from her grasp and sent her to the solid floor just as the second zombie arrived.

Her vision went to black and came back again, seeing images of the beam of light offered by the flashlight sporadically penetrating the darkness. In that obscurity Gaia caught glimpses of blood, wild washed out eyes, pale skin and a flash of steel that protruded suddenly from the zombie’s right eye as it fell to the floor to lie beside her.

Again, she only caught hints of the goings on as the room spun more than she would have liked.

“Gaia!” she heard Nick saying in her mind’s eye, reciting her name over and over until the voice grew steadily in volume with each mention of her name.

“Okay!” she whispered loudly, covering her ears.

“I can’t let you pass out. Not here, not now. Not when we’re so close,” Nick said with intensity in his tone. He extended and hand and helped her to her feet. He winced and she let out a groan as her world went dizzy again. The gash on her forehead from yesterday seemed to have opened again, as she felt a thin trail of warmth run down her cheek. He handed her the fallen shovel and she leaned on it heavily.

Nick shone the light at her and checked the wound on her forehead, then bent low and retrieved his own blade from the deceased zombie’s eye and wiped it on the undead creature’s tattered clothes.

“C’mon, Gaia,” Nick said, taking the lead and maneuvering his way through the house and its halls quite deftly. They encountered no more of the living dead along the way. When they finally reached the doorway at the other end of the house, where opposite that door faced the entrance to the veterinary facility, they again found no zombies wandering about.

Nick turned the knob slowly and quietly opened the door wide. He then tip toed to the opposite door and tested the knob. It was unlocked and he turned the handle and shoved the door open a crack and peeked in. Gaia watched him as he did so and then saw him flinch and he closed the door.

“What is it?” Gaia asked him. He swallowed hard and shook his head.

“It’s Friedman.”

“Nancy?!” Gaia said excitedly at first until he saw the remorse and sadness in Nick’s eyes. He shook his head ever so slightly, signifying that something terrible had happened—something that would upset her.

“Dammit,” Nick whispered.

“She’s…?”

“Yes,” Nick confirmed with a nod. “She’s turned.”

“We need to take her down gently,” Gaia said and then nodded at the silliness and absurdity coupled with that remark. The thing inside was not the woman she had gotten to know over the past few years. No, this thing was nothing like her old friend who had taught her many things about medicine and even life. She had learned a great deal about a lot of things, thanks to Dr. Nancy Friedman.

But this thing isn’t Dr. Friedman!

Suddenly, Gaia grew angered by that fact. This disease had taken her friend away from her. All of her friends! And that wasn’t all, she thought, grasping the handle of the machete and slowly removing it from its resting place on her belt. She tossed aside the shovel and gripped the machete hilt with both hands.

She turned the handle over in her grasp and tightened her grip on it, squeezing it firmly. Nick sensed her intention too and nodded, as if reading Gaia’s mind…or at least, her features, for she knew she wore a mask of rage in that moment.

Nick opened the door and Gaia stood staring at the mess inside. The light from flashlight penetrated the gloom of the space; a fluorescent glow emerging from the underside of a shelving unit was the only other source of illumination in the room.

It reeked of death.

Gaia could see a lab space with many overturned tables in the dim lighting, chairs and various medical instruments strewn about the room. The creature spun to face her and Gaia averted her eyes again, only using her peripheral vision. She knew that if she looked the creature in the face that she might falter in her quest. So she did not look directly at it and instead looked to the side and at the last second turned to face the undead atrocity that she had once known as Nancy Freidman, its back to her still. The disheveled auburn hair of her one-time-friend was covered in gore and glistened with tacky blood, as was her once-white lab coat. Cabinets were haphazardly wide open and several animal pens were smattered with severed animal limbs and other unidentifiable parts as if this thing had feasted on its former patients.

That filled Gaia with even more anger and inspiration.

The undead Nancy stumbled toward her, tripping over a toppled stool along the way, got back up and then raced quickly toward her, gaining speed with each inhuman step it took. Her machete met with some resistance as she buried the blade into its skull, stopping the creature in its tracks.

Gaia heard the sound of the body hitting the floor. Nick stepped in and shone the light all about, revealing the space thoroughly.  Nothing else moved. It was a ghastly scene, and Gaia blanched at seeing all the dead animal remains in the enclosed space. A window was open slightly behind a counter, which may have limited the real stench, though it was pretty awful.

Gaia used the dim lighting in the lab space along with the flashlight to find some medical supplies in the cabinets and drawers. The building was large, having similar lab spaces such as this for having multiple patients at once, which happened somewhat frequently. But the animals sometimes got sick or injured in bunches, as was Murphy’s Law.

“Over there—the IV bags,” Nick muttered through gritted teeth. He was clearly still in a lot of pain.

“Yes, but over here’s the good stuff,” Gaia countered, removing a package of pills and handing them to Nick. “Those are 30 mg doses of morphine. Should take the edge off. You’ve got a bad wound on your shoulder, it’s probably dislocated and you might have some cracked ribs based on the way you are grunting when you move,” Gaia added, shoving the pill bottle into his hand. “And I’m sure that saving my ass again back there didn’t help.”

“It’s no…bother,” Nick said, wincing at that last statement and accepting the pill bottle. He opened the bottle and took two pills and tossed them back. “Gimme fifteen minutes and then do it. And while we’re at it, you might wanna treat that gash on your noggin.”

Gaia nodded, not even feeling the wound any longer under the latest circumstances of their evening. She was so focused on getting here that everything else went out of her mind. Gaia quickly found a mirror in the bathroom. She just realized now that she hadn’t used the facilities in a while and took a minute for that. Then she found a rag, ran some water over it and cleaned the gash on her forehead. She dabbed a little hydrogen peroxide on that, cleaned it as best she could and found a piece of gauze to cover it, using a large Band-Aid to hold that in place.

Then she held a needle in her hand and was beginning to thread some string through the needle’s eye when she caught Nick staring at her. He was probably not looking forward to enduring even more pain than he was already in, and the stitching would just be the icing on the man’s veritable ‘shit cake’ of a situation. Though Gaia had some medical training, she really couldn’t determine if the red surrounding his injured shoulder was from his recent fall from the hayloft, or if there was infection in the wound.

When she was finished threading the needle, she had Nick remove his jacket and shirt and then she began to pour hydrogen peroxide over the area, which began its spumescent reaction around the wound.

“That should kill the bacteria,” she said confidently. She continued to watch as the chemical reaction continued to bubble and foam. It would kill some good bacteria with it, but she had little to no choice on this particular venture. There was nothing else around in the way of disinfectants that weren’t contaminated, knocked over or completely missing from the shelves.

“Think someone else was here?” Nick asked, possibly mirroring her thoughts that there might be more survivors.

“Not sure. I hope so,” she quickly added, truly optimistic that some of the others might have survived just as they had. She stared at Nick now, staring into his eyes and taking note that the green pupils had dilated a bit as she shone the flashlight around them to get a good look.

“Feeling a bit numb?”

“Not enough, but go ahead anyway,” Nick said, grabbing an overturned stool, righting it and taking a seat. Gaia pushed and pulled him until she felt that the minimal light offered was being used at its optimum. She squinted and began the process. Nick did not even flinch once.

A good time later, Gaia finished and sighed, thinking that it could have been done better, but satisfied under the circumstances that she had done a good job.

“Probably gonna leave a scar,” she said with a laugh, running a palm through her blonde locks that were glistening with sweat. She may have been more nervous than Nick about the whole thing, she realized.

“Least of my problems. I’ll be happy just to live through this shit.” Nick stood and tested the range of motion, winced and cursed under his breath.

“Not quite ready for battle, eh?” Gaia joked again. Nick reluctantly shook his head.

“We better gather up the stuff we need and start making our way back to Adam,” Nick said, pulling Gaia’s focus right back to the man she loved. Her heart began to beat more rapidly as she thought of poor Adam and his condition and that no one was there with him.

“I’m worried about that mob of zombies that showed up behind us—“

“He’s fine,” Nick interrupted, shooting her what looked to be a forced smile from beneath his disheveled beard, complete with dirt, dried blood and sweat. In that moment, she wondered how bad she looked under these terrible conditions. She caught sight of herself in the reflection of the windowpane and squinted, trying to see, but her focus shifted when she noted that many more zombies wandered around outside under the moonlight.

She quickly recused herself from the window and pulled the shade. A deep breath ensued to calm her and she began packing things up onto the counter and looked for something in which to carry them. Another few minutes later, she found a backpack in the corner of the room beside the refrigerator and emptied it. The belongings were certainly personal effects of Dr. Friedman, books, papers and such. She began packing IV bags, meds and a few carefully wrapped needles and thread into the backpack, just in case. More antibiotics, pain relievers and salves were also individually wrapped in towels and placed into the backpack. Gaia strapped it onto her back, removed the machete and stared at Nick.

“Should we stay here? Are you okay to go, Nick?” she felt a sudden panic overwhelm her as she questioned whether or not he was becoming one of the living dead right there in front of her eyes, but he nodded and waved her on, dismissing the irrational notion. “I’d love to check on Solomon and Molly.”

“Who’s Molly? Nick asked, testing his footing and his shoulder once again.

“Molly is the mama gorilla. I’ve already told you…,” she scolded before stopping her speech, realizing that this was neither the time nor the place to speak like that to Nick. He laughed though, evidently teasing her with his lack of knowledge on the subject. Gaia shook her head and looked at him. “Are you ready, smart ass?”

“Yep. Let’s go save that boyfriend of yours,” Nick said, grabbing the round point shovel in one hand and the flashlight with the other. Gaia smiled at that, gripped the machete handle in her right hand and grasped the door handle with her left. Nick turned the flashlight on again and shone it at the door, illuminating the area for them.

“We ready?”

But before Nick could answer, the sound of shattering glass erupted from behind them.

Chapter 6

Hands emerged from the opening, no longer barred by the windowpane, and Gaia watched as a zombie pulled itself frantically through the opening, catching its skin on the broken glass. That of course did not even register in the undead thing’s mind, as it scrambled after the pair with a wild eagerness.

Gaia flung open the door and sprinted the short distance to the house, directly opposite the one they exited. She looked over her shoulder to see Nick running after her. As she waited for him, she heard rustling in the dark behind him, the noise of the broken glass no doubt attracting more of the living dead.

Nick ran past her and she slammed the door shut, locking it from the inside. The pair made their way quietly through the halls of the house to the opposite side. Gaia was silent in her travel, thinking of the gorillas and lamenting the fact that she could not get to them without eliciting further zombie activity as well as making Adam wait even longer for aid. Either choice she made left her heart aching.

No matter what though, Adam was the priority here. Solomon and Molly were presumably unharmed within their enclosure, which a self-sustaining expanse with natural surroundings, enough for them to care for their offspring for years on end if need be. The enclosure had plenty of water, trees and such as to make for a viable habitat. And the fencing was some of the finest they had built. Again, she recalled seeing a few animals running free, but they were the ones that would naturally be found in the children’s petting zoo, such as goats, lamb and fowl. And yet, no matter how many times she told herself this, she still felt a knot in the pit of her stomach.

She paused and Nick bumped into her. She spun on him and he seemed to be unsteady on his feet.

“Nick, we’re going to have to do this slowly. Let me help you,” Gaia said, putting the machete in her belt at her side and getting under Nick’s shoulder to take some of the weight off. “Lean on the shovel if you need to.” She then grabbed the flashlight from him and began navigating the space again.

Some time later, they made it to the other end of the house and Gaia shone the light outside. The area was black as pitch. She could see no signs of the fire that undoubtedly had died down by now.

How long were we in there?

She opened the door quietly and helped Nick along the path. This time, they would go a more direct route, she decided, as they had neither the time nor the ability to climb through the cat pens. As she aided him along, she heard the crackling of something in the distance to her right. The fire was still smoldering, but was almost gone completely. She could not see it from inside the house as there was another wing that blocked the line of sight.

Again, she could hear the low growls and other cries of the animals all around her and it touched her deeply. She felt a profound sense of helplessness that she could not comfort each and every one of them right then and there. Intermixed with those grunts and growls was the inhuman sounds of the living dead, which caught sight of, sporadically huddled in bunches around the flickering embers of the barn, as if entranced by it. Some of the damnable things were actually standing in the remains, partially ablaze. It was as surrealistic an image as she’d ever imagined.

They just needed to keep quiet and continue on their way. And so they persisted along, sticking to thickets, bushes and hiding behind structures and fencing whenever they could.

It had to have been an hour that passed, maybe more, as the moon shifted from one side of the starry night to the other, but finally, Gaia could see the parking lot in the distance. And to her delight, she detected no signs of movement in the open space. She squinted again to make sure, and again saw nothing or no one.

“C’mon, Nick. Home stretch,” she said, adjusting his weight on her shoulder and making it so far as the ticket stand at the entrance of the zoo. She and Nick continued slowly, step for step, making strides in unison. Gaia noted Nick was putting less weight on her, and instead was leaning more on the shovel for support now.

When she looked up again, however, something barred her path.

Emerging from around the corner was another zombie. The light from Gaia’s flashlight exposed the horrifying blood and gore staining its face, as it lunged madly for the pair.

She fumbled for the machete, but knew she would not get to it time. She felt Nick’s weight go out from under her shoulder as he, too, hit the ground.

A myriad of thoughts flashed through her mind in those passing heartbeats as the zombie closed the gap. All that time she had just spent getting the medical supplies was wasted. She would never see Adam again, even though she was this close. She might never again see Solomon and Molly’s babies

This is it.

She closed her eyes and fumbled for the machete, finding its hilt  as the zombie closed the distance. It entered her personal space and she closed her eyes, waiting for the impact. She winced against the impending moment that its teeth would find purchase in her flesh, a lump forming in her throat.

The anticipation was inexplicable.

But that bite never came.

Instead, she heard a grunt followed by the sound of something hitting the soil in front of her. She opened her eyes and saw Nick leaning against the side of the ticket booth, a dead zombie laid out in front of her with a metal rod—part of a fence post or support, she assumed—sticking through its skull, and a silhouette in the darkness standing behind the undead creature.

“You okay, ma’am?” asked the high-pitched voice in a whisper through the darkness. Gaia squinted and then raised the flashlight to shine the light on the voice’s source. What she saw was stunning.

The light revealed a young man that could not have been older than maybe nine or ten years old, she thought. If his age hit double digits, she would be surprised. He was covered in soot and dirt, his dark hair was unkempt and dirty, and his clothes were torn and tattered somewhat, too.

He squinted against the sudden intrusion of light in his face and turned his head to the side.

“Can you not shine that in my face, please?”

“Shit. Sorry, kid. And yes, I am all right, thanks to you.”

She watched in amazement as the young man retrieved the metal rod and wiped it on the ground to clean the gore from it.

“Where did you get that?” Gaia asked him, helping Nick up off the ground with an outstretched hand.

“This? I saw part of the fence that was almost broken in half already and kept bending it until it came off,” he said calmly.

“Smart move,” Gaia said with a smile, though she couldn’t really read his face in the dark. He nodded clearly enough at that comment and he looked at her expectantly when she shone the light on him again.

“Well…what now?” he asked.

“Well, we are trying to get some supplies back to my boyfriend on the bus over there,” Gaia said, shining the light that way. “Are you by yourself?!”

“Yep. Everyone I was with turned into one of those things,” he said, tapping the metal rod against the zombie corpse on the ground. “I was with my class here on a field trip. Ms. Watson, my teacher, she changed into one of them too, and so did a bunch of my friends. I was in the bathroom when it happened and so I stayed in there and locked the door. I was in there a long time looking out the window and didn’t come out until they were all gone.”

“Smart again. What’s your name, my brave little man?”

“My name’s Justin.”

“Well, hey, Justin. I’m Gaia and this is Nick. You wanna come with us?” Justin nodded somewhat, saying nothing. “You hungry? There’s food on the bus.”

Again, the boy nodded.

“So you had to kill them before, huh?” Nick asked.

“A few,” he admitted uncomfortably.

“Hey, it’s okay, hon. We all had to.”

“Is he okay?” Justin asked, looking to Nick.

“I’ll be fine, kiddo. You really save our asses back there. We owe you one.”

“
Asses
, Nick?” Gaia echoed in a motherly tone. “Maybe not in front of the boy.”

“Well, you said ‘
shit
,’ if I'm not mistaken, so…,” Nick stared at her accusingly.

“S’okay, ma’am. My friends say that stuff all the time.”

“And you don’t talk like that, huh?”

“No, ma’am. My mom would wash my mouth out with soap if I did.”

“Well, you’ve got manners. I’ll give you that. Follow us, Justin and we’ll get you something to eat,” Gaia said, helping Nick along once more. As they neared the parking lot, the darkness began to fade as the sky took on a very slight shade of blue.

There were no zombies that she could see wandering around in the parking lot. She heard and noted the familiar figure of Maye closing on them.

“Maye! How is Adam, girl?” she said as Maye climbed right up and onto her shoulder, all but ignoring Nick, who chuckled at seeing that.

“What’s that?” Justin asked, pointing to an area on her jacket where the capuchin had just vacated. Gaia looked down at her pants and shirt and saw stains left behind from the monkey when Maye had climbed onto her shoulder.

The sounds of their laughter ceased as they took in the image.

Blood!

“Where did that come from?!” Gaia asked Maye, and then looked to Nick and Justin, who shrugged. Maye leaped from her shoulder and climbed on top of the bus and began jumping and down, then disappeared behind the vehicle.

“I dunno, but it looks fresh,” Nick whispered grimly. Then he looked to Gaia, whose eyes must have been something like saucers to him at this point, as he patted her on the shoulder.  Terrible images flooded her mind as she looked toward the bus. “But, there
is
gore everywhere.”

“Yep, I’ve got that stuff all over me,” Justin quipped absently. Gaia then looked to the young lad and smiled, wanting to share in his worldly ignorance if only for a minute.

The trio hurried toward the bus, Justin following closely behind her, Nick losing pace quickly behind the running pair, and Maye was wrapped tightly around her neck and shoulders, holding on for dear life.

As Gaia made it to the side of the bus, she noted with some trepidation that there were bloody handprints on the side of the vehicle. She forced down the bad thoughts and began toward the door, hoping beyond hope to see what she wanted to see and not what she expected to see when she looked at the state of the door.

Her heart sank again.

The door was open.

Nick arrived to their side just then and his face went pale. Gaia leaned involuntarily against the door, unable to move at all. She felt as though she was paralyzed, and she was fearful of asking a question aloud or learning the truth that awaited her in the bus. She felt her legs trembling, fell back against the side of the bus, and slid down to her backside onto the hard gravel.

Nick, seemingly realizing her fears, steadied her. 

“Maybe he’s not in there…maybe he went looking for….”

Nick couldn’t even finish the sentence before Gaia shot him a look and he immediately fell silent under that gaze, averting his eyes. She slowly got to her feet, took a step, and spun to face the door. She leaned forward, peering inside and inspected the slide lock.

The door and the rod were both bent inward. Tears streamed down her face as a horrifying scenario repeated in her mind.

She took a step onto the bus.

She heard noises that made her skin crawl.

She took another step up.

The sounds became more distinct, moaning and sloshing sounds pervading the area.

 She ascended that final step and saw silhouettes in the darkness kneeling on the floor of the bus.

Sounds of chewing and groaning could be heard distinctly as she stood staring despondently into the darkness beyond. As she squinted, sunlight chose that very second to intrude upon the gloom.

She witnessed a pair of the living dead leaning over a prone body.

Adam…no….

Gaia fell to her knees in that instant and felt hands on her pulling at her and trying to lift her to her feet.

That lingering touch was followed by the sounds of voices that she could not understand. She felt herself being lifted off the ground and felt her backside fall against something soft. She fell prone against that plush surface, unable to right herself in that moment.