Dead Soil: A Zombie Series (27 page)

XXI.

Christine’s eyes opened at the same moment Liam’s did. She debated rolling over and pretending to go back to sleep while he got up and ready for the morning meeting with everyone. Her face burned with embarrassment as she replayed her failures at the comic book store in her head.

They made it look so easy, shooting something that was once human through the skull. She knew the only way she would get over her fear was to face it. And she would start by facing the group. When she threw the covers off, her body shivered. The morning was even cooler than the previous one, the dreaded one where she showed everyone just how much of a coward she was.

She tossed her legs over the side of the bed and hung her head to stare at the ground. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t going to leave the complex ever again. Ralph wouldn’t let her. She shook her head and settled on the decision to go to the meeting, collect the walkie-talkie from Jerry, and resume her spot on the patio with her binoculars. The thought made her entire body feel heavy and slow as she shuffled to the darkened bathroom.

With the scrape of a match, she lit the two candles on the back of the toilet and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. It was lopsided and pieces were already falling down, but she didn’t care. She didn’t bother to change out of her sweatpants either. Instead, she pulled one of Liam’s knitted sweaters over her gray t-shirt and stepped into a pair of wooly slipper boots.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Liam said cheerfully as he opened a box of cereal and poured it into a bowl for her.

Plain, crunchy wheat. Again. She collapsed onto the one bar stool they had left and looked up at fiancé with droopy eyes.

“Sorry, love, it’s all we have for breakfast. Would you like a cup of black tea?”

“Black tea?” she asked as she sat up straight and craned her neck to look over the counter. “No coffee?”

“I’m afraid we’re all out of the instant coffee, as well.”

She sighed and sunk back down into her chair, giving a weak smile. She let herself drop from the stool without touching her cereal and shuffled to the front door. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Oh, come on. It won’t be that bad,” he said with a smile and draped an arm over her shoulder. “I bet they won’t even remember.” He gave her a wide-tooth, ridiculous grin.

She looked up at him with a stony face and narrow eyes. Inside she wanted to laugh. Outside she was like ice, unwilling to thaw for anyone, even Liam. He unlocked the deadbolts and they stepped into the open hallway where a chilly breeze whipped through like a wind tunnel. Liam pulled down the sleeves of his navy blue ribbed shirt. He folded his arms tightly to his thin body for warmth.

Christine looked at him with her head lolled to the side. She’d been feeling so sorry for herself that it was almost too much trouble to support the weight of her own head now. All she wanted to do was crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. “You should grab your jacket,” she said to Liam flatly.

“Right.” He snapped his fingers and popped back inside to grab his wool-lined jeans jacket from the coat closet.

Zack came out of his apartment to join them, but he wasn’t wearing the usual padded gear anymore. Instead, he had on a heavy zip up camo print jacket, matching pants, and a black beanie hat, no helmet and no paintball mask. Christine eyed him lazily as she leaned against the wall, wondering where or who he got the new outfit from. The image of Zack tearing the clothes off a dead body made her scrunch her face and look away.

Liam came back out with two mugs of hot black tea and handed Christine one. She took it and held it between her hands for warmth. She hated black tea. In the morning she drank coffee. That was her routine for the last ten years. Did the end of the world have to mean the end of every good routine she had? She brought the mug to her face and took a tiny sip. It was disgusting, but she drank it anyway.

Christine didn’t notice Jerry as he made his way up the stairs to stand next to her. He held out a black walkie-talkie while his other hand rested in the pocket of his hoodie. He didn’t say a word to her. She wondered who had told him about the incident at the comic book store. With a quick snatch, she shoved the handheld radio into her pocket.

“I feel like I should tell you all something,” Zack said. Everyone was unprepared for his voice to shatter the silence of the early morning. Liam gave a quick jolt and spilled tea down his chin.

Christine perked up and lowered her mug. “Look, we don’t have to talk about it, OK?” she jumped in before Zack could say anything to further humiliate her. “Don’t worry. I’m staying home. I don’t want to freeze up and get any of you killed so there’s really nothing else left to say except I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry…”

Zack gazed at her, brow furrowed, and shook his head. “No, actually, what I was gonna say…”

Christine’s face turned bright red. She lowered her eyes and raised her mug to her mouth again.

“Ralph went out by himself late last night to find formula for Lilly.”

“What?” Liam spat, spilling tea on himself for the second time. He wiped at his chin. “Why would you let him go by himself?”

“He snuck out, all right? I’m not the guy’s babysitter. Anyway, I don’t know if he made it back or not. He never checked in. Lilly stopped crying at about two this morning so she either wore herself out or…” His entire body tensed. He couldn’t finish his thought.

“That’s our first stop, then,” Liam said. He handed Christine his half empty mug.

She set both their cups down on the ground outside the door. “I think I’m going to come with you.”

Liam looked at her, but didn’t dare say anything to argue her decision, though every ounce of his body wanted to. She saw it in his eyes.

“Just to check on Sally and Lilly. I’m sure they’re tired of being cooped up alone all day, every day.” She wanted to add the words, “just like me,” but stopped herself. There was no reason to make Liam feel bad over her own weaknesses.

He nodded and adjusted the red, rectangular glasses on his face. “Let’s go, then.”

Liam, Christine, Zack, and Jerry stopped in front of the Sherman’s door. The apartment was silent. They waited, each holding their breath as they hoped to hear any indication that everything was all right behind the heavy, white door.

Liam wanted to go inside, but felt like his feet were stuck in quicksand. All he could think about was when they hoped to find Luke and instead found a rotting zombie. Driving an arrow through a stumbling, hungry corpse was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life. Ralph was going to be worse. Sally was going to be worse. He couldn’t even think beyond that. His stomach lurched and he had to close his eyes to steady himself.

“Screw this waiting bullshit,” Zack growled as he jammed the crowbar into the door. It popped open and hit the wall, bouncing back at them. He stuck his arm out to catch it before it closed again.

Christine immediately screamed. “God! No!” she cried over and over again. Her face hung long with her mouth open as tears poured out of her eyes. Liam grabbed ahold of her and forced her head into his chest so she wouldn’t have to look.

Sally lay strewn across the ottoman in front of the couch with her stomach ripped open, her intestines, guts, and entrails on the floor. There was a look of terror petrified onto her bloodied face. The back of her skull was cracked open. The massive, gaping hole leaked blood and brains onto the beige carpet.

Liam had to look away as well before he wasn’t able to hold his stomach any longer. Saliva gathered in his mouth faster than he could swallow it. His head spun and he was sure he was going to pass out. He thanked God he was able to stay upright for Christine. She sobbed hysterically into his shirt, her cries more like shrill screams.

Zack couldn’t believe the amount of blood. He’d always thought horror movies over did it, throwing the fake stuff on the floors, walls, even the ceiling. He looked up at the red splatters that dripped from the white ceiling fan. He felt oddly detached as he took it all in.

That’s when he realized that Ralph wasn’t there. His shoulders sunk with heavy dread. He didn’t want to be the one to tell him what happened to his wife while he was gone. No one asked where Lilly was. They couldn’t bring themselves to.

A loud thud came from the bedroom in the back and interrupted his thoughts. The door was cracked open and a shadow passed in front of it.

“Take Christine back,” Zack ordered Liam.

“But—”

“Just go!”

The body of Ralph Sherman staggered into the living room. Blood drenched his face and dripped down onto the shirt he’d been wearing when he left the day before. His eyes were marbleized, lifeless, a rotting shade of chartreuse with a white glaze. He slammed into the wall, bounced off, and kept walking while his feet scuffed along the carpet. He opened his mouth and exhaled a wet gurgle. The gap between Zack and Ralph diminished by the second.

Zack’s eyes grazed over the room, away from Ralph, away from Sally’s mangled, bloodied body, and rested on an empty pink stained blanket on the floor. His eyebrows raised and pressed together as his eyes widened. Tears gathered, making it hard to see Ralph’s staggering corpse moving closer, arms outstretched to grab ahold of him. At the last second, Zack backed out of the apartment and slammed the door shut. There was a relentless pounding from the other side.

It was impossible to stand upright any longer. Zack rested his hands on his knees and let the tears fall to the floor as he doubled over. His body racked with agonizing sobs. Every time he tried to take a breath it felt like a knife was being plunged into his lungs.

Jerry put a comforting hand on his back. “If you need me to, I’ll do it.”

Zack forced a deep breath and released it slowly from his lips. He wiped the wetness from his cheeks and beard before he straightened himself up. His eyes blinked a few times to clear any residual agony from his face. “No, I should do it.”

Christine and Liam watched from around the corner of the hallway in silence as Zack opened the door and kicked out his foot. It hit Ralph’s putrid body square in the chest and knocked it backward into the apartment again. Zack disappeared. The door shut behind him. Less than a minute later he emerged, wiping oily blood from his sword.

Part Four

“There is no such thing as a residual soil.”

 
—Roger Parsons, 1981

I.

The wind blew through the trees, picking the leaves off one by one until they floated down to rest on the hard, cool dirt of the Dunes State Park. The only heat Lonnie Lands and his group of wanderers felt in the last chilling weeks was from the low burning embers of the fire built only at night. The white crescent moon shone through the branches, but not enough to see if anything was stumbling through the woods for a late night snack.

Lee Hickey leaned his head back against a tree and closed his eyes to fall asleep. Mitchell was curled up next to him with a backpack shoved under his head and his shotgun tucked between his legs. Carolyn sat on a log next to Rowan with her legs crossed and her arms wrapped tightly around her waist for extra warmth.

“Would you lay off, Big Bertha,” Lonnie whined as he sharpened a large stick with a hunting knife. “We’ll find an apartment when we’re ready to find one. I’m not just going to settle in the first shithole I see so that these fucking zombies can eat my face off while I sleep.”

“No, of course not. Better to lie out in the open where they can stumble upon you and eat you while you sleep.”

He lowered his stick and knife to glare at her. She matched him, her gray, thin eyes never blinking as they bore into his soul. The rest of the group sat back and listened to the conversation with smiled on their faces, like it was a reading of
The Night before Christmas
. Every day since Lonnie agreed to Gretchen’s demands for shelter two months ago, Gale had thrown it back in his face when he came up with nothing and they spent another cold night in the woods. It lead to long and heated arguments and entertainment for everyone not involved.

Dan Anderson leaned back on his elbows on a thin bedding of dry leaves and stretched his legs out toward the pathetic fire. The back and forth of Gale and Lonnie had become a comfort, something constant he could always count on in an inconstant world. He pulled out a crumpled cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a small plastic lighter.

“I don’t know why ya’ll worry about settling down somewhere when you don’t even seem care about the big picture here,” Lonnie said as he always did when he wanted to end the bickering.

Gale rolled her eyes. She knew where he was going.

“Well,
I’m
not going to make babies with you,” Gale said with a wrinkled nose. “And if you go anywhere near Gretchen, I’ll kill you.”

“Gee, thanks for the love,” Carolyn Bock said, but no one paid her any attention.

Lonnie laughed fully with his head thrown back. “Oh yeah, Big Bertha? What are you going to do? Sit on my face?”

“You wish, asshole.”

Lonnie stuck out his tongue and faked a dry heave.

Gale stuck up her middle finger. She violently and repeatedly thrust it up into the air.

Rowan Brady sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together as he leaned in for warmth from the fire. He looked into Lonnie’s face, the orange flames dancing devilishly in front of him. Even though Lonnie was laughing there was still something off about him, something careless and alarming, something that made Rowan want to throw in the towel, switch teams, and find permanent shelter. “Maybe finding somewhere to settle wouldn’t be the worst idea. We find shelter first and then we can think about the future.”

“There is no future if everyone dies,” Lonnie retorted. “There’s no point in continuing at all. We might as well just kill ourselves now.” He looked at Dan. “And if we try to make our home in an empty apartment that’s already proven to be a death trap, then we’re all dead. If apartments were safe, then people would already be living in them. Come on now. Use your noggins here people.”

Dan ignored Lonnie and leaned over to Lee. He hit the Irishman in his large arm with the back of his slim black hand. “Hey, man, you want one?” He held out a bent menthol.

Lee shook his head and turned away. Dan shrugged his shoulders and stuffed the cigarette back into his pocket for later.

Gretchen, who was sitting on Dan’s other side, leaned in close to him. “I don’t want a whole one, but do you mind if we share?”

Dan grinned and leaned her way, their foreheads almost touching together. He handed her the one from between his lips. She took a long drag and blew the smoke upward. “God, that’s good,” she sighed.

“Maybe the only good thing left.” He took it from her fingers and sucked on it hard.

Lonnie threw the stick he’d been sharpening. It cracked against a tree trunk and fell nosily onto a pile of crunchy red and orange leaves. He stood up and stomped off into the darkness of the woods. “Fucking dyke…stupid-ass… fucking fag….” He grumbled to himself as he left.

“I’m not gay,” Dan spoke up even though no one asked. “I just…always enjoyed the company of women better than men. Find their friendship more comforting.”

Gretchen smiled and placed a hand on his knee. “And we’ve found your company extremely comforting as well. You’ve really come a long way since we found you.”

“It’s weird, you know, on Halloween I used to go to the clubs and DJ dressed up like one of these…zombies. And this year I’m sitting on the ground, freezing my ass off, hoping one of them doesn’t eat me alive,” Dan laughed to himself.

“Is it really Halloween?” Gretchen’s eyes lit up for a moment, but then the light faded again when she remembered that it didn’t matter what day it was. Holidays were meaningless. There was nothing left to celebrate except making it to see another day.

“Um, yeah. I’m pretty sure,” Dan said as he pulled out a small notebook from his pocket. He opened it up to reveal a two year calendar. “I…I think it’s important, y’know? It’s important to remember something like the date or the holidays. If we lose sight of everything completely then we might never get it back.”

Gretchen stared at the crackling fire as it sank lower below the feeble sticks. She wrapped the oversized black leather jacket she’d found in a Target tighter around her as a shiver trickled down her spine. “Maybe it’s already lost,” she said. “And things will never be the same again.”

Dan closed his calendar and put it back in the pocket of his loose jeans. “If that’s the case, I’ll stop after the two years are up.”

Gretchen wondered if he was talking about the calendar or life. She didn’t dare ask him. She didn’t want to know. She let it go and changed the subject. “When you said you dressed up like a zombie,” she started to say while still staring into the fire. “Do you think that would work?”

Dan sat upright and looked at her with a furrowed brow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if we dressed up like the dead, do you think they’d, I don’t know, ignore us?”

He sat in silence as he thought hard about it.

Gale snorted. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not smearing guts and blood all over myself for the rest of my miserable life, wandering around these goddamn woods like one of those goddamn zombie pricks. No thanks.”

“I don’t think it would work anyway,” Dan finally answered. He threw the sticks he found on the ground into the dying fire, causing it to pop and grow. “We’re alive. Blood flows through our veins. That’s why they want us. We’re fresh meat. Whether we disguise ourselves or not, I think they’ll still be able to detect that in us.”

Gretchen lost herself in the orange flames and wood, what little hope she had burning up with it.

A scream came from the darkness behind them. A slew of curses carried through the cool breeze and became clearer as Lonnie approached. Everyone jumped to their feet within seconds, their weapons gripped tightly in their hands.

Lonnie Lands reappeared from the trees with a girl stumbling behind him. He dragged her by her long, brown hair as she cussed him out with every horrible word known to man and a few she invented. When he tossed her to the ground at his feet, her hardened face was illuminated by the fire.

Gretchen stared with her mouth open. Gale lowered her fists. Mitchel gave a long exhale as he let his shotgun rest at his side. Dan fumbled in his pocket for the crumpled cigarette. Rowan patted his hip for the small nine-millimeter pistol he usually kept holstered on him at all times, but it wasn’t there. He’d given it to Lonnie to clean and he got it back. Lee was the only one who hadn’t bothered to stand, still sitting on the ground with his back against the tree.

“Found this one skulking right outside our camp, casing the place.”

The girl looked up at Lonnie. Her hands rubbed the back of her head where he had tugged on her hair. “No! I wasn’t!” she yelled.

“Shut up!” Lonnie growled. There was a rustling in a nearby bush. Everyone snapped to look. Seconds went by without another sound and the focus slowly shifted back to the teenage girl. “She was probably gonna run back to her own group and tell ‘em about us so they could come and take everything we have.”

Gale chuckled and lowered herself back down on the log. “Like what? We don’t have anything.”

“And that’s somehow my fucking fault, right?” Lonnie boomed. His voice bounced off the trees and back to the group staring at him.

“Would you shut up?” Gretchen hissed. “They’re going to come if you keep it up.”

Lonnie took a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stared straight into the teenage girl’s scrunched, red face. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

She continued to look around without answering. Her eyes met Gretchen’s and they burned with searing hatred.

Gretchen took a step back and felt compelled to look away.

“What do we do with her?” Rowan asked from across the fire.

“I can think of a few things.” Lonnie walked over to her and pulled her up by the arm. He leaned in close to her neck and smelled her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. “What do you say, sweetheart? Want to save mankind tonight?” He laughed and looked to Rowan, who chuckled weakly.

She clamped her mouth shut and clenched her jaw as she turned away from him.

“Knock it off,” Gale said casually with a wave of her hand. Lonnie was all talk and no follow through, and everyone knew it.

“Leave the poor girl alone. It looks like she’s been through enough,” Gretchen added.

“You had your chance,” Lonnie as he pointed at her.

The barrel of a small, black gun stared Gretchen in the face. She shut her mouth and balled her fists at her side. A shiver ran down her spine and into her loins as she fought the urge to pee.

Lonnie turned back to the girl and ran the side of the gun down her bronzed cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Let her go,” a low, voice growled from the outer edges of the camp.

Lonnie looked up from the girl’s bare neck to see Lee standing, his fists clenched. He loosened his grip on her arm, but didn’t back away. The small chuckles that escaped his lips filled the formidable silence. “Yeah?” Lonnie waved the gun around in front of him. “And what are
you
going to do about it, Nurse Lee?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lee advanced on Lonnie with the determined glide of a quarterback. Lonnie pushed the girl at him, but the hulking man sidestepped with ease as she fell to the ground.

Lonnie had his hands raised by the time Lee reached him, but they did nothing to help him. A hard fist drove into the side of Lonnie’s wide head, knocking him to the ground. He was out cold.

With a bull-like snort, Lee stomped back to the tree he’d been leaning against and plopped back down on the dirt.

The young girl pushed herself off the ground and brushed the dirt from her hands and burgundy track pants. She turned to scan the group and stopped when she saw the tall, muscular man who’d saved her.

“Lee?” she called softly. “Lee Hickey?”

He didn’t say anything.

She ran to him and threw herself into his lap, burring her face in his neck as she squeezed him to her. She was sobbing and laughing, which unnerved everyone who stood and watched in confused silence.

The girl pulled away and gazed at him. Her swirling brown eyes swam with tears, her freckled face was smooth and tanned, and her straight brown hair fell down to the middle of her back. “Do you remember me? From the ER?”

He continued to look into her eyes without saying a word.

“Olivia Darling,” she said.

The slightest twitch in the corners of his eyes gave him away as they glossed over.

She threw herself onto him again and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I can’t believe it’s really you!”

II.

Lonnie Lands groaned on the ground as he held his head. He threw his arms in a fit around him and rolled onto all fours before he pushed himself up. “You’re going to regret that, you stupid Irish fuck!” He marched with heavy footsteps over the where Lee and the girl sat. “She’s mine! I found her!”

Before Lonnie knew what happened he was down on the ground again, this time with his arm pinned behind his back and a heavy weight resting on his spine, ready to snap it in two.