Death's Awakening (16 page)

Karmen turned over and
pulled the comforter higher over her head, then curled into a fetal
position. Nothing made sense anymore. Maybe if she could just get one
night of good sleep, she would wake up and her parents would be home
and everything could go back to normal.

The music next door
quieted for a moment and Karmen felt her body falling, falling back
into sleep. Then, bam! Another damn screaming high note. Well, she
was sick of it. She thought about calling the police about a noise
violation, but then laughed. After what she saw at the mall and on
the highway today, the police would probably laugh at her over a
noise complaint. She would have to deal with Parrish Sorrows herself.

The covers came flying
off of her body and she threw her legs over the side of the bed. All
she’d bothered to put on when she got home from the mall was a
pair of short pink cheer shorts and a white tank top and sports bra.
She briefly thought about changing her clothes and putting on
something more neighborhood appropriate. But seriously, who could she
possibly run into at almost nine on a random breezy night? Most of
the neighborhood was either dead or halfway to God-knows-where at
this point anyway.

Instead of changing,
Karmen just slipped her feet into her favorite pair of pink flip
flops and stomped down the stairs. She hesitated for a brief moment
at the door to her house. The last time she walked out that door,
she’d managed to walk into some kind of Twilight Zone. Over the
past week, her house had become her own private sanctuary where she
could shut herself in and pretend the outside world wasn’t a
complete freaking mess.

When she left, she had
to face the truth. And it wasn’t a truth she liked very much.

Still, the roaring
sound of the orchestra next door renewed her determination and she
turned the doorknob and stepped outside. Every step she took in the
direction of Parrish’s house fueled her fire. Who did she think
she was anyway? Queen of the neighborhood? Didn’t she realize
there were people still living on this street who were grieving? And
what about the people who were sick in bed and needed their sleep?

Sure, she’d heard
about Parrish’s mom dying. Everyone on the block had heard
about it by now. But being sad didn’t give her the right to
disturb everyone on the street. A lot of people were upset over the
death of someone close to them. Including Karmen. She was alone too,
but you didn’t hear her blaring music at six hundred decibels
when the neighborhood was trying to sleep.

Karmen stomped up the
front steps, ready to knock on the door. Only, the door was already
open. Karmen reached just inside and knocked as loud as she could,
hoping to be heard over the sound of the music.

“Hello?”
she called out. A chill ran down her back as she realized this was a
replay of the scene from earlier.

At her feet, a broken
glass picture frame littered the floor. It was a picture of one of
Zoe’s big performances. Drops of dark red blood were smeared
across the edge of the frame. Something in her stomach told her to
turn and run.

She just wanted out of
this nightmare.

She turned to go, but
then the music stopped. It was as if the sound was sucked out of the
room. Her ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton for a moment.
Then she heard it. The same strange, low growl she’d heard in
Saks.

Karmen turned around
and movement to her left caught her eye. She knew the living room was
just down the hall. Maybe Parrish was inside there. What if she was
hurt? Karmen took one step inside, then heard Parrish’s scream
echo through the house.

She wanted to get the
hell out of there, but what if Parrish was in serious trouble? What
if whatever had been attacking that woman in the mall had followed
her home and was here too?

Going against every
instinct, Karmen ran forward, looking for her old friend.

Parrish was cornered in
the living room behind the piano. Two strangers limped toward her
from different directions. Maybe they were just neighbors, pissed off
like she was at the loud music. Served her right. But the look on
Parrish’s face scared her. It was the same look from the woman
at the mall, her eyes wide and panic-stricken. Her hands were up in
front of her like a shield.

Karmen had no idea what
to do. She couldn’t just leave Parrish there. But she didn’t
want to die or get eaten or whatever the hell had happened to the
people in the mall.

She stepped forward and
glass crunched under her shoe. Everyone in the room turned to look at
her, their eyes drawn to the noise.

“Karmen, get out
of here,” Parrish yelled. “These people are sick or
something.”

But it was too late.
The old woman had already turned toward Karmen. Ugly black sores
marred her face. Her eyes were glazed over. She staggered toward
Karmen, her lips curled up to show her teeth. They looked bloody and
Karmen thought of the woman screaming by the makeup counter.

Karmen took a few steps
backward, her back slamming against the living room’s archway.
She stumbled, then turned to run, but the second she hit the hardwood
floors, her foot slipped on a piece of broken glass and she fell to
the ground, glass digging in to her palms and her knees.

A voice in her head
told her to get out of there! Run! But some part of her was frozen to
the spot. Like in a dream when you want to run, but your legs
suddenly seem to be made of rubber. She couldn’t force herself
to stand up. All she could do was stare down at the blood that
trickled from the fresh wounds on her hands.

The cold hand that
gripped her ankle broke her from her fear. She twisted around to her
back and kicked at the woman in the dirty nightgown. The woman lunged
forward, mouth wide as if she wanted to bite Karmen’s leg.
Hysterical, Karmen screamed and turned away. She didn’t want to
see those teeth hit her flesh.

A crash sounded and the
woman released her grip.

Karmen opened her eyes
and turned to look, shocked that she wasn’t half-eaten by now.
The woman’s lifeless body lay in a crumpled heap near Karmen’s
feet. Parrish stepped over the woman, a bloodied sword in one hand.
She reached out her hand and Karmen took it, her legs weak as she
stood.

“What’s
going on? Where did you get a sword?

Parrish looked down at
the woman. “I’m not sure what’s happening. I think
they’re infected with the virus. Maybe it’s mutated or
something. I think—”

A groan sounded behind
them and Parrish turned around, swinging the sword. Karmen couldn’t
believe the strength and accuracy she had with that thing. The edge
of the blade sliced into the soldier’s side, sending him to the
floor.

“Run!”
Parrish shouted.

Parrish took off
through the front door, but Karmen felt like she was running in mud.
Her legs weren’t cooperating with her, and she stumbled over
the blue rug in the entryway. As she hit the floor, she felt the side
of her right leg burst into flames. The hot sting of pain traveled up
her bare leg and she felt tears spring to her eyes.

Frantically, she clawed
at the wall, trying to find something to hold on to so she could pull
herself up. When she looked down at her leg, all she could see was a
steady stream of blood pouring from a wound. A large piece of glass
stuck out from the side of her leg and she reached for it, wanting it
out of her.

Her fingers slid
against the slippery surface of the glass and she cried out in pain.

The woman in the
nightgown lifted her head, her milky eyes staring at the blood with
the lusty look of hunger. She scraped her nails against the carpet,
pulling herself forward an inch. Behind the woman, the soldier stood
up, his broken ankle cracking as he took a step forward.

Karmen began to crawl
toward the front door. Oh God, she was going to die here. Why did she
ever leave the safety of her own house? She wanted nothing more than
to be watching reruns, sitting on the couch and zoning out with a jar
of peanut butter in her hands.

She felt a whoosh of
air across her face and saw a streak of color pass by. Amazed, she
watched as Parrish practically flew down the hallway, then planted
her boot in the soldier’s face. When the guy didn’t fall
to the ground, Parrish twirled around and delivered a roundhouse kick
to his face. From the sound of it, she broke his nose in the process.

The soldier’s
face erupted in a gush of thick blood. Only his blood wasn’t
red and bright like Karmen’s. It was almost black, and it was
thick like a milkshake. It was just too much to handle, and Karmen
blinked her eyes, the world spinning before her.

“We’ve got
to get out of here,” Parrish said, grabbing her arm and jerking
her upward.

Karmen clawed against
Parrish’s grip, but the girl wasn’t letting go.

Parrish dragged her
from the house and into the cool night air. And as if the two
infected people in Parrish’s house weren’t scary enough,
they found six more just like them on the front lawn.

Someone was pounding on
the door upstairs.

A fierce nausea gripped
Noah’s stomach. Had someone finally come for his father? Did
they know what was happening?

Taking his hands from
the lab’s computer keyboard, Noah glanced over at his dad. The
emails from headquarters had been coming in pretty close together
lately, wanting to know how his research was going and whether he had
any hope of finding answers. What was Noah supposed to tell them?
That his dad was sick? That there were no answers?

He just let his dad’s
emails pile up, unanswered.

And now they had come
for him.

With heavy feet, Noah
trudged up the stairs. He had no idea what they would do to his dad
now, but Noah knew that nothing could be worse than what had already
happened.

The pounding grew
louder, more frantic. Then he heard a girl scream, and his body went
suddenly cold with fear. That wasn’t some government official
coming to take his father into quarantine.

Noah sprinted down the
corridor and flung open the front door. Parrish must have been
leaning against the door with all her weight, because she tumbled
inside, pulling Karmen with her.

“Shut the door!”
Parrish grabbed the edge of the door and pushed it closed.

“What’s
going on? Are you hurt?” Noah scanned her body, looking for any
injuries. There was blood on her hands. “Are you okay?”

“No, we’re
not okay, boy genius,” Karmen muttered. He turned to look at
her and saw that her legs and hands were covered with blood. “There
are infected people out there trying to eat us.”

Noah’s heart
stopped cold. “What?”

Two days ago, he might
have laughed at her. Told her she was insane. The infected trying to
eat people? Wasn’t that only something you saw in movies? But
after what he’d seen, he knew she was telling the truth. He
just hadn’t expected it to happen so fast. Not here. With
trembling hands, he pushed the curtains aside and looked out into his
front yard.

He counted eight
infected. And they looked hungry.

He needed to act fast.
Contain the situation before it was too late. “Were you
bitten?”

Karmen looked at him
like he was crazy. “Excuse me?”

“Your wounds,”
he said, motioning toward her bleeding leg. “Were. You.
Bitten?”

The impact of what he
was asking finally seemed to sink into her blonde head and she
slumped against the wall. She kept shaking her head back and forth,
not exactly answering him. He turned his attention to Parrish
instead.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,”
she said, pressing her back tight against the door. Then to his
surprise, she laughed. “Actually, I’m not fine. I don’t
know why I said that. Conditioned response, I guess. To be honest,
I’m very much not fine. I’m completely freaked out.”

“Do you know if
either of you were bitten?” He asked again. If they were
bitten, he didn’t have much time. Plus a couple of the infected
had made it to the front door. He could hear them stumbling around
out there on the stairs. Pretty soon they would get frustrated.
Violent. He’d watched enough footage in his dad’s
confidential files to know that they needed to barricade the doors
and windows as fast as possible.

“No,” she
said. “We’re okay. Karmen fell on some glass and cut her
legs, but neither one of us were bitten. Are you saying you think
those people are contagious? Do they have the flu?”

“There’s no
time,” he said. Outside, the undead began pounding on the door.
“We need to get the doors and windows barricaded. Then we can
talk. Follow me.”

“Wait,”
Karmen said. She had her hand pressed to the side of her leg and her
face was twisted in a grimace. “I need someone to pull this
glass out of my leg. It’s bleeding pretty bad and it hurts.”

When she moved her hand
to the side, Noah stared at the size of the piece of glass embedded
in her thigh. It was huge. How had she even walked over here with
that stuck in her leg?

When he pulled the
glass out, her leg was going to bleed worse. Noah tugged off his belt
and placed it around her leg just above the wound. He bound it as
tight as he could around her thigh. He stood and pulled off his
shirt, pressing it to the wound. He needed to clean off some of the
blood so he could see what he was dealing with.

“Parrish, can you
grab some peroxide from under the bathroom sink?” He glanced up
at her and caught her staring at his bare chest. She looked away,
raising an eyebrow before darting toward the hall bathroom. In any
other situation, he might have smiled, but he needed to stay focused
on Karmen’s leg. “Hold still.”

Karmen closed her eyes
and gripped the banister at the bottom of the stairs. “Just do
it,” she said.