Resurrection Dreams (40 page)

She was in the basement. Sitting on the cement floor, her back against the stairs, her arms high, wrists bound with rope and tied to the banister.

Though her head throbbed and all of her body felt sore, the robe was open and she could see that she hadn’t been devoured. Nor had a design been carved on her abdomen—no pyramid inside a circle, no eyes, no stitched slot of a mouth. Her skin was red in places, scuffed and scratched, but uncut and unchewed except for the burning shoulder hidden beneath the robe.

She scanned the basement.

She was alone.

Even Melvin’s body seemed to be gone.

She listened. There was the sound of her heartbeat, and nothing else.

Groaning as hot pain surged through her body, she pushed herself up to the next stair. With her teeth, she reached the clothesline connecting her bound wrists to the banister. She began to chew it.

She listened. Still nothing.

Had they actually left her?

It seemed too good to be true.

When the rope finally parted, she used her teeth on the knots at her wrists. They loosened. She slipped her hands free, grabbed the banister, and struggled to her feet. She turned around. The door at the top was open.

Slowly, she climbed the stairs.

Her heart jumped when she spotted the body beyond the doorway. Jack. But he was down.

She stepped around his body, watching it, careful not to get close. His head was turned away so she couldn’t see his face. The back of his head was blown out. So was the nape of his neck. But she didn’t trust him to be dead.

Standing near him, though out of reach, she stared at his back. Finally, she knelt and pressed a hand against his knit shirt. There was no warmth. She lifted one of his hands, and felt the stiffness of rigor.

At first, she was relieved.

Then she wept.

She knew she should hurry and get out of the house. The others might be nearby, just in another room, or upstairs, or maybe they had left the house and would be returning soon. But she stayed there on her knees, face buried in her hands, crying for Jack and for herself and wishing for a way to go back in time and do something different and make all of it not happen.

Finally, she forced herself to stand.

She limped to the front door and pulled it open. Brilliant sunlight stabbed her eyes.

The scream that woke Vicki from a nightmare of being stalked by corpses wasn’t her own. Pulse hammering, she climbed from bed and raced through the dark house to Ace’s room. She flipped the light on.

Ace was sitting upright in bed, panting, her yellow Minnie Mouse nightshirt clinging to her body with sweat.

Vicki sat on the edge of the mattress and took hold of her hand.

“Melvin?”

“Who else? Shit. You’d think I’d be over it by now.”

“It may take a while,” Vicki said. “Like years.”

“Here we are, our bods good as new—almost, and…”

“Better than new, in your case.”

“Yeah, right.” Smiling Ace patted her belly. She hadn’t been noticeably overweight before the attack. Now, she was slim. By cutting back on her meals, she had managed to keep off most of the fifteen pounds she’d lost while her broken jaw was wired.

The only remaining mark of her encounter with Melvin was the thin faint line of a scar just below her hairline. The hair had started growing in white where her scalp had been reconnected, but she had used that as an excuse to visit Albert’s New You Beauty Emporium in Blayton from which she emerged with her hair short, swept-up, spiky and purple. What are you going to do, Vicki had asked, “Join a rock band?” To which Ace replied, “It’s me, don’t you think?”

“Better in some ways,” Ace said. “But the damn nightmares. And half the time I feel like hiding in the nearest closet.”

“Me, too.”

“And crying for no reason. Really sucks, you know? How come our minds won’t heal like our bodies?”

“Not as tough, I guess.”

“We’re a couple of tough old broads.”

“You said it.”

“In the springtime of our spinsterhood.”

“Yeah, sure. This is the first night you’ve spent alone in a week.”

“Obviously, a bad mistake. Didn’t have any crap-sucking nightmares when there was a guy in here with me. A mistake I’ve got no intention of repeating in the near future.”

“How long does Gorman have the night shift?”

“Jesus, I don’t want to know. Maybe I’ll have to change my schedule, stay up till he gets off.” Ace looked at the clock beside her bed. She groaned. “Get out of here and let me get my beauty sleep.”

“Sure you’re all right? I’ll stay with you.”

“Get. I’m fine.” She waved a hand at Vicki.

Vicki squeezed her hand, then stood up. “Guess I’ll go out for some fesh air.”

She saw concern come into Ace’s eyes. “Do you have to?” “I’ll lock the door.”

“I’m not worried about me, hon.”

“Well, don’t worry about me. I’m fleet of foot and tough as nails.”

“It’s nothing to joke about.”

“I know. But I need to get out and run. I can’t keep putting it off. I need to.”

“Shit. Be careful, huh?”

“Yeah. Sleep tight.” Vicki flicked the light off as she left the room.

She walked down the corridor. In her dark bedroom, she slipped her nightgown over her head. As she dressed for running, she thought about Ace’s concern. Jack’s body had been found where she left it in the house, but Melvin’s body was missing. Patricia, Raines and Woodman had also vanished. Along with two cars.

Maybe Melvin had survived the gunshot. Maybe Patricia had taken him away and nursed him back to health.

But Vicki didn’t believe it.

The bullet had killed him. And while Vicki was left bound at the foot of the basement stairs, unconscious, Patricia had cut on Melvin. Cut one of those weird designs and made him come back. Then, they’d driven off together. Two cars gone, so Raines and Woodman had probably taken off on their own.

Four of them out there. Zombies. Somewhere. Doing God knows what.

Thinking about it, Vicki felt a chill squirm up her back.

But for weeks she’d given up her morning runs, and she could feel the need for the calming exertion, the touch of the morning breeze on her quick body.

She looped the chain with its key and whistle around her neck, and walked to the front of the house. Before opening the door, she told herself it was perfectly safe.

They’re gone.

The cops were still looking for them.

Some of those were very nervous cops—those who’d listened to Vicki and shaken their heads as if they thought she had slipped a gear or two, but who’d later looked at Melvin’s collection of video tapes. They had pretended to think the tapes were faked. But she could see the change in their eyes.

Those cops believed.

She was sure they’d kept it to themselves.

Raines and Woodman were described in the press as missing persons, possible victims of Melvin Dobbs and Patricia Gordon. Dobbs and Gordon were wanted for the abduction of Vicki Chandler and for multiple homicides. They were considered armed and extremely dangerous.

But not zombies.

Vicki had told herself, countless times, that they would’ve been caught by now if they weren’t far away.

She told herself that, again, as she stood at the door, wanting to go out and run, but afraid.

There’s no need to worry.

She left the house. On the sidewalk, she looked up and down the block. She studied shadows cast by the streetlights. Satisfied that nobody lurked nearby, she stretched, twisted, touched her toes. Then she sat on the cool concrete, spread her legs and swiveled, reached to her toes, straining, finally limber enough to grab the soles of her shoes.

She got up and began to run. Twice, she circled the block, unwilling to venture farther from the house. But she felt a longing to break away. Ignoring the small pull of fear in her stomach, she headed for downtown.

Except for a few delivery trucks, the main street was deserted. She dashed past the Riverfront, past Ace Sportswear and the lighted doughnut shop with its delicious aromas, felt her legs begin to weaken as she sprinted past Handiboy, and slowed down in front of the clinic. By the time she reached the park at the north end of town, she was huffing and her legs felt like warm lead.

She slowed to an easy jog. And stopped at the top of the hill. Staring down, she saw the pale strip of beach. The dim shapes of the playground equipment. The slide and swing set.

Empty.

No Jack.

Her eyes grew warm. Her throat tightened.

She walked down the slick dewy grass of the slope, remembering how she’d fallen on her butt the morning she first met him. He had been a stranger, then, watching her from atop the slide.

For just a while, he had filled the empty place in her heart.

Now, he was gone.

Vicki walked on the sand. She climbed the metal rungs of the ladder and sat on top of the slide. The platform was damp. The wetness soaked through the seat of her shorts, but she didn’t mind. She was sitting where Jack had sat, and she felt close to him.

From here, she could see the dark slope. She wondered if he’d been amused by her klutzy fall. After the fall, she had gone down to the shore. He must’ve watched her. She’d been itchy from lying on the grass. She’d stepped into the river and picked up a stick and used it to scratch her back. She’d been thinking about Paul, aching with the memory of the early morning she’d been with him on the diving raft.

The raft, now, was out of sight, hidden beneath a thick fog.

There had been fog that last morning when she was with Paul. A heavy mat of it that covered them as they embraced. Nobody could have seen if they’d made love. But they hadn’t, and she remembered standing in the water, full of longing and regret, wishing she could go back to that time.

All the while, Jack had been watching. From here.

She’d been daydreaming about the only man she had ever loved, and the man she was about to love had been sitting here on the slide, watching and wondering about her.

She closed her eyes and imagined the feel of Jack’s big body against her, his mouth…

Sucking her shoulder, biting as he thrust, ramming her against the bathroom wall.

Her stomach clenched and she whimpered. Snapping her eyes open, she flung herself forward and shot down the wet ramp of the slide. She flew off its end, stumbled through the sand.

Ran, the memory pursuing her.

Paused only long enough to pull off her shoes and socks, then splashed into the river and dove. The chill of the water shocked her mind clear.

She thought, this is crazy. What am I doing?

I have a right to be crazy.

She arched to the surface and swam, swam toward the diving raft. She couldn’t see it through the fog, but she knew right where it was.

It was home, that diving raft. It was where she had been happy and innocent and in love before the bad times came, before the loneliness, before the horror.

Treading water for a moment, Vicki heard it. Soft, familiar slurping sounds of the river’s surface lapping the oil drums that buoyed it up. She swam toward the sound, and the weathered old wood appeared through the gauze of fog.

She climbed the ladder. She stepped onto the platform. It tipped and rolled gently beneath her.

Turning around, she looked toward shore.

There was no shore, only fog, pale in the moonlight.

She was surrounded by fog, alone on her raft, safe.

But shivering. The air, which had seemed so still and warm before she plunged into the river, now felt like an icy breath blowing through her sopping clothes, against her dripping skin.

She sat in the center of the platform. She drew her legs up tight to her body and hugged them.

She sat there, shaking.

The sun will come up in an hour or so, she thought. It’ll burn off the fog. It’ll dry me and warm me.

She could swim ashore now and return to the house and take a long hot bath.

But it was good here.

She didn’t want to leave. She wanted to wait for the sun.

After a while, the chill seemed to fade and her shivering stopped. She lay flat on the raft, her face on her folded arms. The planks grew warm beneath her.

Her eyes drifted shut, but she opened them quickly. With sleep, dreams would come.

The platform moved gently beneath her. The water lapped at the drums. Sometimes, birds cawed and squealed. Far away, a motor sputtered to life and Vicki imagined a man setting out in his boat to begin fishing.

Her eyes slid shut.

She was alone in a canoe. It seemed that Jack should be with her, but she didn’t know where he was. Had he gone in for a swim? The night was clear, moonlight casting a silver path on the water. She turned the boat slowly, scanning the river for him.

And saw, off in the distance, the faint shape of a swimmer.

She called, but no answer came.

The swimmer came closer.

What if it’s not Jack?

Fear made a cold, hard place in her stomach.

Splashing sounds came from the other side. She jerked her head in that direction, spotted another swimmer.

More splashing from behind. She twisted around. Still another pale shape was moving toward her through the water.

A fourth appeared beyond the prow of the canoe.

Another off the starboard side.

Oh Jesus! I’ve gotta get out of here!

She dug her paddle into the water. It lurched and was jerked from her grip. It flew high and hit the water far away.

Hands clutched the gunnel. The canoe tipped. A head bobbed up.

She stared at the broad face, the slicked down hair, the bulging eyes and thick, grinning lips.

“Did you save yourself for us?” Melvin asked.

“No!” she gasped. “Get away!”

The canoe tilted the other way as black hands grabbed the gunnels. The head that burst from the surface was charred and eyeless.

“He wants you, too,” Melvin said. “Charlie’s always wanted you.”

They both began climbing into the canoe. Patricia, naked except for a nurse’s cap, was suddenly perched on the prow.

Vicki backed away. Hands clamped her knees, halting her. The hands of Raines and Woodman, both in the water, leering up at her from the sides of the canoe.