Stay Dead 2: The Dead and The Dying (13 page)

They hit the kitchen one more time and
were only able to scrape together another bag. Walter found a
bathroom on the same floor and grabbed everything out of the
medicine cabinet save for the used toothbrushes. He added the items
to the bag and set it by the door.

They continued on the level and while
opening what Walter suspected was a closet door they stumbled upon
the basement. Walter grabbed the flashlight from his back pocket
and descended.

“
Wait here till I give the
all clear,” he said midway down the staircase.

Walter reached the bottom and spun the
light around the room. It was a small damp basement. In one corner
sat a workbench, in the other a washer and dryer set with a slop
sink. On one side of the basement was a line of Rubbermaid storage
cabinets.

“
Is it clear?”

“
Yeah, yeah, come on down.
Bring the bags.”

They opened the storage cabinets and
emptied what little was in there. Jeff grabbed a case of water and
they headed back up stairs.

They went through the rest of the
house and found little else aside from some health aids in the
upstairs bathroom and linen closet.

After loading up the truck they moved
on to the next house, and then the next. Walter felt a growing
anxiety in his stomach the further away their home looked in the
rearview mirror, but at least when they got back they would be
better equipped to whether the storm.

18 HOLD ON

(back to
top)

Alexis watched in terror, staring out
the back window as the van tipped over.

“
Oh, my God! Abdul, we have
to do something!”

Chris started crying and Stacey yelled
at him to shut up.

“
Stay here with the
children. Carrie, be ready to drive away if need be. I’ll do what I
can.”

“
How about I drive away
now?”

Abdul grabbed a tire-iron, “Enough,
Carrie, or so help me I will use this on you when I get back,” he
yelled, then hurried over to the van. Scott and Judy followed
behind, each brandishing a similar melee weapon.

The dead shambled slowly down the
hill. Some toppled over and rolled down the hill. It would be
comical if they were removed from the reality of the
situation.

Inside the van Eddie bled profusely
from his nose. He opened the side door and started helping everyone
out. Jon-Jon and Dawn were both unconscious in the front, and Eddie
feared one if not both were dead. Frankie crawled out of the van,
dizzy and disoriented. Abdul ran over to him and pointed him toward
his truck.

“
Go!” He yelled, but
Frankie stood there, hoping he could be of help.

Chuck, and Chung-Hee were next out of
the van.

The dead were now
approaching.

Scott went on the offensive and
attacked the closest one, cracking its head open on the first swing
and sending it reeling backwards.

Eddie stepped out of the van, pulling
his mother out. Janice clutched her head and a thin sliver of
crimson ran down her face. Joseph followed, looking only frazzled
and angry.

Abdul opened the passenger side door
and shook Dawn to consciousness. She was disoriented and her vision
was blurry. She began to scream and smack Abdul away. He calmed her
down, reassuring her that he wasn’t going to hurt her as the sounds
of the dead began to buzz in his ears like a swarm of flies around
road kill.

Scott took down another. Then Judy
took one down. Frankie attacked another. Yet still more came and
Dawn was just getting out of the van.

“
What the hell is taking so
long?” Carrie whined.

“
It looks like some of them
are hurt,” Alexis replied.

“
Hurt bad? Should we
go?”

“
I want to go,” Nick
pleaded.

“
We have to wait,” Stacey
told him.

“
We’re not going anywhere,”
Alexis yelled.

Alexis continued to look out the
window. Eddie was walking his mother to the other car. She couldn’t
see Joseph, and hoped he wasn’t hurt.

Judy was checking Jon-Jon for a pulse.
A surge of relief washed over her when she found one. He wasn’t
waking up and she couldn’t lift him by herself. She looked around
and Joseph met her eyes. He ran over instinctively and she yelled
for him to hurry.

“
He’s alive!”

“
Thank Christ,” Joseph
replied. “Let’s get him out of there.”

Joseph was a strong young guy and had
no trouble pulling Jon-Jon out of the van and hoisting him over his
shoulder.

“
Follow me,” Judy said as
she started jogging away.

“
Everyone’s out of the
van.” Abdul said, pulling Frankie back from the onslaught of
dead.

“
Let’s go!” Abdul
yelled.

Scott turned and ran, surveying the
area for his wife.

They converged at the two vehicles,
the dead not far behind.

“
Fuck! We’re not all gonna
fit.”

Abdul looked at his truck. “Guys, get
on top of the truck. Hold on to the roof racks.”

“
They can’t ride up there!”
Carrie yelled.

“
Joe, put Jon in our truck.
Janice, get in there too. Dawn I think you should hop in too, and
if anyone else can fit. Chung you might be able to squeeze in the
back on top of the luggage.”

“
The rest of you start
climbing,” Scott said as he hopped in the driver’s seat.

Eddie and his brother Joseph climbed
up Scott’s SUV, laid down on their bellies, holding tight to the
roof racks. Chung-Hee hopped inside the SUV and sat on top of the
luggage in the back, while Chuck and Frankie climbed up on top of
Abdul’s SUV.

Frankie slapped the roof to signal
they were good to go and Abdul began to accelerate and not a moment
too soon, since the dead were already in reach of the truck behind
them.

The dead clawed at the window as
Chung-Hee stared at them.

“
God damn that was a close
call,” Scott yelled.

“
You’re not kidding,”
Chung-Hee said.

Dawn sat next to Jon-Jon who still
hadn’t woken up.

Judy looked back at her, “He’s going
to be okay, Dawn. Jon’s a tough guy and he’ll pull through. He
must’ve hit his head pretty hard. Just give him time, and keep his
head up.”

“
Thanks, Judy. He better
pull through. I’m starting to like him.”

“
Don’t start getting soft,
now.”

“
I’m not. Women like me
don’t get soft.”

“
How’s your nose?” Joseph
yelled over to his brother.

“
Hurt’s like a bitch,
man.”

“
You break it?”

“
Yeah, I think so. Feels
like it, for sure,” he said, licking the blood from his upper
lip.

“
Could be
worse.”

Eddie didn’t want to think about it.
Damn right it could’ve been worse. Him, his brother, and his mother
could all be dead by now. All the suffering, the heartache, and the
surviving these last days would all be for naught. If that was the
case he would’ve chosen to be eaten on day one and just get it over
with, but luckily they were still alive. Hanging on to the roof
racks of a stolen truck and being stalked by the living dead, but
alive.

Was it worth it, he wondered, and
thought it had to be. Surely this was better than the alternative.
Surely this was better than being one of the living
dead.

19 FREE LUNCH

(back to
top)

Abdul sped through the path along the
road, bobbing and weaving out of the way of bushes and low-hanging
branches. He continued to look for an opening that would allow them
to get back onto the road but none presented themselves so he
stayed the course. The kids thought the ride was fun and squealed
in delight when Abdul hit a large bump, sending them up in the
air.

“
He’s still not awake.”
Dawn said somberly, stroking his hand.

“
He’ll be fine,” Judy
reassured. “Janice, how’s your head? Are you feeling
okay?”

“
Oh, I’m okay. Just a bit
of a bump. The older I get the easier it is to bleed. Believe it or
not I’ve bled worse from paper cuts.”

“
You’re a tough woman. When
we stop—if we stop, I’ll see if I can scrounge up some Ibuprofen,
or maybe something stronger if either of you need it. You might
start feeling sore later, once the adrenaline wears
off.”

“
My neck is already
starting to hurt,” Dawn said.

“
At my age, I don’t know
what’s a new pain or an old pain,” she smiled, without even
realizing it.

“
How about you,
Chung?”

“
I’m good. A little cramped
over here, but I can’t complain.”

“
Good.”

Scott rolled down the window and
shouted to Eddie and Joseph on the roof, “How you guys holding
up?”

“
Just great!” Eddie yelled
back.

“
I keep getting hit by
these fucking branches!”

“
Sorry—doing the best I
can!”

After an hour or so of slow moving on
the side of the road the incline softened and the congestion of
abandoned vehicles lessened allowing the two-car convoy to get back
on the road.

Abdul pulled over to the side and
slowed down. Scott pulled up next to him and rolled down the
window.

“
Scott, do you think it
would be better to look for a new vehicle now, or continue moving
forward?”

“
I don’t know. What do you
guys think, up there?”

Eddie slid over to the edge, “I can
hang on as long as we have to. Joe’s fine too. I’d rather keep
going and get some more distance between us and the deaders we left
behind.”

“
Might as well keep going,”
Frankie joined in, “at least while the road is clear. Ya know? Go
as far as we can. Then when it gets congested again, we’ll have a
better chance of finding another truck. More to choose from and
shit.”

“
Makes sense,” Scott
agreed. “Chuck, whaddya think? Can you hold on longer?”

“
Yeah, just don’t go too
fast guys, and no sudden breaking, please—we could go
flying.”

“
Good point.”

“
After you, Abdul,” Scott
said.

“
Okay, guys, hold
on.”

Eddie stared off to the side at the
ever moving and changing landscape. Sparse trees littered the
hills, industrial buildings bled into the grey of the sky and it
all coalesced into a blurry image raking across his
eyes.

Now more than ever the world seemed to
be dying. Autumn always brought with it a sense of change, but now,
coupled with the insanity that was the living dead that change
seemed more permanent. Each falling leaf was a breath from a dying
world, each tree a decaying limb. The roadways were clogged
arteries that pulverized a still-beating heart, unaware of the
massive attack that would soon sweep its tissue and leave it
cold.

Maybe the clouds themselves would stay
gray and fall out of the sky, blanketing the earth in a morbid
dust-like haze.

“
This sucks!” Joseph
yelled, spitting bugs out of his mouth.

“
It’s a free
lunch!”

Joseph held on to the roof racks with
one hand, squeezing tighter than ever, as he used his other hand to
wipe away the bugs that were smattering his face and collecting in
his growing, but spotty, beard.

The idea of having to eat bugs to
survive was not a new one. It was something he thought about quite
a number of years ago while watching a television show that paid
good money for people to eat insects. The show was supposed to be
about facing fear, but in reality it was just about grossing out
the audience so that they would be too disgusted to change the
channel.

There were many similar shows Joseph
watched when he could fit in time for television. Shows like
Survivorman, Fear Factor, Man VS The Wild, and plenty more, and
when Joseph came across an episode dealing with the ever-popular
bug eating his stomach would turn and his mind would produce a
scenario in which he had to eat bugs to survive.

In these machinations of his mind he
would get as far as putting the bug in his mouth and upon feeling
its legs touch his tongue he would throw up. Just thinking about it
make him sick, and now, picking bugs out of his mouth he wondered
how much longer it would be before that little nightmare became a
reality. He still didn’t know if he had what it took to eat a bug
to live.

He could wipe his ass with leaves. He
could forego bathing and neglect his hygiene. He could ration food,
drink tepid tap water, and sleep in cars. He could kill the hell
out of deaders, and he was able to keep his sanity mostly intact as
he dealt with the grief over the fallen members of his
family.