Read The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead Online

Authors: Steven Ramirez

Tags: #Zombie Apocalypse

The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead (5 page)

BOOK: The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead
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At Subway, Holly and I tried to keep the conversation light, but it always came back to the weird events that consumed our lives. In my head I saw Missy everywhere, and I was terrified she would confront me in front of my wife.

“Don’t you like your sandwich?” Holly said.

“Not that hungry, I guess.”

“I like the way you held me this morning.”

I tried ignoring the pain in my gut as my hand found hers.

When we got home in the late afternoon, I fell asleep on the sofa in the TV room. Holly insisted on going to the grocery store even though I’d promised to go later.

Something woke me. When I opened my eyes, Jim was standing there. Terrified, I rolled off the sofa and scrambled to my feet. He was gone. Had I dreamt this? I looked at the carpet and saw dirty footprints.

When Holly returned, she found me in the kitchen. If there was ever a time that demanded a drink, this was it. Instead I made a pot of strong black coffee.

“I suppose you expect me to clean up that mess?” she said.

“I didn’t do it.”

She must have seen my hand trembling as I struggled to bring the coffee to my lips. “What happened, Dave?”

“I saw Jim.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“He was standing next to me when I woke up. Then he was gone.”

“No, it had to be a dream.”

“Dreams don’t leave footprints.”

“Well, how did he get in?”

“You must’ve left the front door unlocked when you went out.”

“Oh God, Dave! What if he’s still in here?”

We never considered Jim a threat before. Holly stayed in the kitchen clutching a carving knife while I locked all the doors and searched the house. There were no other footprints—nothing. I began to doubt Jim had ever been there. I went back and checked the TV room. Nothing was different—other than the footprints—yet something
was
different.

“Holly, can you come in here a sec?”

“What is it?”

“There’s something about this room. I can’t …”

“I don’t see—” She reached up towards a shelf on the wall near the TV. “Dave, look at this.”

I saw where she was pointing. The shelf was dusty, but there was a spot which was dust-free.

“There used to be a picture here, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was of you and Jim.”

“I remember. We were showing off the fish we caught at Shasta Lake. Right before you and I got married.”

Jim might have recalled that as a fun time, but I remember it as tense and awkward. It was our last trip together. He spent the whole time drunk, and it was hard for me not to join in. I kept thinking of my future together with Holly and refused to take part. A tourist happened to catch us in a good mood and snapped the pic. After that I didn’t want to hang out with my friend anymore.

“That was a great trip,” I said.

Over dinner we tried to take our minds off what had happened and made plans for an imaginary baby girl named Jade. So far we had her graduating from Berkeley and going into a graduate program at Stanford. Then the subject of Jim came up again.

“He could’ve been disoriented for a long time, then found his way out of the woods,” I said.

“Dave, he knows those woods. He would’ve made it home in no time. How did he look?”

“Like he was hurt bad. I’m going to take a ride out there.”

“Tonight?” I heard the scared in her voice.

“I need to see if he ever made it home.” I rinsed off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

“What if he’s not … normal?”

“Jim was never normal.”

“You know what I mean. What if he’s—”

“Dangerous?” She nodded. “You mean as in he killed Sarah Champion? Then I’ll hit him with a shovel and call 911.”

This didn’t make Holly feel any better, but it eased the tension. Trying not to think too much, I headed out.

“Lock everything up tight,” I said. When I kissed her, I knew she sensed how afraid I was.

“Dave? Make sure you’re not being followed, okay?”

“Good point.”

I walked to my truck without looking back. The last thing I needed was that dour detective on my ass.

The moon was huge and bright through the trees. Though it was summer, the air was crisp and smelled of pine. When I was younger, I used to want to get away from this place. Move to San Francisco or LA. After I met Holly, I saw the beauty around me—the trees, the fresh air, the quiet—and I understood why my parents had settled here.

Checking the rearview mirror, I made sure I wasn’t being followed. A colony of bats swooped out of the forest into the night. You can never tell with bats, whether they’re scared or out on a joyride. A lot of times they carried disease—primarily rabies. I wondered if that’s what caused the recent rash of people with the jimmies.

An owl hooted somewhere nearby. I heard a shriek and my heart thudded. I pulled over, rolled down the window and listened. Nothing but the wind.

“Mountain lion,” I said.

When I arrived at Jim’s house, everything was dark. I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and got out to investigate. I stepped on something soft. It made a crunching noise, and when I shone the flashlight, I found an orange house cat that looked like it had been gored with a screwdriver.

I jumped away from the rotting carcass, wiped my shoe on some grass and shone the flashlight all around the front yard. There were dead animals everywhere—hundreds of them. Most were dogs and cats. As I moved towards the house I saw a raccoon and what was left of a weasel.

For a second I caught myself thinking this was like one of those horror movies where the audience is screaming “Get out of there now!” No one would be stupid enough to enter the house in real life. Yet here I was, and I believed it made sense. I had to find out what happened to my friend.

The front door was unlocked. Jim never locked his doors because he didn’t think he owned anything worth stealing. Being familiar with the sparse furniture and lack of refinement, I had to agree.

I tried the lights—they came on. I expected to see the walls smeared with the words
Helter Skelter
in blood, but what I saw shocked me all the same. A huge sculpture of green longneck beer bottles rose from floor to ceiling, suspended by iron rebars that had been fashioned into a massive wall with a hole in the center. When had Jim built this?

I stepped on an orange tail that must’ve belonged to the cat from outside. I stood in the living room for a time, admiring the work and remembering all those nights we drank ourselves stupid. There were so many times I woke up in the morning on Jim’s floor. I tried picturing myself there and wondered to the depths of my soul what in God’s name I had thought I was accomplishing. We’d spent so much time here, and I couldn’t remember a single intelligent conversation.

Much as I’d done at home, I did a careful check of the house, calling out Jim’s name. After fifteen minutes of searching, I took a seat in the kitchen. It was painted avocado green. The used aluminum table and chairs looked like they had come from a condemned diner. Jim had sold off his parents’ furniture long ago.

The refrigerator still worked. It was one of those old round-cornered Frigidaire jobs that might’ve looked good in the 1950s. I opened it and found what I expected. Nothing but beer. With the stress of these last few weeks, I craved that wicked drink. All those shiny bottles dusted with condensation waiting for someone to twist off the tops and try to quench a thirst that could never be satisfied. Catching myself, I slammed the refrigerator door shut and choked on a scream.

Jim was standing there, watching me with a birdlike curiosity.

His clothes were a mess, caked with mud and what looked like dried blood. His sandy hair was matted with dirt. His eyes were like two wafers of slate, grey and lifeless. His eyelids were rimmed with red. A whitish goo had formed near the tear ducts. His mouth was filthy with old blood.

I don’t know if it was the fluorescent lights or I was tired, but he looked livid. The gash ringing his neck was dark and ragged. His skin was a kind of greyish and his fingernails were a blackish purple. And here was the weird part. Although he seemed to be alive and aware, there was no indication he was breathing.

Instead of panicking, I sat back on the chair and sighed. “Been watching me long?”

A riverless silence made the air heavy. I thought he hadn’t heard me, but when I looked over at him, I could see he was trying to form words but nothing came out. He moved towards me stiffly and I got to my feet. Why in hell hadn’t I brought the shovel?

“Jim, what’re you—”

He brushed past me and went to the refrigerator. I smelled excrement and saw he’d shitted himself. He grabbed a beer and tried to twist the top off. His fingers were stiff, the tips doughy, and he couldn’t manage it. This was the worst I’d ever seen him. I took the bottle and opened it for him. He stared at it for the longest time like he didn’t know what it was for. Then he drank.

As bad off as he was, I envied him because of the beer. I kept thinking about all those other bottles in the refrigerator. Why shouldn’t I join him for one last round?

The sound of him drinking was indescribable—like dirty runoff down a storm drain. He didn’t even swallow. He let gravity pull the beer down into his gut. I expected liquid to come squirting out of the gash in his neck.

Jim could finish a beer faster than anyone I knew. We used to have contests, and I always lost. It was the same now. The bottle was empty in a couple of seconds. He always belched afterwards. This time, he gawped at me stupidly.

“Where have you been all this time?” He stared at me through dead eyes and tried to form a crooked smile. “We had the whole town out looking for you.” I kept talking, more to keep myself calm than anything. “I think you might need a doctor. Can I have a look at your neck?”

I kept my palms open and in front of me. He smelled of rotting meat, and I had to fight to keep my gorge down. His dull eyes followed my hands as I examined his neck.

I didn’t see any recent bleeding, thank God. Using my finger, I felt the tear. I reached the left side, where a large flap of mortified skin—dried out and crispy at the edges—lay loose over the shiny dark red muscle. As I lifted it, something fell out, which sounded like a pebble when it hit the floor. I glanced down. It was a glass bead from my car’s windshield. Jim looked at it too and groaned, as if remembering the accident all over again.

Suddenly the flap moved by itself, and my stomach lurched.

At first I thought I imagined it. When I lifted up the skin, a fat kidney worm dripping with gore raised its bald, blind head and glared at me. Hearing its silent scream in my head, I shouted and fell backwards against the gas range. I didn’t know I was still holding the flap of skin, and I pulled Jim with me. His head slammed into the range hood, making a dull, squishy sound.

Enraged, he stood straight and bared his teeth, which were covered in half-eaten animal sweetbreads and fur. I tried scrambling away but got pinned in a corner of the kitchen. As he hovered over me, I tried to calm him down.

“Jim, I’m sorry! It was an accident!”

He grabbed for my legs, pincer-like, and I had to kick him away, which made him even angrier. I caught him in the nose with my boot and heard the crunch of bone and cartilage. It didn’t stop him.

“Jim, you need a doctor. Let me drive you to the hospital.”

He stopped and straightened up like he’d heard something outside. I expected his nose to be gushing blood, but there was nothing. Though it was bent to one side, it didn’t seem to bother him. He craned his neck around, and I heard the faint sound of stretching tendons and cracking bones. As he backed away from me, I got to my feet and scooted towards the door.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” I said.

I turned, and he was in front of a cupboard. He opened the door and reached inside. I fumbled for my cell phone to dial 911. I didn’t notice he had turned to face me. Before I could call, he brought his hands up and showed me what he was holding.

It was the photo of us at Shasta Lake, bloodstained and filthy.

Jim stared at me with those cold, crazy eyes, which seemed to look through me. Feeling my heart exploding, I ran out of there, got into my truck and drove off over dozens of dead animals. After a mile or so, I calmed myself and tried to think. I remembered the missing pets, the mutilated deer. And now the dead runner. I considered the fact that Jim no longer spoke.

BOOK: The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead
14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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