The Last Days (22 page)

It had been a girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old when she became one of the dead. By the look of the short pink dress, she hadn’t been a member of the walking dead for too long. Her long brown hair, now stringy and matted down on her head, hung to the middle of her back. Her face was all there, but her skin was dark gray and her mouth hung open. Black thick slime dripped from her mouth and down over her dress.

The only apparent injury John could see was the savage bite marks that covered her right leg. Most of the tissue had been torn from her leg from the knee to the ankle.

He could see the leg bones exposed through the torn flesh.

John watched her move into the service bay. He guessed that she had been attacked by the dead. Her parents or friends must have pulled her into the house or the car and away from the dead in an attempt to save her, as they attacked her leg.

The rest of her looked ghoulish but intact.

John thought about this. He had wondered how people became infected. If the whole country was infected, how did it happen? More important, how could his family keep from becoming infected?

His family had been trapped in his house all night with the dead. The smell burnt their eyes and nose. Blood and body parts covered inside of his house and yard. They had gotten blood on their hands, but had quickly wiped it off.

But they were all OK so far and hadn’t become infected.

All the walking dead he had seen had similar injuries or worse than the girl below.

If his favorite movie “
Night of the Living Dead
” was to be believed, you became infected and “one of them”, if they bit you or scratched you and got their blood or slime in your wound.

“This is insane!” John thought. “Using a horror movie as a reference guide on how to survive the walking dead!”

But he also thought it was no more insane then being run off his property by the dead. Watching them eat his cat.

So he decided until he had more information, maybe Mike could tell him more, that he should just avoid getting bit or scratched by the dead.

From the horrific appearance and smell of the dead, John didn’t need to be convinced that he should avoid being bitten by one of them.

He had no intention of letting one of those things bite him or try to engage them in hand to hand combat.

But from what he had decided, getting bit meant becoming one of them! That gave him even more incentive.

Becoming one of them was a fate worse than death.

John started to crawl backwards to Barb and Cindy.

Barb looked questioningly at him when he returned.

John signaled them not to speak and led them back into the room.

“There is one of them staggering around down in the service bay. It came out of the hallway we were going to use.” John whispered.

“How are we going to get out now?” Barb asked.

John stuck his head out the door and looked around. “Let’s go down this hall outside this room and see if it comes out somewhere in the front part of the building.” John whispered. “Maybe we can get down out there.”

John took Cindy’s hand and they started back the upstairs hallway. Cindy held her hand over her nose as they passed the bathrooms. John couldn’t help but smile as he saw her.

He led them to the end of the hall where another door blocked their way.

John gave Cindy’s hand to Barb and turned to the door.

The handle turned easily.

He opened it just a crack so he could see what was on the other side.

The light coming through the opening was so bright, it made him blink.

When his eyes adjusted, he could see he was looking out at a balcony that overlooked the front of the building like the one that overlooked the service bay.

The bright light was coming in through the front wall, which appeared to be all glass.

“This must be the showroom at the front of the building.” John thought. “This might work out even better.”

He signaled Barb to stay put.

He got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl to the top of the steps on the right side of the balcony.

As he moved closer to the stairs, he could see the front glass that had let the public see the cars that the dealership had on display when they were still open.

The right front window had been smashed and glass was spread across the floor of the showroom. Bloody streaks ran across the unbroken parts of the window.

John could also see out to the road.

A few of the dead staggered around out on the road. Not the thousands that had traveled the road yesterday.

John liked to think the fewer numbers out there today was because the rest of them were down in the creek. They had fallen over the side of the bridge in their efforts to get at him and the girls.

Hopefully they followed the ones in front and just kept falling into the creek and then couldn’t figure out how to get up the banks to get out of the creek.

He felt certain they did that for a while, but eventually they would have been distracted by something else that would have turned them back to continue staggering down the road.

He had no intention of going back to the creek to see how many were in the creek, no matter how curious he was.

John also noticed that a section of the fence out in front that blocked access to the building had been knocked down. If possible that is how he would like to get away from the building. He would go over the fence if he had to, but he preferred a less painful exit.

He crawled to the top edge of the steps.

The smell of the dead was strong here. He assumed it was because of the broken front window.

Thuuup!   Thuuup!   Thuuup!

The sound eliminated that idea.

He peered down over the edge.

Two more of the dead shuffled through the empty showroom.

John moved back and laid his forehead on the carpeting and thought.

The front was the preferred way to get out of the building. Whichever way he went, he had to get past the dead. One at a time would be the best option, so he guessed he would go back to the service bay and start there.

He crawled back to Barb and Cindy.

“Let’s go back to the room for a minute.” John whispered.

He led them back the way they had come.

When they were back in the room, John started.

“There are two zombies out front.” John whispered. “Whichever way we go, we have to get past the dead. I think we should go down the back steps since there is only one of them back there.”

Barb looked worried. “How to you plan to get by the dead?”

John held up his crowbar.

“You’re going to kill them?” Barb looked shocked.

“They are already dead, they just don’t know it.” John replied. “Besides, you’ve seen how they scream and moan when they see something. We can’t let them alert any others we are here. There seem to be only a few of them out in front of the building. If we let them follow us outside and start to get loud, we could end up with thousands of them chasing us again.”

Barb nodded but John could tell she didn’t like where John’s plans were going.

John sighed. “I want you to wait at the end of the hall near the balcony. Stay there until you hear me calling you. I am going to run down the steps and club the one down in the service bay before it can make too much noise.”

Barb’s eyes got wide.

“Don’t worry. She was a ninety pound teenager. Her leg is all mangled below her knee. She shouldn’t put up much of a fight.” John said. “But she will probably call out before I can get to her. The ones out front will then come back to see what all the fuss was about.”

Barb looked speechless.

“After I take this one out, I’ll call you. I want you to go over to the left side of the balcony. I am going to go to the corner by the hall. You can see what is coming down the hall before they get to me. I want you to watch and see how many come down the hall. There are only two of them, so hold up one or two fingers.” John said looking at Barb to make sure she understood what he was trying to do. “I plan on hitting them in the head with the crowbar as soon as they come around the corner and into the service bay. If they both come at one time, I’ll just have to be more careful and be ready for them.”

“Understand?” John asked.

Barb nodded.

“OK, wait here until I call your name.” John said and started to crawl to the top of the steps above the service bay.

He kept his head low until he spotted the girl.

She was standing with her head hanging down. She seemed to be staring at something on the floor.

“What the hell could be on the floor that would of any interest to the dead?” John thought. From where he was he couldn’t see anything but the drain cover on the floor.

At the end of every day where he worked, they would always hose down the service bay. There was always a drain in the middle of the floor to drain away the water.

Other than to remove some large piece of dirt or grease that was blocking the holes in the cover that caused the water to back up in the bay, he had never seen anything in the drain that interested him.

But then he wasn’t one of the dead and he hoped not to be one of them if he could help it.

Even though she was staring at the drain, the angle of her head would allow her to see him if he tried to go down the stairs right now.

He waited and hoped something else would get her attention so she would move somewhere else. As soon as her back was turned, he would go down.

John watched and waited. She just stared at the drain.

After two minutes John thought. “Damn, once these things get concentrating on something they don’t let go of it. Not until something else distracts them.”

John looked on the floor where he laid on his stomach. He saw a small piece of gravel.

“It might not be as interesting as what is in that drain, but it might work.” John thought.

He reached out and picked up the small stone.

He crawled backwards a few feet so she wouldn’t see him when he threw the stone.

He tossed the stone up over the railing. It landed a few feet behind her, making a clattering noise as it bounced across the floor and bounced off the bottom of the wall.

John crawled forward to look down again.

The dead girl turned towards where the stone laid on the floor and began to move towards the stone.

Her back was now facing John.

He stood slowly, watching the dead figure move towards the stone.

He began to go down the steps. One step at a time so his tennis shoes would softly make silent contact with the metal steps.

He was halfway down the staircase when he saw the girl stop. She raised her head up into the air.

John couldn’t tell whether she was smelling the air or listening. She slowly began to turn.

Whether it was smell or hearing, John couldn’t believe a dead creature could do either with the degree of accuracy it would have taken to detect him. He couldn’t believe those dead bodies had the ability to hear or smell anything at all.

Whichever sense it was that detected him, this thing must have a better nose or ears than he had.

John started to move faster. If it could hear or smell better than he could, he knew at least it couldn’t move as fast as he could.

He took the last part of the stairs two steps as a time. He arrived at the dead girl just as she had turned completely around and was now facing him.

It raised its arms towards him as its mouth opened forming a larger than possible distorted open mouth. He saw she still had all her teeth, black crud covered but still all there, as she let out a blood curdling muffled sounding scream.

John angled to her left side to avoid her outstretched arms and the black shit that came flying out of her mouth. He brought the crowbar down hard on top of her head.

The loud sickening thud affected John more than he thought it would. He watched her fall face first onto the floor. Black slime poured from her head and formed a small puddle around her head on the floor.

John looked down at the now unmoving body.

From the back, unable to see that grotesque face, she looked like what she had once been.

A teenage girl.

She didn’t look nearly as terrifying from this angle.

If it wasn’t for the sickening gray color of her skin, John almost wanted to kneel down and see if she was alright.

He looked down over her body. He looked at her almost normal hair, the pink dress, but was jolted out of his thoughts when he came to her leg. The ragged torn flesh brought him back to reality and he didn’t like it.

Reality sucked.