The Living Dead Boy (8 page)

Three hard cracks of a pistol sounded.

“Stay away from him!”

More shots, then silence.

Josh lowered his arm to see the zombie lying dead near him.  Jumping to his feet, he turned to see his mom standing in the doorway of their house.

The gun was still aimed at the zombie, her expression angry and fierce.  Her blond hair spilled over her shoulders in golden curls. Josh thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Get in the house, Josh,” she said in a soft, yet commanding voice.

He obeyed her, walking swiftly toward the house. She kept the gun up, watching the road, her hand trembling.

It wasn’t until she hugged him and scooted him in the doorway that he saw the strip of cloth wrapped around her arm and the dark, angry blob of red that could only mean one thing.

His mom had been bitten by a zombie.

Chapter 13

“Mom?”  Josh whispered in a trembling voice as his mother slammed the door shut and twirled the locks.

Lynette rested her head against the door, taking in deep breaths.  Drake, behind a child’s gate erected between the kitchen and the dining room, was crying as he tried to climb over it.

Sweat slid down Josh’s face, dripping off his chin as he slid off his backpack.  He could feel his bottom lip quivering as he clenched his hands tightly at his side. He couldn’t let himself fall apart.  He had to be strong and take care of his family like he had promised his dad.

“Mom?”

“I’m so glad you made it.  I was so scared you wouldn’t.” His mother’s voice was soft, yet rough with emotion.  Her eyes squeezed shut, tears rimming her eyelids and sparkling on her long lashes.  Her lips trembled.

Josh threw his arms around her waist and clung to her. He felt her hand settle on his back as she quietly sobbed.  It was her injured arm and he could smell the coppery scent of blood mixed with something putrid. His mother’s body was very hot and he could feel her shivering.

“Mom?”

“I’m so glad you made it,” she repeated in a soft, weary voice.

Drake managed to hoist himself over the top of the child gate and flopped onto the floor on the other side. He burst into loud, high-pitched cries.

“No, Drake,” Lynette exclaimed.  She wrenched away from Josh and lurched across the living room.  “Drake, stop crying. Stop! It will make the monsters come.  Shhhhh.”

Josh rushed around his obviously ailing mother and grabbed up Drake.  His little brother felt heavy in his arms and to make matters worse, he flailed around, twisting his body to get away.

“Mama, Mama, Mama,” Drake wailed.

“Drake, shhh, stop it!”  Josh tried to cover his little brother’s mouth, but Drake wrenched his tear and snot covered face away.

Lynette reached them and placed her hand against Drake’s cheek, kissing his forehead.  “Drake,  be a good boy and stop crying. We don’t want the monsters to come. No monsters, Drake,” she whispered urgently against his skin.

Throwing his chubby arms around Lynette’s neck, Drake clung to her, sobbing in a softer tone.  “No monsters! They’re bad!  They hurt mama.”

Lynette kissed him again as Josh looked warily at the windows.  His mother had drawn the curtains, but there was nothing to keep the zombies out if they attacked.  Looking back at his mother, he saw her gun tucked into the leather belt buckled around her slim waist.  Slowly, he realized her long denim dress was stained with blood and torn along the side.  Her heavily bandaged arm was still bleeding and blood dripped to the floor.

“Mom, did one of them bite you?”  Josh could barely get the words out.  His throat felt dry and painful as he spoke. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to believe he was wrong.

She nodded as she comforted Drake.  Fresh tears slid down her cheeks as she held out her wounded arm.  “I was trying to protect Drake.”

It was hard to hear her over Drake’s sobs. Josh again looked fearfully at the windows.  His stupid little brother was going to get them eaten if he didn’t shut up.

“Mom, let’s get away from the windows, okay?”

Josh took hold of her good arm, guiding her through the archway to the hall near the stairs.   The study was across from the stairway.  It was a small room with only one window partially covered by a bookcase.  The heavy velvet curtains were already closed.  An old, battered green sofa sat against one wall and his grandfather’s small desk was against another.  His father’s gun lockers were lined up against the wall, doors shut and padlocked.

His mother collapsed onto the sofa, clutching Drake with her one good arm.  Her pale, sweat drenched skin looked sickly in the dim light seeping in around the edges of the curtains.

“Drake, go to your brother,” Lynette ordered, her voice faint.  She sounded tired and sad.  Scooting the reluctant little boy off her lap, she gave him one last firm push toward Josh.  “Mama needs to take a nap. You go with Josh.”

Drake tried to resist, but Josh caught his wrist firmly, drawing him away.

“Mom,” Josh said in a low voice, trying not to alert any nearby zombies to their whereabouts and also to keep his brother calm. “Mom, we need to go to the community center and get you a doctor.”

Lynette shook her head, huge tears sliding down her cheeks.  “I don’t have that much time, Josh.  I’ll be...resting soon.  I feel it inside...slowing everything down.”  She was trying to keep her voice even and not frighten Drake.

Distracted by a small iron statue of a cowboy on a horse, Drake wasn’t paying much attention anyway.  He was playing with the forbidden object, making it ride across the top of his grandfather’s old wooden desk.  His tears were drying on his face, his earlier tantrum forgotten.

“Mom, what happened?”

Lynette pulled a throw pillow up under her wounded arm.  The wound was still seeping and the smell was foul.

“I got to his school and-”

“The monsters were there,” Drake cut in.  “They were bad.  Like zombies.”  He went back to playing with the cowboy, pretending to fire the rifle the iron cast figure held.

“They had gotten into
the building.  Drake’s teacher had the students barricaded in the room.  When I got there, I saw her waving from the window.  I could see from the tracks in the mud that other parents had driven up to the window, so I drove right up.  There were only a few kids left and she begged me to get them all out.  I guess the other parents had grabbed their kids and bailed.  She told me she had been begging those other parents to get help so she could escape with the kids. There were zombies everywhere.  Just then the door...”

“The bad monsters got in.”

Lynette sighed, looking at her youngest with a sad expression.  “They got in.  Mrs. Hendricks grabbed Drake and pushed him through the window.  I got him into the car and Mrs. Hendricks was trying to hand me another kid when...when...when...”

Tears streamed down Lynette’s cheeks as the horror of the moment overwhelmed her.  She wiped her tears away, smearing her makeup around her eyes. The blue wasn’t as bright as before, as if a cloud was slowly moving over her irises.

“I got in the car and pulled out, but we got swarmed. They were everywhere.  We barely got out of the parking lot.  I sped home, but there was an accident. We got hit by a truck. Another car hit him, then another hit that one.  It was so bad.  I managed to get out and was reaching for Drake when one of those...things...grabbed him.  I threw my arms around it and in the struggle...”  She motioned her arm.  “I managed to get my gun out and shot it.  Then we ran home.  I called you because I knew you could...”  She faltered, her eyes straying to Drake.  “And now you’re here...”  His mother burst into sobs, her body shaking. “Josh, oh, Josh, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Resisting the urge to throw his arms around her, Josh reached out and gently touched her hand.  She clutched it tightly.  Her hand was hot and moist.

“Mom, we need to get you to the community center and a doctor.”

“Josh,” Lynette started, then hesitated.  Her mouth twitched as she struggled to speak through her tears, fear and emotions.  “Josh,” she continued, her voice cracking.  “I need you to take your brother and get him to a safe place.  That is why I called you.”

“Mom!”

“I know you can do it, Josh.  If anyone on this earth can deal with this, it’s you.  All those movies, books, comics...everything, Josh.  You know more about this than any of us.”  She held up her arm.  “We both know what this means.  I can
feel
what it is doing to me inside.”

Josh felt tears pouring down his face and an ugly lump filled his throat making it hard to swallow, breathe, or talk. He swallowed hard, then said, “Those were just movies!”

“I can feel it, Josh,” his mother whispered.  She pressed her hand to her chest.  “I feel it here.  What it’s doing.” Her dimming blue eyes flicked to Drake.  “Save your brother, Josh.”

Rubbing his eyes, Josh sobbed, “What will you do?”

Her fingers lightly touched the gun at her waist. “What I have to.”

“Mom, no, Mom,” Josh exclaimed, falling to his knees before her.

Drake turned around, distracted from his playing, and began to watch them.

“Take care of your brother until your dad gets back. You can do this for me.  Tell your dad I love him and I will see him again someday.  Please.”

“Mom, I can’t. I’m just a kid!”

“You’re the best kid I’ve ever known, Josh.  Do this for me.  Promise me!”  Lynette grabbed his hand again. This time her fingers felt cooler.

Josh looked at the pale hand clutching him. Her fingers were tinged with blue and purple.  The veins stood out starkly against her white skin.  Looking up at her, he saw that her eyes were even cloudier than before. Horrified, he realized how much she looked like a zombie already.  His mother was dying right before his eyes.

“Do this for me,” his mother said again in a faint voice. “Save your brother and yourself.  Your dad will come back for both of you.”

Afraid, Josh nodded.  He overcame his fear of her appearance and pressed a quick, hard kiss to her cheek.  It was cooler than he thought it would be.  She hugged him briefly, then pushed him away.

“Go now.”

“No!”  Drake said firmly. “Want Mama, not Josh!” The little boy flung himself at his mother.

Josh grabbed for him, managing to catch his collar. Drake grabbed hold of Lynette’s wounded arm, making her scream.

“Let go!”

“Want Mama!”

“Take him,” Lynette gasped, slumping down on the couch, resting on her elbow.  Blood was bubbling from her lips.  “It’s almost over and I have to...do....this...” Her hand gripped the gun at her waist.

Pulling with all his might, Josh managed to pry Drake off of his mother.  “Leave her alone!”

“Mama, Josh is being mean. I want to be with
you
!”

“Go with Josh, Drake.  I want you to go with Josh. I’m sick, Drake. I can’t go with you.”  Lynette fumbled with the safety on the gun.  Her voice was raspier, her breath coming faster.

The three year old became a tornado of limbs flying everywhere.  He twisted and jerked his body, his feet kicking.  “No! No! Mama!  I want to stay with Mama!”

Josh held on as tight as he could, dragging Drake to the door.  It was hard to breathe and his tears kept blinding him. He had always thought it would be so cool for zombies to come and for him and his family to fight them off.  He had never imagined his mom being bitten.

“Mama!” Drake screamed so loud it made Josh’s head hurt.

Reaching the door to the study, Josh pushed the door open and fought to get the squirming, kicking child through the doorway.  “Mom, I’ll do it.  I’ll take care of him,” he promised.

With one more hard yank, he got Drake through. He reached into the room to grab hold of the door knob when he saw his mother sit up sharply on the sofa.

“Mom, I love you, “Josh he said.  “I’ll make sure Drake is safe.”

Her only response was to open her mouth, screech, and lurch off the sofa toward him, one hand thrust out to grab him.

C
hapter 14

Josh froze for a second, his hand still reaching for the door knob.  The creature in front of him resembled his mother, but the horrible shriek that emanated from its blue lips and milky eyes meant only one thing.

“Want Mama!”  Drake declared, trying to dart past Josh.

Catching his younger brother, Josh was released from his paralysis.  In seconds, his mind processed that he couldn’t hold his brother back and close the door at the same time with the zombie swiftly moving toward them.  He quickly made his choice.

Lifting his little brother off the ground, Josh ran down the hallway toward the archway that led into the dining room.  Behind him, he could hear the hard clap of his mother’s boots against the wood floor. She wasn’t as fast as the zombies at the school, but she was close behind him.

Drake cried, his arms flung out toward his mother, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open in a wail that didn’t seem to end.  He was heavy, but adrenaline fueled his older brother’s flight across the small dining room.

Risking a few precious seconds, Josh reached out with one hand, snagged the back of one of the big wooden dining room chairs and sent it crashing to the floor behind him.  The shriek of the zombie was cut off abruptly as it tripped and slammed into the floor face first.

The child gate guarded the door to the kitchen. There was no way he could leap over it holding his younger brother, so Josh tossed the three year old over the barricade. Drake landed on his side and burst into even louder cries.  Josh scrambled over the gate, feeling the faint brush of his zombified mother’s hand against his ankle.  Snagging Drake’s arm, he dragged him, hitting the door to the laundry room at full steam.  He wrenched it open and pushed Drake through before following.

As he pulled the door shut, he saw the zombie that had been his mother trying to get over the child gate, the gun still clutched in her hand.  She toppled over the gate head first, slamming into the kitchen floor. The gun fired with a sharp crack, the bullet slamming into the wall near Josh.

“Crap!”  Josh slammed the door shut and turned to see his brother laying on the floor sobbing.

“Mama, Mama,” Drake wailed.

Pulling the curtain slightly away from the window next to the back door, Josh looked into the backyard. It was peaceful.  The high fence and locked gate had kept the zombie chaos from flowing over onto their property.  The boughs of the oak tree that sheltered his tree house were swaying in the winds of the oncoming storm.  The sky was now completely gray and threatening rain.

The door behind him began to tremble as the zombie on the other side began to beat against it. Terrified that the gun would go off again, Josh dragged Drake into his arms.   His mother had said they needed to go somewhere safe until his dad could get them. The only place he could think of was his tree house.

“Drake, stop crying!”

“Mama!”  Drake whimpered, thrusting his hand toward the door.  “Mama!”

The sound of his voice made their zombified mother growl and slam her body against the door to the laundry room.  Josh pulled open the back door and stumbled down the steps into the backyard, struggling with his brother.  Drake’s desperate attempts to get free sent them both sprawling onto the ground.

“You’re mean!”  Drake exclaimed. He began to crawl away from Josh, sobbing.

Josh leaped to his feet, turned and dashed back up the steps.  He heard the gun go off again. He gasped, terrified. It sounded like his dead mother was using the gun to try to break through the laundry room door. Reaching into the house, he felt his heart skipping in his chest.  It hurt to breathe.  He kept blinking sweat and tears from his eyes as he tried to focus.  Gripping the doorknob, he pulled the door shut, blocking out the sound of the zombie desperately trying to pursue them.

Turning, he saw Drake lying facedown on the ground weeping.  A soft rain was just beginning, dotting Drake’s yellow shirt with wet spots.  Josh reached down and hooked his hands under his brother’s armpits.

“No! No!  Want Mama,” Drake sobbed.  “Want Mama. Want Rex.”

Lifting his brother off the ground, Josh fought down an enormous sob building up in his chest.  “Mama isn’t Mama anymore.  She’s a monster.”

Drake threw back his head, sobbing.

“Yeah, yeah.  Mama got sick from the monster bite,” Josh explained.  “She’s a monster now.”

Drake whimpered, all the fight going out of him. Josh assumed that his three year old mind was trying to cope with the situation.

“Want Rex,” Drake finally said.

“We’ll get him later,” Josh promised.

He felt Drake go limp in his arms as he carried him over to the tree house.  The rain started to come down at a faster pace.  The world seemed eerily silent except for the gentle patter of the rain against the leaves.  He couldn’t even hear the sound of his dead mother pounding on the door inside the house.

“Drake, climb up.”

“I can’t go into the tree house,” Drake whispered. “Mama and Daddy said so.”

“You can this time,” Josh assured him as he lifted the little boy onto the ladder.

Positioning himself directly below and slightly behind Drake, he carefully guided the little fellow up the trunk of the tree.

“I’m scared,” his brother whispered as they climbed higher.

“It’s okay.  I’m right behind you.  I got you.”

Drake’s small fingers shook as he gripped the rough wood nailed into the trunk.  Josh moved up closer to him, pressing his chest against his brother’s rear.

“It’s okay, Drake. We’re almost there.”

Josh worried his brother would freeze on the ladder like Roger had the first time he tried to climb to the tree house, but Drake reached up for the next rung.

Together, they reached the top just as the dark clouds above released dark, cool rain down on the town.  Drake crawled into the shelter and over to the makeshift sofa made up of pillows and old blankets. He fell onto it, tucking his thumb into his mouth.  Josh followed him in, shaking the rain from his hair. Reaching up, he unrolled the thick, black plastic door he had made for the tree house.  It hooked onto two nails at the bottom of the door.  If zombies learned to climb, it wouldn’t be much protection, but Josh felt confident in the sturdy gate and fence around the house.

He pulled down the old shade his dad had installed over the window and sat down beside his brother. Silent tears streamed down both their faces.  He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that Drake understood that Lynette was no longer really their mother.

Dropping his head into his hands, he let out a low, shuddering sob.  His heart was still pounding in his chest.  His legs and arms ached from his mad dash to get to get home, and his subsequent escape from the house.  If he hadn’t arrived in time, he realized he would have lost his brother, too.  It was too awful to think about and he let out another hiccupping sob.

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed quietly crying as the storm erupted overhead, but finally his heartbeat returned to normal.  His chest still felt tight and his body was aching, but he felt calmer.

Beside him, Drake dozed, thumb in his mouth.  It was probably better that he slept for awhile.  Josh needed time to make his next plan.  If his dad didn’t show up, it would be up to Josh to get them both to safety.  Where that would be, he wasn’t sure.  His friends were probably at the community center by now.  If real life followed the movies, it wouldn’t be safe there for long. People who had bites would be there and soon it would get really bad.

The thought of his mother’s bite and her death brought fresh, hot tears to his eyes.  She had been so beautiful in life. To see her as a monstrous and terrifying zombie had been the worst thing he had ever experienced in his young life.  Sadly, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last horrible thing he would ever see.

Now he felt stupid for ever liking zombies.  It had been dumb to think they were cool and fantasize about surviving the zombie apocalypse.  Looking around his tree house at his idea of survival gear made him want to throw up.  He had been such a stupid little kid.  How his dad had trusted him to take care of his family, he didn’t understand.  He was just a dumb kid.

Drake murmured softly in his sleep, his fingers twitching.  Josh felt bad that he hadn’t snagged Rex on the way out of the house.  The stupid toy would have probably comforted his brother.  When Drake woke up, Josh didn’t know how he was going to take care of him.

He felt utterly helpless.

And then he heard the screams.

At first he thought it was just the rain and the thunder, but then the voices rose above the wind.  It took him a few more seconds to realize that the voices were calling out his name.

Scrambling to the window, he looked over the fence toward the street.  Surprise filled him as he saw his friends running through the rain toward his house. Leaning out of the window, he began to shout at them as he waved.

“The backyard!  I’m back here!  The tree house!”

All of them raced toward his house:  Troy, Roger, Arturo, Sam, little Yessica, and to his surprise, Corina. They were yelling and motioning to him.

“Go to the back gate!  The back gate!”  he shouted, and then he saw why they were running with such terrified expressions on their faces.

They were being chased by zombified preschoolers around Drake’s age.

“Oh, crap,” Josh exclaimed.  “Oh, crap!”