Zombiemandias (Book 1): In the Lone and Level Sands Page 6

  There were a few people around, but for the most part they wandered aimlessly, reminding Zoe of the man on the bus. Some were eating the remains of other people. Zoe would’ve vomited if she hadn’t already.

  Zoe had spent her life waking up from nightmares, alone. This day had finally brought a minor change: She had woken up into one.

  But still alone.

  12

  In Blackwater Falls

  After dinner, Sara stood up and gathered the dishes. Ben offered to help, but Sara refused because he was a guest, and an injured one at that. When Sara finished up, she and Fred showed Ben and Charlotte to the guest room.

  “You both can stay in here,” Sara said. “Make yourselves at home.”

  “There are extra blankets in that closet,” Fred said. He motioned toward the closed door beside a large dresser. “And the bathroom is just down the hall.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said. As Fred and Sara left, she walked over to the corner. A picture of a man in his mid-thirties rested on the dresser. “Must be their son, I guess.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Ben said.

  It began to rain, and soon it picked up. The wind followed suit, and soon a decent storm was beating against the house.

  After they had prepared their bed, Ben and Charlotte joined Fred and Sara in the living room. Fred took a puff from his pipe and said, “Hey, how about we turn on the ol’ tube for a little while?” Angus lay in his bed, and raised his ears as the sound of the evening news faded in with the picture.

  “And the breaking story tonight: We have Claire Wilson reporting from a local Augusta home. A shooting has shaken this residential neighborhood. We go to Claire.”

  Claire stood in the wind and rain in front of a slightly rundown house. Her hair was matted down under the hood of her parka, which she had to hold in one hand to keep from flying back. Her other hand clutched her microphone so tightly that her knuckles looked white.

  “There have been several gunshots fired. It’s a war zone here, Brian! I’ve only been here about twenty minutes, and there have been at least five gunshots in that time!”

  “Uheahhh,” a coworker a few feet behind Claire said. She turned to him.

  “Thomas, cut it out, we’re live.” She turned back around and continued her report, but a moment later, a scream interrupted her. Claire whipped around to see Thomas ripping into another man’s flesh.

  “Oh my God!” Claire said. She jumped as another shot was fired, this one much closer. Thomas collapsed, and the camera bobbed as Claire and her cameraman rushed in close. Thomas’s victim was already dead, the rain pushing his blood into the gutter.

  “Get away from it!” someone screamed from the house. Claire turned and saw a man in the window, rifle in hand. The cameraman panned over a squad of police officers rushing to aim at him.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “They ain’t part of the human race no more! Once you’re bit, you ain’t either, lady! So for God’s sake, get away from it!”

  “You need to get your team out of range,” one of the officers said, and another began moving Claire and the cameraman away.

  Claire swallowed a huge lump in her throat and turned to face the camera. The microphone trembled in her hand, and the cameraman appeared to be shaking as well.

  “Well, it seems, Brian, that things are a bit more complicated than we thought. More information will be given when it becomes available. Back to you, Brian!”

  The image of Claire turned to that of Brian Hockman and his co-anchor, Brenda Feldtman.

  “Well… It seems that something strange is going on down there.” Brian exchanged worried glances with Brenda. “When we come back, hopefully we can explain what just happened.”

  Fred muted the TV as it went to a commercial. It was Sara who broke the silence. “What did he mean by ‘not part of the human race’?”

  “Beats me,” Fred said. “I can’t believe what I just saw. That man, eating another person!”

  “Yeah, that was pretty fucked up,” Ben said.

  A window shattered in the guest room. All four turned to look, and Angus jumped up and ran toward the noise, barking as he went.

  “I’ll go see what that was,” Fred said. He reached up, grabbed his shotgun from above the TV, and headed to the guest room.

  “Be careful, Fred!” Sara said. “I don’t want you getting hurt!”

  “Don’t worry! I’ll be okay.”

  When Fred got to the open door of the guest room, he saw Angus barking ferociously at a dark figure. Angus was backing up, little by little, away from the man.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?” Fred’s voice was stern, but he couldn’t hide the fear just under the surface.

  “Uhhh,” the intruder said. He took a step forward and nearly lost his balance. Fred flipped the light on, and gasped. It was Dr. Barnum, dripping wet from the rain, and he was covered in blood that led up to his mouth. It was caked around his lips and cheeks.

  “Dr. Barnum?” Fred lowered his gun. “What are you doing here?”

  Dr. Barnum didn’t answer, but slowly lumbered toward Angus. Angus backed away, but continued barking and growling. Barnum drew closer, and when he had Angus cornered, Dr. Barnum lunged forward and grabbed his front paw. Blood and saliva dripped from his mouth as he pulled the growling dog’s paw toward it.

  “Let him go!” Fred said. He raised his gun and cocked it. Angus bit Barnum’s hand, but the doctor didn’t flinch or loosen his grip.

  Fred put his finger on the trigger and pulled back, releasing a shell that broke off into a dozen smaller pieces just before they entered Barnum’s side, tearing his clothes and skin apart. Barnum let go, and Angus scampered away and hid behind Fred, who was reloading the shotgun. Barnum stood up slowly and looked at Fred through dazed eyes. Fred raised the gun once more as Barnum took a few lackluster steps forward, then dove, mouth open wide.

  Fred fired another swarm of lead at Barnum’s neck. The shot tore through and severed his head; his neck was non-existent, save for a conglomeration of bloody flesh splattered on the walls and floor. Barnum’s head landed on the ground next to the bed. His body collapsed seconds afterward. Blood trickled out of both pieces, soaking into the floor.

  Fred went into the hall, where Ben and the others were waiting for an explanation of all the noise they had just heard.

  ****

  “If there are any others like him,” Ben said, “and the news is saying there are, we need to be prepared. Do you have any boards or something to cover that broken window?”

  “I have some wood in the garage,” Fred said. He left the room to get some boards, nails, and a hammer. The other three worked together to block the other windows and doors with furniture. They all returned to the main room together.

  “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” Ben asked Fred.

  “My father taught me the art, a long time ago.” He grinned. “On the farm, he’d set up dozens of empty whiskey bottles on the fence, and then he’d show me how to blast them apart.”

  Sara gave him the stink eye. “Fred, this is serious. Stop fooling! Why do you think these… things would come all the way out here, anyway?”

  “I reckon it’s the lights,” Fred said. “You can see our house all the way from the main road.” He and Ben finished boarding up the front window. “That’ll hold ‘em, but we should go lights-out, for good measure.”

  “Ben, do you think my parents are okay?” Charlotte asked in a small voice as Fred turned out the light.

  “I bet whatever is going on up there is being taken care of by the authorities a lot better than here.”

  “I think your parents will be fine,” Fred said. “I don’t know them, but you’re a sensible girl. You could have only got that from them. They’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said. “I guess they’re probably safer than we are. Dad had bars installed on all the windows, he never did like the idea of living near
‘hoodlums’, but… Do you suppose that we could go to them in the morning? I hate to ask—”

  “Don’t worry about it one bit,” Fred said. “The storm seems like it won’t quit just yet, but tomorrow, first thing, we can go and make sure your folks are all right.”

  “You would do that? Thank you so much!”

  “It’s nothing. Now, let’s get some sleep. I’ll help you move that bed out of the guest room so you don’t have to sleep with the body.”

  Ben moved the dresser in front of the broken window for extra protection, and then he and Fred worked together to move the guest bed into the master bedroom. They all wished each other goodnight and settled down, but with their nerves all frayed, they didn’t go right to sleep.

  Charlotte grabbed Ben’s hand and squeezed it tightly, hoping that somehow it would cause all of his misplaced memories to flutter back to his brain. Unfortunately, no such thing happened. Ben just let out a big yawn, and then smiled at her before closing his eyes again. Charlotte sighed. She couldn’t fall asleep, she had too much on her mind.

  She was worried about her parents, worried that those like Dr. Barnum had already broken into their house and gotten them. She was also bothered by the fear that more in Blackwater Falls would find a way into Fred and Sara’s. And of course, she was worried about Ben, and their marriage. It worried her that when she squeezed his hand, he didn’t squeeze back. All she could do was work even harder than before to bring him back around. But first, it was time to rest. Charlotte tried her best to quiet her brain, and eventually fell asleep.

  13

  On a Carnival Ride

  Max heard screams in the distance. He turned to them and saw two children running around in circles, dodging people, one chasing the other. He didn’t see their parents anywhere.

  His own were right ahead of him, in the same line. They were waiting to get on a gliding machine, which would lift them up and spin them around in circles as they lay on their stomachs. Right behind him, a pair of teenagers was sneaking some make-out time between slow trudges of the line, their parents also nowhere in sight. Max wondered what it would be like to have a girlfriend. He figured at this rate, he’d never find out.

  From the line, Max could see the various sideshow booths. The one closest, which was the only one Max could see into, involved a man who juggled chainsaws. “The World’s Sharpest Chainsaws,” the ads on the booth proclaimed. Max remembered seeing the show one year and recalled the ringleader demonstrating this apparent fact by slicing an anvil in half. Max wondered if it was genuine or some kind of trick, but he knew he wasn’t going to find out anytime soon.

  Finally, it was the Greenwalds’ turn in line. The parents wouldn’t ride, of course; they would watch from behind the metal fence surrounding the ride and wave with each turn of the gliders. This would be the extent to which they let the children be on their own.

  The carny was motioning for more people to enter the ring and take the next available glider, in pairs of two. He looked despondent. He was fat, balding, and middle-aged, and his face lit up when he saw Max.

  “Ain’t you a little old for these things, kid?”

  “Aren’t you a little old to be working this job?” Max replied. The man’s smile faded, and he went back to waving people in.

  The Greenwald children paired up and found their gliders. August went with Julie, and Max would be riding with Tim. The boys got into a blue glider. Max made sure Tim was strapped in firmly. August did the same for Julie, despite Julie’s cries that she could handle it herself.

  Max watched the couple from the line get into the glider behind his, a white one. The angle of the ride always had him either looking at the ground as it spun below, the sidelines (which made most people dizzy, but they had to do it from time to time or risk neglecting whoever was waving to them) or the people in the glider behind him. In this case, it was the young couple, so Max would get a downward, spinning look at everything he would never be and could never have. Story of his life.

  The ride got going. It wasn’t as fun as it once was, but Max tried to enjoy it. His parents probably expected him to look with every pass, but he would get motion sickness if he did. Reluctantly, he looked at the couple in the glider behind him. They were apparently trying to see how long they could go around on the ride while still making out. Max found this a lot less amusing than the two seemed to, and looked away.

  Max heard screams again.

  When he looked back, the white glider was covered in red speckles, the boy’s head was slouching and shifting slightly in the breeze, and his girlfriend’s mouth was covered in blood, a piece of flesh still dangling from her gnashing teeth.

  First he felt disbelief. Max looked again, but the horror remained. He heard another scream, and looked in the direction he thought it came from, though the spinning of the ride made pinpointing it impossible. Outside the railing, people were running. Others were attacking those near them. Max looked at Tim, who was riding with his eyes shut. The screams didn’t seem to bother him; he must have thought they were screams of joy.

  It’s probably better that way.

  Max looked at the glider ahead of him and saw that August and Julie were both fine.

  “August!” he called, but there was no reply. Either August couldn’t hear him, or she had already focused on the panic spreading on the ground.

  Max looked at the railing around the ride. He didn’t see his parents anywhere. He passed the carny’s booth, and the carny was gone. With no one to shut down the ride, Max wondered how long he and the rest of the riders would go on spinning around before somebody came to help them. Meanwhile, the screams were growing louder and more numerous.

  He looked back down at the glider behind him. The teenaged boy’s head was now hanging by a thread and flopping wildly around. Just when Max thought he couldn’t have picked a worse time to look back, the last remaining shreds of skin and muscle snapped, and the boy’s head fell to the ground below and rolled to a rest on the hay-covered dirt.

  Max threw up, closed his eyes, and waited. He had no idea how much time passed. It felt like he was dreaming. He opened his eyes to the ground spinning by, and saw the boy’s head looking up at him. He didn’t throw up again, nor did he turn away. With every pass, the boy’s head seemed to whisper long-lost secrets to Max, and if he turned away he might miss out on life itself. The expression on the face was not one of sorrow, nor one of fear. The dead boy knew no sorrow or fear, and never would. His face knew only relief, and from this, Max got a feeling he couldn’t identify at first. Or maybe he just didn’t want to accept it.

  There was a loud grinding sound, and Max felt the ride slow down. He passed the carny’s booth and saw his parents inside, looking worried. The ride finally came to a stop. Max looked down but saw only dirt; his glider had not stopped above the boy’s head.

  Parents rushed in through the gate, and some hopped over the railing. They got to their children, pried them from the ride. Max saw a small child in one of the gliders crying, his parents nowhere to be found. Then, Max’s own were upon him.

  “Max, are you all right?” Andrew said.

  “I’m fine, we’re fine,” Max replied. Then he regained his thoughts. “That kid over there, should we help?

  “What can we do?” Julie said. “He’s not one of us.”

  One of us, like the world consisted of two parties: The family Greenwald and everyone else.

  “Good, everyone is okay,” Andrew said, ignoring Max and Julie. Max turned to see the stray child. He had managed his way out of the glider and was just standing there, crying and rubbing his eyes with his fists. Max pegged the child at no more than five years old.

  A fleeting shadow passed, there was a strange hiccough sound, and the boy and the crying were gone.

  Max wanted to believe that one of the boy’s parents had rushed by and scooped him up, the sound was just the interruption of his crying, and the boy was now filled with glee, clinging to his mother or father for dear li
fe as the two left the madness that had once been a carnival. But deep down, Max knew better.

  He looked around. There were bodies lying limp throughout the carnival grounds, and it was difficult to tell the people attacking from those fleeing. The ones eating others were easier to spot.

  Max finally identified the feeling he had gotten from seeing the expression on the glider boy’s detached head. It was envy.

  14

  At a Funeral

  Charlie’s funeral was held on Friday, June 21st at the Cavalry Cemetery near their home. Reverend Patterson was giving the sermon, and it was beautiful. Martha sat on a chair in the front row, her hands laced in her lap. Her eyes welled up, though no tears fell. Charlie wouldn’t have wanted her to cry for him.

  “M, don’t cry for me. I’m not worth your tears, you know.”

  The words echoed in Martha’s ears. When had he said that? Martha thought about her life with Charlie. It was a long road, and looking back, some parts were foggy.

  She glanced around the cemetery. There were so many people. It reminded her of the night her parents had finally allowed her and Charlie to openly date. There was a concert that night, Elvis Presley. Seeing the mass of people now was like looking at a picture of the mass of people then.

  ****

  The concert space was full of people when Martha and Charlie arrived, but they had no trouble getting inside. They slid past people just standing, chatting. There were snack and drink stations around, and Martha and Charlie decided to visit those first. Charlie bought her a big hotdog covered in relish and ketchup. Martha smiled and gave him a little hug.

  “Thanks, Charlie,” she said.

  “No prob, M.” He smiled back and scarfed down a giant pretzel he had bought. “I can hear instruments from backstage. Sounds like they’re getting ready! You stoked?”