As The World Dies: The First Days-A Zombie Trilogy Page 13

"You okay?"

  Jenni smiled immediately under the attention. "Yeah. Just nervous."

  Katie kissed her cheek lightly and slid her arm around Jenni's waist. "Yeah. Me, too."

  And then, outside, the moans and screeches of the dead rose to mingle with shouts of alarm.

  The zombies had arrived at the perimeter.

  Chapter 9

  1. The Night of the Dead

  Travis rushed over to a window, pulled back the curtains and swore under his breath.

  "You two stay here," he said, and rushed out the door.

  Curtis looked at the two women, then lowered his head solemnly. He seemed worn down, tired, and overwhelmed. Katie remembered that Travis said that the police force had been wiped out. She had a feeling Travis had asked him to oversee the communications center they had set up to keep him from the action. Curtis looked no older than twenty-one and Katie bet he hadn't been on the job long.

  Jenni grabbed her hand. "If we go upstairs we could probably see out the window."

  Katie nodded. "Let's go see."

  Together, they ran out of the room and up the stairs.

  A small crowd of people clustered around the windows to watch. Managing to worm their way into a good position to watch out of one of the windows, Katie and Jenni looked down at the men taking position to fight the zombies. Ladders had been used to scale the wall and get up onto the trucks. The harness lines glinted in the light from the huge lights set up around the perimeter. The men had only shovels and strange spears with what looked like trowels attached to the ends. Since the windows were looking out at the street over the top of the wrought iron fence, it was easy to see the zombies desperate to reach the men. Moaning loudly, some of them screeching, thirty or so zombies clustered under the men, beating the sides of the trucks, demanding the flesh of those above them.

  Katie's heart jumped a little, as she caught sight of Travis running up one of the ladders, still fastening his harness, his spear under his arm. Of course he would be part of this. He was not the sort of man to send others to do something he wouldn't do himself.

  It was as if his presence on top of the truck was a sign, all the men began to squat down and ram their weapons down as hard as they could on the heads of the dead below. Katie could see the shovels busting open heads as the trowel-ended spears were driven through the eye sockets in upturned faces. Some of the zombies managed to grab the weapons and those wielding them immediately let go and were handed a new one. She wondered if the man that had been lost in the earlier battle had tried to fight with a zombie for his weapon. In this new world you had to learn fast to survive.

  In the first few minutes, the construction workers took out at least ten zombies. The crush of the other zombies against their now truly dead comrades became greater, holding up dead. This made the men reach out further to actually hit one of the living undead. One man lost his footing altogether and swung out over the crowd. Juan shouted and immediately his towline was drawn up and back. Zombies tried to grab his feet, but the man was swung to safety.

  "Shit," someone said nearby and Katie couldn't agree more.

  Her eyes continuously strayed to Travis. He had a greater reach and seemed to be driving his shovel down with a strange, staccato rhythm.

  "He is kicking so much ass," Jason said from behind her.

  Even Jack had managed to wedge himself between people to get a view out the window. He let out a series of low growls.

  Travis yelled something and all the men backed away. Then that great mechanical arm came swinging over their heads, loaded up with what looked like bags filled with dirt or maybe cement. Travis made several motions with his hand, guiding the driver of the machine to just the perfect spot, then made a downward stroke with his arm. The driver released the load of heavy bags right into the center of the remaining throng. Most of the zombies were effectively crushed.

  Out of the original throng of thirty zombies, maybe five staggered about, falling over their dead comrades.

  Travis made another motion and the men retreated down their ladders, picked up the ladders, walked to the wall, rested the ladders against the wall, and scrambled up and over into the construction site. Once the ladders were back over the walls and everyone was safe, cheers erupted throughout the complex.

  Katie turned to Jenni and saw her face was very flushed and excited.

  "He's amazing!" Jenni giggled and hugged Katie.

  Katie hugged Jenni to her and said, "Yep, he is."

  And Travis, at that very moment, looked up at the window they were in, his gaze meeting Katie's, and smiled.

  2. Another Moment

  Exhaustion hit Katie like a sledgehammer. She almost felt drunk as she finally lay down on the cot set up for her in a small empty storage room on the fourth floor of city hall. The old building's sloped roof made standing up straight a little difficult unless you were in the center of the room. She had a feeling Travis had pulled some strings to get them a place inside the building and not camping out in portable buildings that were now dorms. Evidently the basement of city hall had long ago been set up as a bomb shelter during the Commie scare and loads of cots and musty blankets were brought up for those taking refuge in "the fort".

  Jenni had seemed wired and very awake after the zombie attack. After they had talked to Ralph on the CB and he agreed to provide weapons to the fort if they could figure out how to pick them up, Jenni had slipped out with Travis to follow him around on the complex. He had asked Katie, but she was far too tired and had begged off. Now she sat on her cot watching Jason fix a bed on the floor for Jack using a blanket he had pinched when no one was watching the supplies.

  She had managed to take off her boots and socks and now sat in her olive green hunting pants and her black tank top. She desperately wanted a shower, but there was a sign in sheet to use the only shower located in the city hall janitor's office. She had a slot for the early morning.

  Jason looked up at her and slid onto the bed under the small narrow window. Jenni's cot was against the slant in the roof, forming an L with Katie's.

  Jack, the zombie hating dog, examined his bed, circled three times, fussed at it with his paws, circled again, and lay down with a yawn.

  "Uh, Katie?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Um...are you and Jenni gonna hook up?"

  Katie double-blinked and said, "Huh?"

  "My Mom, after my Dad divorced her for Jenni, hooked up with this girl for about two weeks. Mom was always going from guy to guy and that was the only girl, but I was just wondering..." Jason trailed off seeing Katie's expression. "Sorry."

  "No, it’s cool." Katie sighed and ran her hands over her hair, which fell free to her shoulders in soft curls. "Okay, just because I like girls does not mean I'm going to hook up with the nearest girl. In fact, it is my own personal rule not to get involved with straight women. I value myself too much to be someone's experiment."

  Jason considered this and said, "Yeah. I guess that is what my Mom was doing since my Dad was such a jerk to her. She made a big deal out of having a girlfriend then it was over in weeks. Then she just went from boyfriend to boyfriend until she died in a car accident a few years ago."

  "Is that when you came to live with Jenni?"

  "Yeah. I didn't really want to like her. Mom always called her "that bitch", but she's really sweet. Kinda goofy. She's kinda like an older sister. I'm really glad you saved her," Jason sighed and lay on the cot. "I just thought maybe because you're a lesbian you two would end up together."

  Katie laughed and shook her head. "I'm not a lesbian."

  Jason looked at her shocked. "Huh? But you said-"

  "I'm bisexual. Always have been. I dated both guys and girls all through high school and college. It just happened that the person," Katie's voice caught in her throat and she couldn't talk for a moment. "I fell in love with and wanted to spend my life with was a woman. I always figured it could have gone either way, but it was her: Lydia." She pulled out the camera and dared to wa
ste a little bit of the battery flashing the picture to Jason.

  "She's hot," Jason decided. "Where is she?"

  Waving her hand distractedly, Katie stared at Lydia's beautiful smile, then snapped the phone shut with her other hand. "Somewhere out there. One of them."

  Jason winced. "Sorry, Katie."

  "Me, too...me, too."

  "So…uh…you like guys?"

  Katie laughed and lay back on the bed. "I've had some boyfriends. I was even engaged to a guy."

  "What happened?"

  "To my engagement?"

  "Yeah."

  "I met Lydia. And that was that. Six years of heaven with someone that is-she was just everything I needed."

  "I bet your boyfriend was mad."

  "Um...yeah. But we were together for all the wrong reasons. We worked together and shared ambitions. I think we took that to be more than it was."

  "Oh. So why did you say you were a lesbian?"

  "So you'd pee!"

  Jason frowned at her. "Yeah. Well..." He blushed.

  "I often tell people I'm a lesbian just so they're comfortable."

  "I don't get it."

  "Well, people like absolutes. And it blows most of their minds to try to think that I could find men and women equally attractive and possible mates. It just freaks them out. They want me to be one or the other. So, since I was with Lydia, it was just easier to say I was a lesbian." Katie held the cell phone against her chest and tried not to cry.

  "So you could end up with a guy or a girl?"

  "Honestly, Jason, right now, I can't imagine being with anyone. I just..." She rolled onto her side and faced the wall. "I just miss her."

  Jason was very quiet behind her. The minutes ticked by and hot tears flowed, a few dripping off the tip of her nose. How could she even imagine being with anyone ever again?

  Lydia...oh..Lydia...

  "I just thought if you and Jenni hooked up you would take good care of her," Jason finally said softly.

  Katie rolled over and gave him a soft smile. "That was a very sweet thing for you to say."

  "Well, you know, if you change your mind..." Jason faltered. "I mean..."

  "I know." Katie tucked the phone under the pillow and reached up and flicked off the light. Faintly, she could hear the few zombies moaning out beyond the perimeter. "But, Jason, honestly, right now I just...I loved her. The mere thought of being with anyone else just feels wrong."

  Jason turned his head to look across the small, darkened room. "I know, Katie. You make me feel safe. I feel like I've known you forever and it's just been hours."

  Katie smiled at him fondly. "I know. We'll be okay."

  "Promise?"

  "I promise."

  3. Dead Stars In Her Eyes

  Jenni wandered along behind Travis, her hands tucked into her jacket pockets. It was cold now that the sun had settled beyond the horizon to slumber. She had finally let her long hair down to flow in the wind. It was a little bit of a ploy to get Travis to admire her and it seemed to be working. She really liked this tall, handsome rather shy man. He greeted everyone they came across warmly and finally they climbed up on top of a truck and took up watching the zombies who had survived the slaughter. The undead kept trying to maneuver their way closer, but they kept falling over their dead comrades. It was almost comical.

  "I could shoot them," she offered to Travis.

  He shook his head. "No, they're not much of a threat down there. We need to wait to use guns. We don't need to be drawing more of them to us until we are more secure." Stretching, he held his trowel-spear over his head and that stirred up a zombie woman, who tried to run, fell over the dead bodies and slammed headfirst into the asphalt.

  "That had to hurt," Jenni decided.

  "I don't think they feel pain," Travis said sadly.

  The woman tried to get up, but could not find stable purchase on the bodies around her and kept sliding around in the gore and muck.

  "Seriously, I could shoot her," Jenni said again, somewhat hopefully.

  Travis just laughed. He rubbed his eyes and sat down in a chair someone had put up on the back of the truck. The bed was full of earth and the chair sank down a little, but it was better than standing. Jenni sat down next to him, Indian-style, recognizing he needed the better view for his job.

  "So. All the zombies are holed up in the school?"

  "Yeah and we considered having someone drive out there to double-check, but decided that could end up giving them the incentive they need to break out. Juan noticed that when they can't see humans directly, they tend to just mill around. It's when they spot living flesh that they go ape shit." Travis watched the zombie woman languishing in the guts of her dead comrades, at one point trying to eat a bit of intestine only to spit it out. She continued to swim through the congealed blood and decaying flesh.

  Jenni watched the woman with a small smile on her face. Her fingers were itching to draw her gun and blast a hole through the woman's skull. Something about her desperation to get to them and eat them, coupled with her bright, candy-pink jogging suit and bouffant hairdo just annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of her.

  "Most of the ones I have seen are always running to eat me. I never see them just standing around."

  "Because we're back behind the barricades we've had a chance to see them just stand there swaying or milling around until they spotted someone alive. But once they figure out we're back here, they attack and just keep attacking until we kill them." He sighed and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Sound sets them off, too. We used a radio to distract some of them once. When you and Katie arrived, we set off a car alarm from the roof of the city hall."

  Jenni drew pictures in the earth with her fingers. "I was wondering how you did that. It seems that each time Katie and I encounter zombies, they are on us in a second. We just run."

  "You and Katie had a rough time out there, didn't you?"

  Jenni made a face and nodded. "Yeah. Pretty much from yesterday morning on."

  "We didn't have it so bad here. With the townspeople being herded early into the school we really have had limited interaction with the zombies. Honestly, we had secured the perimeter before we had a pack of them show up. I almost feels guilty that I didn't have to run for my life like other people have."

  "Well, it’s no fun, that's for damn sure. Just consider yourself lucky and don't feel guilty." Jenni looked down at what she had written in the earth next to some stick figures. It read "Benji". She quickly rubbed it out. She just couldn't think of those little fingers straining...straining...

  "You okay?" Travis leaned forward and put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  Jenni looked up into his face and said simply, "No."

  He pressed his lips tightly together and nodded. "Of course you're not. Sorry."

  She just looked down and shook her head. "Is anyone okay? Really? I don't think I was okay before all this went down. I think I'm actually somehow better now." Her brow furrowed "That doesn't make sense, I know. My children are...but...something inside of me is maybe stronger."

  Travis sighed and ran a hand over his hair. "Adversity brings out the best or the worst in people. Perhaps you are just finding some strength inside you didn't know you had."

  Jenni tilted her head, her dark hair falling softly around her pale face. She considered this, then shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not sure. I just know that when..." She faltered for a moment. "...that when I saw what had happened to my children, who I was just stopped existing. I'm weirdly happy in this world. Just having Katie and Jason makes me feel solid. Safe. Being here makes me feel that way."

  Travis gave her that smile that warmed her to the very depths of her soul. "I'm glad you are dealing with all of this. I'm glad you and Katie and Jason made it here. I'm not sure what will happen next, but I know we're going to fight. And that at least is something."

  "I just want to kill them all. Kill them for killing..." She stopped and looked down at her dirty fingers.

  The z
ombie woman finally reached the truck and began to bang on the side, moaning, screeching, desperate.

  "I want to kill her."

  "Then do it," Travis said.

  Jenni stood up slowly and Travis wordlessly handed her the makeshift spear.

  Walking to the edge, Jenni looked down at the bloodied, upturned face and all that damned hair-sprayed blond hair. She felt Travis’ fingers slip under her coat and grab her belt to hold her steady. She cast a grateful look over her shoulder at Travis and lifted the spear. Her gaze narrowed on the woman's face and her glassy, blank eyes. So much like Lloyd's when he had looked up at her as he had stuffed more of Benji's tender baby flesh into his mouth.

  Jenni let out a hiss between her teeth and slammed the tip of the spear, which was the trowel, down hard into the woman's eye socket. She felt the flesh giving way, the eye slicing apart like a boiled egg and shoved it down as hard as she could. She felt things giving way, scraping, mushing, and tearing. She lifted and slammed it down again. Almost growling, she slammed it down over and over again until the female zombie slid down the side of the truck and lay still.

  Jenni took great breaths of the rank, cool air and slowly handed over the spear. Travis took it and reached out and gently touched her shoulder.

  "Better?"

  "No. Not really. But it felt good." Jenni gave him an awkward smile.

  "You're a strange, strange girl in a strange, strange world," Travis decided and gave her a gentle hug.

  Jenni nestled into his arms and smiled to herself. She then slipped away from him and sat back down on the dirt watching another surviving zombie try to walk over his dead comrades to them.

  "Sure you don't want me to shoot him?"

  Travis laughed and it was a wonderful sound to her ears.

  4. Breathing Space

  Katie stirred only once during the night. It was when Jenni had finally come into the small room to go to bed and had leaned over and kissed her forehead tenderly. Katie had sleepily opened her eyes to see Jenni lying down on her own cot and had reached out to take her hand. She had fallen back to sleep, Jenni's fingers intertwined with hers.