Cage The Dead (4 page)

Gaia’s heart almost leapt out of her chest as she recoiled and nearly fell out of her seat. When she looked, realizing that the window was about eight feet off the ground, she recognized the familiar face of Maye, the recently missing capuchin.

“Get in here,” she stated, opening the window and letting the monkey in and climb onto her shoulder. She held up her hand and the monkey high-fived her.

“Now lemme have a look at that wound, Nick,” Gaia said, sliding into the seat next to him. She untied the knot under his arm, then had to slowly peel back the now-sticky fabric, caked with dried blood, and confirmed what she had initially seen, which was that a large hunk of flesh was torn mostly free. She had seen wounds before, had treated the animals in the zoo on many occasions, but this was truly gruesome and she almost vomited, but held it back.

“It’s bad, right?”

“Nothing I can’t handle. But, we need meds. And as I said, we really need to stitch it.”

“I have a bottle of antibiotics left over in the car, along with some pain reliever,” Adam said. “But it’s way over there.”

“Well, looks like Maye and I are going, then. Or at least,
I
am going,” she said, looking to the capuchin who remained silent in the rear of the bus.

“I’ll go with you,” Adam said bravely. Gaia shook her head, saying nothing at first.

“You're in no shape to do that and you know it, hon. Just sit tight and I’ll be back.” Adam tried to stand and immediately fell back into his seat. He was about to protest verbally, but no words escaped his lips.

“Remember, there’s predators roaming free out there. Animals and…whatever the fuck those things are.”

“
Zombies
,” Adam said. “I heard the word mentioned in one broadcast before I took off here to find Gaia. “One man, an expert in science, called them
zombies
. That was right before the TV station went to static.”

He adjusted himself in the seat and then, unable to get comfortable, simply lay down, stretching his legs to the adjacent seat across the aisle.

“Right,
zombies
,” Nick reiterated. “Be careful, Gaia.”

“You know I will, Nick. Besides, the Mustang is right there,” she said pointing across the lot to the car. It was a couple hundred paces away and she saw nothing around. Adam’s prized jet-black Mustang GT was a wreck in the front, the grill smashed and the passenger side headlight along with it.

Gaia kicked something as she took her next step and found a lunch box on the floor. She opened it up and found a juice box and, as luck would have it, an ice pack, which she handed to Adam. “Keep this on your head. I’ll be back.” Adam again nodded his consent, though she could tell he was not happy about her decision.

As Gaia unhinged the locking mechanism on the side and pushed open the door, she paused, listening for sounds. She could hear animals in the zoo crying, growling and roaring their protest against what she considered the exact opposite of nature’s glory—the living dead. These creatures were the most unnatural things to ever set foot on earth’s soil. She listened for another minute and nodded her head in agreement of the animals’ plight.

They have every right to bitch about it.

Something that awakens from the dead was the most malevolent thing she could think of. Zombies, recollecting from what she had seen in movies, were things that came back from the dead, or—she paused suddenly, as a specific detail of zombie lore popped into her mind—they changed after being bitten.

Gaia’s hairs stood up on the back of her neck and arms as the chills washed over her.

Nick was bitten!

She turned and was about to make her way back onto the bus, but again she paused.

What am I gonna do? Kill him? He hasn’t turned yet, either. Most of ‘em turn fast in the movies.

No, she decided. She would watch him carefully after she returned from getting the supplies out of the car. She turned and headed once again in the direction of the Mustang. It was getting to be dusk now and Gaia hadn’t even realized that, in all the commotion, the entire day had gone by. She made her way slowly and quietly across the barren lot, and as she did so, she could not help but liken it to being naked in front of a crowd of strangers.

She was completely exposed. In the distance, she saw the results of what could only be described as chaos. There was gore and body parts strewn about the path heading down and into the lot, she witnessed the carcass of a four-footed animal, which may have been a goat or a deer, she could not tell from this distance in the fading light.

As she made it to the vehicle, she opened the driver side door, which creaked loudly. That was when Gaia noticed the zombie. It was among the bushes where she and Nick had stood not all that long ago. It raced toward her, closing the gap quickly and making sounds that no animal or human could possibly make.

As she made to step inside, something grabbed her by the ankle and she again felt the beating of her heart as it threatened to jump right through her bosom and onto the car hood. She yelped involuntarily and looked to the ground to see a zombie hand wrapped around her ankle like a vise. She backed away and unexpectedly pulled the thing with her, as she reared the crowbar back in preparation for a strike.

And then she paused—more out of revulsion than anything else.

She looked down to see that the creature was torn in half and only the top torso, head and left arm remaining. It had somehow made its way under the car.

But, there was an instant of deeply founded mourning in Gaia’s heart, for just a fleeting second, realizing that this…
thing
…had been a young woman only a few short hours ago. The black lipstick upon its features that bordered its mouth was a stark contrast to the pale ash of its skin. She mouthed an appeal for forgiveness and drove the crowbar into the undead creature’s head.

She leaped into the vehicle, smacking her head in her haste to get away from the other, much more aggressive zombie, and her vision went fuzzy.

She shook away the dim vision and concentrated on the pain, using it to keep her bearings. She tried to slam the door shut, but felt the lingering grasp of the now unmoving zombie at her feet and slammed the door on it. Once, twice, thrice she tried in vain to close the door.

She saw stars again and felt the warm lifeblood spilling from her forehead and down her cheek. Then a fourth attempt as she felt the release of the dead thing’s viselike grip upon her ankle. She slammed the door shut just as the zombie reached inside the door for her.

Its fingers or hand were caught inside the door, crushed under the steel and bolts of the door frame. And it made no yelp of anger, no remorse as its hand was crushed inside the doorjamb, no indication of anything upon its face other than a wild-eyed look of something incapable of logic and reason.

In that moment, another realization washed over her. The zombie was pitiless and cruel, plain and simple. All it wanted to do—and the only thing in comparison she could think of was perhaps a shark—was feed. It seemed to want for nothing else. But, in that comparison, even a shark was sated after a meal, capable of going weeks without eating. Sharks also mated and bore offspring, unlike this…thing.

Zombies were unrelenting in their pursuit for flesh. Perhaps they could never feel satisfied, the hunger ever present? Maybe that was the curse which they had to endure. No one deserved that, she decided.

That was her last fleeting thought, she recalled, as the darkness swallowed her whole.

Chapter 3

The sound of glass shattering brought Gaia back to consciousness. She felt the breeze  on her face as something swiped at her, barely missing, as she instinctively backed away.

Through cloudy vision, she witnessed a hand lash out at her and she recoiled again, widening the gap between her and her assailant. Was she dreaming?  No, she realized, as the pain in her head was all too real. There was a zombie trying to get at her, trying to feast on her flesh.

She looked around as if suddenly remembering where she was. It was pitch dark outside and she had no idea how long she had been there. She tried to shake away the fuzziness in her mind’s eye, popping the latch on the glove compartment and retrieving a flashlight. Shining the beam of light around the interior of the space, she retrieved a first aid kit and a bottle of antibiotics. Recognizing immediately how light the container was, she shook it, confirming that there was only two, perhaps even three pills left.

A sudden panic flooded her thoughts as she wondered why no one had come to her aid. She was more than a little concerned now that perhaps something had happened to the others on the bus. As the zombie clawed and chomped at her over and over, Gaia felt around for and grabbed the crowbar, jamming it through the zombie’s skull.

She immediately became fuzzy again for a few moments under the exertion. Waiting until the dizziness passed, she found a plastic bag in the side of the passenger side door, tossed in the first aid kit, the antibiotics, and a few bottles of water she found under the seat and then clicked open the passenger side door.

She heard the sounds of the animals in the distance and silently vowed that as soon as Nick and Adam were better, that she would go back to see how her ‘other’ friends were doing.

She slowly maneuvered through the darkness, turning off the flashlight and using only the moonlight to guide her way. She stopped on more than one occasion, believing she’d heard something in the distance, but nothing approached.

She carefully reached through the broken glass pane on the door, pulled open the latch, pushed the door open and took a step onto the bus. She was met with the barrel of a rifle in her face.

“Shit!” Nick whispered, recognizing Gaia. “I’m sorry, I was out cold.” Gaia nodded and locked the latch again on the door and opened the bag.

“Found this,” Gaia said, holding up the first aid kit. “I’ll clean out your wound with some of the antiseptic. How is Adam?”

“He’s still asleep,” he answered. Gaia looked at him, remembering her concern about Nick’s zombie bite and shining the flashlight in his eyes. A moment of probing and she saw nothing out of the ordinary within them.

“I'm gonna check him out,” Gaia said, quickly forcing the subject from her mind and tossing him the bottle of antibiotics. “Take one of those. And there’s some pain relievers in the first aid kit, too, but nothing too strong.” She made her way to the back and stood over Adam, her love of six years and her crush for even longer. She was well aware of Adam’s intentions of asking her to marry him this Christmas in front of friends and family, which was only a month or so away. In her mind, and from the assessments of everyone that knew them as a couple, they were already engaged.

All those wonderful and hopeful thoughts flew from her mind as soon as she took in the sight of him in that instant. As she shook him, he did not move right away. She laid an open palm on his forehead and felt that he was burning up. Something was wrong, she feared, running back to the front of the bus and grabbing the bottle of antibiotics, and then racing back to him.

After a long moment of shaking him and calling his name, she was able to get a response. And in that response time, she managed to get some meds into him, chased by a full bottle of water. He was dehydrated, sick with fever, and she could do nothing about it other than what she had already done. She hoped it was enough.

“Sleep in shifts?” Nick asked her when she arrived at his side.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be doing much sleeping tonight,” she quipped as she began to clean his injured shoulder, starting with antibiotic wipes. To Nick’s credit, he barely winced or protested in the slightest. When she finally finished, feeling she had done the best job she could without sewing up the flesh, she looked at him for a few moments, still trying to decide if she should tie him up or not. Again, she pushed the notion away. He had shown no signs of becoming one of them.

We really need to get you sewn up back there, Nick. It’s not pretty. And the more you move, the more likely you’re gonna undo what I just did back there,” she advised, lowering herself into an adjacent seat.

“Well, what’s the plan then?”

“We need to get back into the zoo and into the veterinary facility to get you some proper meds. And I can do the stitching on your shoulder. Besides, I need to check up on Solomon, Luna and the rest to see if they are all right.”

“You know that they can take care of themselves, Gee,” Nick said with a half-smile. “The cats will tear anything up that gets inside their pens, and so will Solomon. Need to worry about the chickens and the lessers that can’t defend themselves.”

“But I wanna see for myself. Besides, I gotta get inside that medical facility as the closest hospital isn’t close at all, and we don’t know what’s out there,” Gaia said, starting to get up and then dropping right back into the seat.

“Better the devil you know then the one you don’t, eh? Right on.” Gaia smiled meekly and nodded. “You're exhausted and wounded yourself, though. You better watch it kid,” Nick advised and then stared up into her eyes. “Listen, I can take the walk with you to—“

“I don’t think so. You’d only slow me down.”

“You get a look at that gash on your head?” Gaia stood and looked into the mirror, maneuvering until she could get a sliver of light in the right spot. She saw a line once she parted the hair around the caked blood.

“It’s not that bad. I can do this.”

“Gaia, you already got us some things tonight, so get some rest. We’ll go in the mornin’,” Nick protested, which seemed to ring with wisdom to her as she reluctantly frowned and eventually nodded. Gaia stood again and was about to argue for going to get the medicine immediately and then caught sight of a few more zombies wandering around the parking lot and resigned to do as Nick suggested.

She stood from her seat near the front of the bus and wandered wearily back to the seat in front of Adam and lay quietly down. She found another bag on the floor and recalled that she found a bag with food in it not all that long ago for Adam. Then it finally dawned on her that the kids must have left their lunches behind. So, she opened the bag quietly and found, to her delight, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips, and a juice box.

She was about to nudge Adam awake and realized that he wouldn’t want to eat and that she should leave him sleep to help rid himself of that fever. He could eat something in the morning when he felt better.

She had a bottle of water in her jacket pocket from Adam’s car and decided to bring the apple to Nick. She tapped his shoulder slightly and he stared up at her and smiled. She silently offered it to him along with half her sandwich. “There’s more where that came from,” Gaia whispered, having seen more bags and lunch pails along the floors and seats of the bus.

Nick nodded and took the offering, taking a bite of the fruit and smiling back at Gaia. “Now get some sleep, kid.”

Gaia did just that, finding her seat again and nodding off quickly.

***

The distinct sound of something sharp scraping against steel woke Gaia as she sat up a little too hastily. Her head ached something fierce from the blow she took on her head yesterday evening. As she felt the wounded area, it was still hard with dried blood, but she did not feel anything wet or warm.

At least the wound closed
, she thought, peeking up over the seat and seeing Nick grinning. “What’s up?” Gaia asked, rubbing away the sleep from her eyes.

“Oscar and Grace are outside,” Nick said, pointing to the opposite side of the bus.

Gaia stood, again too faster than she should have again, and winced against the throbbing in her head. She pushed past the pain and made her away across the aisle to see two huge bears outside. One was scraping against the side of the bus.

“Holy shit,” she muttered.

“Yep. They tore up some zombies too, it looks like,” Nick said. “There’s zombie guts all over the place.” Gaia laughed and then her smile began to fade as she saw the side of one of the pair. There was matted blood in Grace’s coat and front legs.

“She’s bleeding there on her side,” Gaia said to Nick. “She needs some help.”

“And what are you gonna do if you can’t tranq her? She’s not just gonna sit still and let you treat her wounds. Anyway, you’ve got more pressing worries,” Nick added with a grim look as Gaia heard Adam shifting violently in his seat and rolled off and onto the floor. He moaned in a way that crushed Gaia’s’ very soul.

She knelt beside him and wrapped him in her arms and he grimaced, as if her touch had hurt him. Finally, he opened his eyes and realized whom it was, as an expression of tranquility washed over his features. He hugged her and licked his dry lips. Gaia removed the bottle of water from her jacket and helped him get the rest of the liquid down.

His eyes were red and his fever had not diminished overnight. “I need to get to the medical facility. They’ve got meds there that can help, and IV bags, and more,” Gaia said to him in an attempt to comfort him. He smiled back at her, clearly forcing the muscles to do so, but there was true love and admiration in his blue orbs, though the red surrounding his pupils was almost overtaking that icy hue. Gaia was very concerned for him and knew that if she didn’t treat the fever soon, it would not end well for Adam. He would not survive the night.

“I gotta get inside the facility,” Gaia said, standing up. “Adam needs an IV, meds, and so do you.”

“All right. I ain’t one to argue with you here. Let’s figure out a way to get that done. And I’m coming with you.”

Then Gaia heard the familiar sound of the capuchin and she smiled at Maye, who made her way over to a specific bag of food on the floor, disappeared from behind the seat and reappeared with a banana in her diminutive hand.

“Need help with that?” Gaia asked as she tried to peel the skin from the fruit for the monkey. Maye grabbed the banana and began to peel it herself and proceeded to devour the sweet fruit happily. Gaia could not help but smile at the simplicity and ignorant bliss of the capuchin. “So much for enjoying these moments.”

“You can still enjoy them, Gaia,” Nick corrected. “As a matter of fact, you really oughta’ savor them.” Nick advised as he stood and held up a roll of masking tape to Gaia and handed it to her, and then began removing his jacket. “I’d like to tape that fabric to hold it in place.” Gaia did exactly that.

A few moments later, as Nick began to prepare for their excursion, Gaia made her way back to Adam and stood over offering the last of her water. “Take this and try to eat something while I’m gone. Maye will watch over you for me,” Gaia said, drawing another forced smile from Adam in exchange. “Maye, you watch over Adam, okay?” she asked the capuchin, and Maye uttered a series of trilling noises, as she was prone to do when in agreement with Gaia. “All right, let’s get moving,” she said to Nick, making her way to the door and peering out of the bus and onto the gore-stained pavement.

After a moment of listening at the threshold, she slid the lock back and pushed open the door, watching it bend like an accordion as it slid to the right. She could not see or hear the bears, or anything else for that matter, as she kicked out some of the broken glass. It was quiet—uncharacteristically so—she believed.

She stepped out of the bus and onto the pavement, hopeful to gain entry into the veterinary facility at the far end of the zoo without much of a fuss. She knew it wouldn’t be that easy, however, but she could still hope. Nick followed her out, his rifle in hand and ready to be fired if need be. Gaia held her crowbar in hand and patted the sheath of the knife Nick had given her for a second before turning to Nick.

“Do you want this back…just in case?”

“No, you hold onto that. I can use the butt of this rifle if need be,” he whispered to her. “I’ll follow.”

She took a few steps out from in between the busses and into the vastly open parking lot. It had a few vehicles in it, including a taxicab at the far end of the lot that was not there last evening. The door was open and one of the living dead, seemingly the taxi cab driver or passenger, was wandering around nearby.

“I’m going to try conserving ammo. I’ve only got a few rounds left here.”