Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5) (14 page)

Echo placed her hand on mine. “Bethany, are you okay?”

I didn’t want to break the silence. The whole of the moment was almost too much to take in at once. My heart and my mind were ready to drown in relief, until—

The scream pierced the air and raced straight to my spinal column. The sound was clearly female and alive. Morgan and Josh touched down and raced to our sides.

“
Jamal,” Morgan spoke first. “Where did the sound originate?”

“
I-I…” Jamal stuttered. He was nervous; Jamal was rarely nervous. “I have to hear it again.”

Jamal’s demand was answered with another scream queen delight; he stood and faced what I assumed to be north. “Ten o’clock; around one hundred yards.”

“
Everyone, stay here,” Morgan insisted. “Josh and I will check out the situation. Rizzo, guard them as if your life depended on it.”

“
It kinda does.” Rizzo immediately tossed her hands up. “You got it, M. I’ll keep them safe from the groovy ghoulies.”

Not another word was spoken as the leaders of the Zombie Response Team disappeared into the fog of night.

“
What are we going to do?” Jamal sidled up to me and whispered—unwilling to let the others in on the fact that we had no solid plan moving forward.

“
The first thing we do is locate somewhere to set up camp. After that, we piece together a meal and a source of water, and finally…get some sleep. Tomorrow, you and I will set up communications. I need to get online.”

Jamal slid down and took a seat beside me. “What I wouldn’t give to be back in school right now. There was order. You knew when your next meal was going to be, there was always a warm bed and warmer shower—”

“
Holy Christ on a bath mat; what I wouldn’t give for a hot shower right now. I can’t imagine how I smell.”

“
Isn’t it strange that all this time, the last thing on our mind has been hygiene? Think about it…when was the last time we bathed? If you and I both hadn’t been growing the same funk under our clothes, I seriously doubt I’d be willing to do this…”

Jamal’s kiss took me by surprise; so much so, I nearly slapped him. The warmth of the gesture invaded every muscle in my body. I could feel the sensation spread from my face, to my groin, and down my legs. In a move that shocked even me, my hand leaped up and pulled Jamal’s face in tight with mine. I didn’t want to let him go. I desperately needed this. Even with Echo nearly coming undone with laughter, I refused to give in to pressure and let Jamal go. This moment was mine and only mine.

Until the screams once again raged in the full-dark sky.

“
There they are,” Rizzo nearly shouted. I grabbed her arm and calmed her with a slow shake of my head.

When they arrived, Josh lowered a woman to the ground in front of us. She was covered in sweat and shaking uncontrollably.

“
Was she bit?” Rizzo asked.

“
Not by a zombie,” Josh replied.

“
By who then? Or what?” I asked.

“
My guess is heroin or meth,” Morgan chimed in. “She’s a junkie and she’s in the middle of an apocalyptic-level comedown.”

Another peace-shattering howl escaped from the now-fetal woman.

“
You’re kidding me, right? The planet is covered in zombies and meth-heads still exist?” Rizzo made like she was about to kick the woman in the head. Josh grabbed her by the arm and held her back.

“
Easy does it, Riz. Demons come in all shapes and sizes; you know that as well as anyone.”

Instantly, Rizzo’s head of steam cooled and she returned to the wall. The curled up woman at our feet finally went silent, save for the clacking teeth and panting breath.

“
What do we do with her?” Jamal asked, innocently.

Silence.

“
We’ve backed down armies of zombies, took out the original leaders of the Zero Day Collective, killed countless Screamers and Boners…and we’re struck dumb by a junkie.”

Slowly, all eyes came to bear on me.

“
I’m just being honest.”

No one wanted to say it; like we were holding on to the last vestiges of humanity left on the planet. We could put a bullet in the head of someone who’d been infected by the Mengele Virus—no problem—but a strung out crackhead comes along and we were all lost.

It was Jamal who finally spoke up. “If we bring her into the fold a lot of energy and resources will be spent getting her clean. In the meantime, the woman sings her siren song to call forth a legion of the undead down on us. Is this a risk we’re willing to take? I for one am not so sure.”

Morgan stepped forward, her gaze fixed on the surrounding wall. “I don’t think we have to worry about the zombie nation making their way to us. That wall was a tough climb even with full mental capacity.”

“
Josh, carry her back to the building where you found her. We’ll care for her as best we can. If we can get her through this, she might make a valuable member of our little Scooby gang. If not, well…no harm, no foul.”

Josh nodded at my request, scooped up the woman, and started off. While he went off to return the Princess of Jonestown to her hovel, I organized the retrieval of our provisions. Even from this side of the wall, we found no means to open the gate. Instead, we improvised a harness system to help bring over the heavier supplies.

There wasn’t much—especially in the way of food and water. When we finally had everything gathered together, it became clear what priority number one would be in the morning: locating food. Thankfully, New Salt Lake City was fairly large, so the possibility of landing rations was fairly high.

In the meantime, finding shelter was in order. Nights were already growing chilly and weather patterns had become even more unpredictable. So we went off, in search of our base camp.

Walking through the streets of New Salt Lake City was like walking through a dump. Everywhere you looked, debris was collected in piles. Every horizontal surface that hadn’t been kissed by the wind was still coated in the gray ash that had fallen after the initial blast from Godwin’s Fusion Generator.

And the smell. From every direction, your olfactory system was accosted by the stink of rot and death. The closer we were to the dead bodies, the louder the sounds of the flies and the crawling and writhing of maggots. Decay had wormed its way into the very fabric of life.

“
What are the chances,” Jamal whispered to me, “of those flies being carriers of the virus?”

The question nearly punched the puke from my gut. There were certain rules I wanted the apocalypse to follow—it was only fair. First and foremost, the only way for the virus to transmit was through the bite of a zombie. Second—there was no such thing as zombie flies and maggots. Third—and this one was crucial—you could only die twice.

I stepped in to return Jamal’s whisper. “It’s possible. Mosquitoes can transfer diseases and viruses, so why not flies?”

“
That’s not the answer I was hoping to hear.”

I grabbed Jamal’s hand and entwined our fingers. He gave me a light squeeze, which helped to ease a bit of the tension.

Jamal forced a smile. “Let’s table this discussion for another time.”

“
What I want to know,” Morgan said, “is where are the zombies that attacked these people? Was the wall erected after the attack, or are they still here?”

Like a Bob Fosse chorus line, we all stopped, leaned, and looked around for signs of the undead.

“
This is too creepy.” Echo shattered the heart-pounding moment.

I couldn’t argue with her sentiment.

A question bubbled up from the core of my mind. “How is it these bodies are still in the stages of putrefaction? And why are there still maggots? From the looks of the city decay, no one’s been here for a while, yet these bodies look like they’ve been dead for just a few weeks.”

“
Maybe these people had the same idea as us.” Morgan stopped briefly in her tracks. “And maybe they discovered the only survivors within the wall were the undead. If that’s the case, maybe they cleared the way for us.”

After Josh had the junkie carefully tucked away, we sifted through the rubble and found the best possible choice to serve as our headquarters. The one-time church would be the ideal location for our needs. It was solid, all the doors were heavy and still functioned, and it had a full on kitchen. We immediately dumped our packs and bags to find somewhere comfortable enough to call a bed.

Morgan sat next to me on a front row pew. “Josh and I will take turns with the watch. You need to get some sleep.”

She heard not a peep of an argument from me.

Morgan started to stand from the pew; I reached for her and pulled her back down.

“
Thank you, Morgan, for everything you’ve done. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”

She simply smiled, hugged me, and stood to leave.

Jamal smoothly took her place, and the look in his eyes was clear.

I nodded.

He curled up behind me.

“
Hello, little spoon.”

I wiggled in as close as I could.

“
Hello, big spoon.”

The night fell over us like a warm, comforting blanket.

chapter 14 |
the mother lode

The bodies lay around me, a circling wall of death. Brick by brick, the corpses were piled carefully to isolate me from the outside world. I screamed, but the sound was forever muted by the cold, rigor’d meat. I tried to scale the human wall but the decayed flesh sloughed away, sending me back to the gore-soaked ground.

My only chance was to dig my way through the bodies. My fingers pulled at the dirty cannibal chow until it came away from bone like succulent beef.

I broke bone.

I unsealed intestinal walls.

The more I dug, the more there was to dig through. My fingers and arms were slick with the grease of humankind. Before I realized what was happening, I was hip-deep in a pool of human waste and remains.

And then I heard it—the sorrow-filled cry of a baby.

My baby.

Desperation fueled my resolve and I tore into the stack of flesh until a pinprick of light shone through. That was all the hope I needed.

“
Jacob, I’m coming. Mommy’s coming, sweetheart. Don’t cry, honey.”

As the hole in the wall grew, so too did the wailing.

With the opening large enough, I squeezed through the fetid tunnel and dropped out of the other side.

When my feet hit the ground, everything changed. I was now inside a surgical theatre. Before me were two stainless steel tables. On the left table was my baby, sleeping soundly, his thumb tucked gently between his lips. On the right table was a man, his face covered with bandages. Between the two was a clear, plastic IV tube—each end attached to an arm. Within the tube, oxygen-rich blood flowed in a one-way direction from Jacob to the stranger.

Another man, clad in a surgical gown and gas mask, stepped up to baby Jacob.

“
No!” I screamed. “What are you doing?”

The man ignored me and pulled a chart from the table. After a few shakes of his head, he gently held up Jacob’s arm in one hand and a syringe in the other. I screamed again; he failed to register my outburst. Instead, he plunged the needle into the arm of my baby.

The bright red blood in the line instantly turned black.

The baby cried…only it wasn’t the infant making the sound. The sound came from the table on the right. The man sat up. When he was finally upright, the cloth covering his head fell away to reveal Jacob Plummer, the piercing cry of the baby falling from his lips.

“
Jacob,” I screamed out, “no!”

*

“
B, you’re having a dream, wake up.”

My eyes fluttered, the images in front of me blurry from welled-up tears.

“
It’s Jamal. You’re okay; everything’s okay.”

It wasn’t; I could feel it. Some blossoming kernel, deep inside the core of my being, knew that something very wrong was happening. There was no way I could put the feelings into words without sounding like a lunatic. Instead, I chose the weak route and wrapped my arms around Jamal and let the tears flow.

“
That’s right, B, cry it out. It’ll do you some good.”

I pulled back and punched Jamal on the shoulder.