Dead Outside (Book 1) (12 page)
Chapter Eleven: Nick and Roxie
7:00
PM, July 4
Nick’s
uncle’s house was just ahead. It was mildly secluded, being twenty minutes
driving time from any major highways, and only five neighbors within two miles.
The sun was beginning to dip over the horizon. I probably should have found
some shelter and waited until the sun came back up tomorrow, but I’d traveled
this far, I couldn’t wait anymore, not when I was this close.
Nick’s
Uncle George was what I guess you could call a hoarder, he had more vehicles
then any other two people I knew, from dirt bikes, to dump trucks, and jet skis
to house boats, he had it all, even though most of it was rusting away and
filled with hornet and wasp nests. I recognized the driveway even in the dark
from the stack of dry rotted tires stacked up next to the mailbox.
The
house was surrounded by several large trees and bushes, but I could still see
several dozen Zombies surrounding it. I felt a smirk curl up from the corner of
my mouth. Zombies only stay somewhere as long as they think food exists there,
otherwise they’d move on somewhere else.
My
heart started racing when I saw movement in one of the upstairs windows. I
brought the car to a stop and flashed my headlights a few times at the house
trying to get the attention of someone inside. An unfortunate side effect of
doing so was getting the attention of some of the Zombies closest to me.
After
a few seconds of not seeing movement in the house, I honked the horn, catching
the attention of the rest of the Zombies outside. A figure appeared in one of
the windows holding a handgun, staring at me. It was Nick.
“Nick!”
I cracked the window and yelled out, “It’s Sam, let me in!”
“Sam?”
I heard him yell back in amazement.
“Yes,”
I yelled out in response, “it’s Sam, open the goddamned door!”
“Ok,
just a second.” He stalled, “Wait until they are far enough from the door for
you to get it.”
I
honked the horn, and flashed the lights a few more times, trying to draw the
Zombies to me faster, though they kept their slow steady pace. When they were
close enough to spit on the front bumper I floored the gas, shooting gravel and
dirt out from under the rear tires, before the car jerked forward and plowed
through the crowd of corpses.
After
clearing the mob, I turned the wheel sharply and hit the brakes. The back tires
lost traction and fish tailed to the left, coming to a stop just a few feet
from the front door. I grabbed my backpack, bat, shotgun, and swung the car’s
door open.
There
was a Zombie with its legs pinned underneath one of the tires of the car. I
ignored it and tried to open the front door, but it was still locked. The door
was beaten up pretty badly. The paint used to be chipped in places, but now
there was hardly any left on it, after having a bunch of fists and claws
pounding and clawing at it for god knows how long. I felt something grab my
right ankle, and pull my feet out from under me.
I
kicked my leg free, and tried to crawl away. “Open the door please!” I shouted
as I crushed the skull of the pinned zombie in with my boot. Just then the door
swung open, and Nick drug me inside, and slammed the door shut just as several
Zombies were about to reach the door.
Nick
had a huge smile going from ear to ear. “Where the fuck have you been?” he
asked trying to hide the surprise that was still all over his face. He must not
have shaved in a few days, he had a dark five o’clock shadow covering the
bottom half of his face.
A
tear rolled down his cheek, and he grabbed me in a bear hug and patted me on
the back.
“Traffic
was terrible,” I responded with a joke after he let me go. I could feel my
throat choking up, it was just now hitting me that he was really alive, and
this wasn’t a dream.
“Sam!”
I heard a shrill voice echo from upstairs. Roxie practically flew down the
stairs, and tackled me in a hug. “We thought you were dead,” she sobbed
happily. Her hair was starting to get frizzy, probably from a lack of washing
and straightening.
After
a few more minutes of hugs and tears, I looked around. They already knew what I
was about to ask, even before I asked it. “Sarah?”
Nick’s
face went from happily excited, to a sympathetic frown. He opened his mouth
slightly, but closed it a second later and shook his head.
My
heart dropped. A thousand images flashed through my mind, all the nightmares
I’d had over the last few weeks were true. I was too late.
“When?”
I could barely form the word with my vocal cords. I’m not even sure if I even
said it, or if I’d just moved my lips. Either way, Nick understood.
“We
got separated,” he wasn’t making eye contact, talking to the ground. “At the
school, when all the people who’d been infected began to reanimate in the
courtyard. We managed to get to the gate, but there were so many people…” he stopped.
He was blaming himself, mad that he wasn’t able to keep her safe.
Roxie
continued for him, “So many people were pushing, shoving, trying desperately to
get out. Every other person was one of those… things. Somewhere between the
school and the gate we lost her.”
I
felt a spark of hope come from deep down. “So you didn’t actually see her die?
Or get bitten? She could still be alive!”
Of
course, it was just irrational hope, even more irrational than the hope I’d had
on the way here. If I gave up, what would be the point of going on?
“Sam,
we looked everywhere.” Nick tried to make me see reason. “I miss her too, but
you have to look at the facts, the number of people that died is staggering.
The chances that she made it…”
“Chances?”
I cut him off angrily, “What are the chances I’d be able to travel a thousand
miles full of those damned things? What are the chances you and Roxie would
make it here, especially after being in a cluster fuck at the school with all
those Infected and stampeding people?”
Nick
just stared at me. His eyes said he was considering the possibility she could
have survived, but the rest of his face was still in a state of denial. “You
shouldn’t get your hopes up.” He again tried to reason with me.
I
just shook my head. “You know how stubborn she is,” I argued angrily, “She’s
out there right now alive, and we need to get to her. I mean shit, did you even
look?”
“How
dare you ask if we even looked?” Roxie was giving me a death stare.
“Did
you find her body?” I demanded. Granted I was getting ready to cross some
emotional lines, but that didn’t matter, I wanted a straight answer. “Well?”
She
didn’t break her stare for even one second, “We risked our lives looking for
her. We looked for a week, everywhere we could think of.”
“You
didn’t look hard enough!” I yelled right in her face. I should have known what
was going to happen next.
Nick’s
fist connected with my jaw hard, knocking me off my feet almost instantly. I
was dazed for a second. If he’d have hit me any harder I would probably have
been knocked out. I came to my senses and kicked Nick in the leg, making him
fall down right next to me. I rolled on top of him, pinning one of his hands
with my right knee, and the other with my left hand. My right hand was balled
in a fist, held back by my head.
“Hit
me again,” I challenged him. “I dare you.”
“We
looked,” he looked me in the eyes. “I promise you, we looked everywhere, and we
didn’t find her.”
I
stared back, shaking my head in denial, “I don’t believe it.” I didn’t realize
I was crying until I felt the tear rolling down my cheek. I punched the ground
next to Nick’s head. I wasn’t intending to scare him, although it did also
accomplish that, I was just angry, not at Nick or Roxie, angry at myself. It
wasn’t their fault.
I
rolled to the ground next to Nick, and tried to compose myself. It wasn’t long
before Nick and Roxie were getting choked up. I wiped my face and got up, “I’m
going out there to find her.”
“Like
hell you are!” Roxie protested in her mom voice.
“Watch
me!” I walked past her toward the door, where my bag was still sitting.
“It’s
the middle of the night,” Roxie yelled, pointing at the window, “How are you
going to find anything with it so dark?”
“She’s
right,” Nick defended. “If Sarah is alive, you’re not going to be able to find
her without light, and she wouldn’t want you getting killed being stupid. We’ll
get a fresh start in the morning.”
I
stopped with my hand on the doorknob. I looked out the window between the
boards and saw the numerous Zombies still outside. I let out a sigh and turned
around, “Okay, but we do it my way.”
We
started cataloguing what we had: food, water, weapons, ammo, anything useful,
and making a list of what we needed. If we were going into town we might as
well get the things we needed while there. I headed into the garage to see what
I could find, and found a familiar sight, my old Ford Ranger, in all its faded
glory. I couldn’t help but smile.
“What?”
I heard Nick’s voice from behind me. “Did you think we’d just abandon her?”
I
ran my hand down the body, noticing a few dents and bumps that were new, “How
long did it take you to get her started?”
“Felt
like an hour,” he sighed, “and I didn’t get it started, Roxie had to do it.”
I
would have laughed, but Sarah was still weighing heavy on my mind. I patted
Nick on the back, and pulled him in for a hug, “Thanks man.”
“Oh,
don’t think we did it for you,” he added sarcastically. “Roxie’s car got
totaled on the highway, and mine got blocked in at the school,” he shrugged.
“Wasn’t like we had much of a choice.”
“Thanks,”
I responded with my own sarcasm. “Glad to know you were thinking of me when you
stole my truck.”
“The
term is acquisitioned,” he smirked. “We acquisitioned your truck.”
I
went back inside to see how Roxie was doing checking the bedrooms upstairs.
About halfway up the stairs I heard a familiar sniffling. I looked back down
the stairs and saw that Nick was wandering around my truck, obviously avoiding
the issue. I rolled my eyes with a sigh, “Looks like things haven’t changed
that much.”
The
door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open. She must have heard me, because
she exclaimed rather quickly, “I told you I’m fine.”
“Well
I missed that memo,” I answered, knowing she thought she was saying it to Nick.
She turned her head enough to see it was me.
“Sorry,
just having another one of those stupid girl moments.” She wiped her tears on
her sleeve, and looked down at a picture of us and our parents in front of the
Castle at Disney World. We couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years
old. Roxie had a wide smile, revealing her missing front teeth.
“Are
you still crying about that?” I asked, she gave me a perplexed look as I sat
down next to her on the floor and put my arm around her shoulders. She didn’t
understand what I meant, “I thought they grew back?” I gestured to her lack of
teeth in the photo.
She
laughed for a moment, but then went back to crying almost instantly, putting
her head on my chest, “Things are never going to be the same again, are they?”
I
thought about lying, telling her that there was a chance this would all blow
over, but I knew that wasn’t true, and she was smart enough to know it as well,
no matter how emotional she was right now. “No,” I admitted, “I don’t think
they will.”
We
sat there for about twenty minutes before she was able to compose herself.
“Come on,” she changed the subject. “We should probably go to bed. It’s already
late enough. If we are going to get an early start we’d need to get some
sleep.”
I
went downstairs to the foldout couch in the living room, and Nick eventually
went upstairs after another half hour in the garage. It was almost midnight
when I heard them start arguing. I got up and got my pistol and bat ready. I
wasn’t going to sit around here when Sarah was out there alone. I wrote a note
telling them what I was doing, and that Sarah and I would be back either
tomorrow or the next day.
I
thought they’d finally gone to bed when they blew out their candle, but as soon
as I made my way toward the back door they were at it again. It was almost two
o’clock in the morning before they finally went to sleep. I waited another
twenty minutes or so, just to make sure they were really asleep, before I snuck
out the back.
The
backyard was clear of any Zombies that I could see. They must have all been out
front, so I moved pretty quickly to the shed where Nick’s uncle kept his dirt
bikes and four-wheelers. I made sure the tank was full in the four-wheeler I
was taking, and started pushing it toward the front of the house. I couldn’t
start it this close without waking up Nick or Roxie.
I
gave the house a wide berth, because I knew that the one’s out front would be
on my ass quick, as soon as they saw me. Sure enough, once I saw them it didn’t
take long for them to take notice of me. Only a few came toward me at first,
then I got an idea. I picked up a few rocks and chucked them at the remaining
crowd, getting their attention away from the house. “Come on you dead bastards,”
I taunted them to follow me.
They
were getting close, so I pushed the four-wheeler as fast as I could to keep
away from them. Once I got on the road it was a lot easier to push on the
compacted dirt. I waited until I was about a quarter mile away from the house
before I fired up the engine. I didn’t go too fast, because I wanted the
zombies to follow me away from the house for a little bit, but once I reached
the highway I would leave them in the dust.
7:00
AM, July 5
It
was dark most of the way, broken down cars were everywhere. Luckily I could go
along the sides of the road to avoid most of the congestion. The sun had just
come up about half hour ago when I got off the highway onto the street leading
to Sarah’s house. I saw a few Zombies on the way over, but none that I couldn’t
avoid.
The
area around the house was quiet. There was a big smoldered black circle in the
front yard. It was filled with hundreds of blackened bones, and I couldn’t even
tell how many bodies contributed to the pile. Dried blood was all over the
front porch, even on the little table and chair where Sarah’s dad used to sit.
Spent shotgun shells were on the ground about every three or four feet.
The
front door wasn't closed all the way. It would swing closed by itself, but
would never close entirely, and you had to slam it to close it all the way. The
blood trails went inside, where I found more shotgun shells and big brown
circles on the floor where blood had pooled. There was a crazy shootout here,
and it wasn’t quick. There was enough blood splatter on the walls to have come
from an army.
Browned
bloody footprints led to the kitchen. At this point I saw handprints and
smudges all over the swinging kitchen door. On the other side a couple empty
boxes of shotgun shells was on the ground. I knelt down and picked one up.
Bloody fingerprints covered it. The glass on the kitchen door was busted in,
and so were the windows. More of the Zombies must have been trying to break in
through the back. The footprints led upstairs.
There
were bloody smudges on the walls the whole way up the stairwell, and bloody
handprints on the railing. I almost tripped going up on even more shotgun
shells and another empty box.
The
door to Sarah’s room was closed, I almost went inside, but the footprints
didn’t lead inside, so I left it for now, and went to her dad’s room. Blood was
all over the ground outside of it, so much so that the bottoms of my boots
stuck to it when I walked on it. Holes small and large were all over the wall
opposite of his door. He’d been using different rounds in his shotgun, buckshot
and birdshot. The door itself was barely intact, the hinges were hanging, and
wood chips were everywhere. Inside the room on the floor there were five or six
empty boxes and dozens of shells everywhere.
I’d
been in this room before. When Sarah and I were kids we used to played hide and
seek and would hide in here. After Sarah’s mom died and her dad went off the
deep end, the only thing on that he kept on the dresser had been a picture of
her mom. The dresser was empty right now, but I had a feeling I knew where it
was.
I
saw the slumped form sitting in the rocker next to the bed. A spray of blood
was on the wall and ceiling behind it. I felt broken glass on the ground under
my boots when I got close. It came from a picture frame that was next to his
feet. I picked up the picture of Sarah’s mom and saw a bit of blood on it. I
put it in my bag with care, Sarah would want it. His shotgun was leaning
against the wall. It’d seen better days, and from the number of spent shells
I’d seen since walking in I wasn’t surprised. A .357 Magnum was on the other
side of the rocker. I figured he owned another gun, but I’d never seen it
before today. When I picked it up I saw the bandage on his arm, with a circular
red stain in the center. I couldn't help but shed a tear. This man was
practically another father to me, and he didn’t deserve to go out like this.
It
took me almost an hour to get him downstairs. I thought about digging the
grave, but realized Sarah should be there when his body was buried. It was her
right to see his funeral, and if she didn’t, she’d resent me forever. I went in
the garage and found a heavy tarp to wrap his body in, and left him in the
garage. I felt like I needed to say something, but all I did was nod and thank
him for everything he did for me. I saw his compound bow sitting on the work
bench with a bundle of arrows. I grabbed it before closing the door and locking
it, just in case anything tried to get in.
I
made sure to pack Jerry’s .357 and shotgun on the four-wheeler before I left. I
didn’t find any shotgun ammo except for the two that were left in it, but found
two boxes of .357 magnum rounds. The bow was what I was most excited about.
Killing the Zombies silently could definitely come in handy.
It
was one o’clock pm when I left her house. My eyes were still damp, but I shook
it off, I had to find her, that’s what her dad would want, and it’s what I
wanted.
The
last place Nick and Roxie saw Sarah was the High School, so if I was going to
find any clues it would be there.
It’d
been just over a week since the carnage happened there, but it looked like it
had been months. Bodies littered the streets more than anywhere I’d seen so far
and it only got worse the closer I got to the school. I started to get a bit
discouraged. I didn’t know what I was expecting to find out here, any clues
would have been washed away by now. It had rained at least once since that
night, the blood stains that should be everywhere were washed and smudged in
places.
I
parked the four-wheeler one street from the school. I didn’t want to be trying
to start it while surrounded, I’d rather get a running start if I could. I kept
my pistol holstered on my hip, held my bat in my hands, and left everything
else on the four-wheeler.
I
tried to put myself in her shoes. With a sea of people, and losing sight of the
people she was with, her first instinct would be to get out of the chaos, away
from the danger.
She
hadn’t been to her house, or back to my house. There was no trace of her
attempting to leave some kind of sign for anyone to know where she’d be, or any
attempt to fortify them to stay.
The
parking lots were a nightmare. Cars were jammed in bumper to bumper, with
barely enough room to get out of said cars. There was no way she’d try to
escape through a death trap like that. I picked up a rock and tossed it at the
school in frustration. I aimed for a window, but heard a metal clang ring out,
not shattering, or a thump of hitting the brick wall instead.
A
few lingering Zombies looked up at the school after hearing the sound and
started shuffling toward it. At first I was surprised, and then I remembered
the school was a hurricane shelter. The shutters had probably been down since
the place was designated as a shelter.
It
barely looked like a school anymore, emergency and military vehicles were
everywhere. Crates, tents, and other supplies made it look more like something
out of an old war film. The bodies everywhere only reinforced that image.
It
took me a while to navigate my way into the school itself, but once I did I
noticed that there were actually only a few bodies inside the school itself.
The few that were there were horribly ripped apart, practically only skeletons.
It looked like the Zombies that overran the shelter fed on what they could, but
once the food spread outside they followed it out.
If
it happened fast enough, Sarah could have holed up somewhere nearby then come
back to the school once it was safe. It was still the most fortified building
for miles.
I
checked as many rooms as I could, knocking and calling her name if a door was
locked. A few times I would get an answer, but it was always a gasping moan,
some scratching or knocking back. Some people who were infected must not have
made it out in time.
I
left the building learning nothing about where Sarah was. I checked a few of
the police vehicles for weapons or ammo, but they were picked clean for the
most part. I only found a few shotgun shells, but I didn’t have enough time to
check all the vehicles.
I
was on my way back to the four-wheeler when I noticed a familiar truck. It had
a cheesy set of flame decals behind the front tires. I’d recognize Rodger’s
truck any day of the week. I’d wanted to do damage to that truck for years, and
even though it was already wrapped around a pole, I needed to let off some
steam.
I
smashed the taillights first, then the headlights, and was about to take out
the passenger side mirror when I saw a shoe on the ground. It caught my
attention because it looked familiar, then it hit me, Sarah owned the exact
same pair of shoes. I picked it up and about jumped for joy when I saw the
faded letters written on the inside of the tongue. Her name never looked so
good written down. It had splatters of blood on it, but that was no surprise,
there was blood on everything out here.
I
took a look around at my surroundings. I was a bit too focused on releasing
stress to notice that all the noise I was making caught the attention of the
local Zombies, and they were all congregating on my location. I was a bit out
of breath, but it didn’t take much to jog back to the four-wheeler. I only had
to take out one Zombie that was too close for comfort. I put her shoe into my
backpack and sped off toward Rodger’s house as fast as I could.
I
didn’t know if she was still there, I didn’t know if Rodger was still alive,
but if he was, he might be the last one to have seen her.
The
sun had set on the way over, but enough was enough. Nothing was going to stop
me now. I parked the four-wheeler about half a mile away, tucked off the side
of the road. I had plenty of weapons to choose from at this point, but decided
to go simple. My bat was effective but I had to carry it in my hand, so I chose
a machete I found at Nick’s uncle’s house instead, since it had a sheath that
attached to my belt. I also chose the 9mm over the .357 for the same reason.
The compound bow was an obvious choice. I had eight arrows to work with and
about 20 rounds of 9mm ammo in two clips.
The
road to his house was creepy enough without it being so dark. The trees and
foliage hadn’t been maintained here for a long time. The road was cracked and
covered in potholes. I turned down the clay driveway. It was pretty dark. I
could barely see anymore, but didn’t want to risk using the flashlight I
brought, I didn’t want them to know I was coming.
There
were plenty of dead bodies around the yard. Most of them were littered with
bullet holes. It must have taken Rodger and his friends a while to figure out
head shots.
There
were four trucks parked near the garage. It was separate from the rest of the
house, and it didn’t look like anyone was inside them, or the garage. The house
on the other hand had lights on. There were curtains up, but I could still see
a faint glow around them. All the first floor windows were boarded up, so I
went around back, hoping to find a weakness. The back door had a small window
on it, and it was covered poorly by a piece of plywood.
I
went back to the garage and found a hammer. On the way back I thought I heard a
door slam from inside the house. I froze and looked up at the windows. I heard
a female voice screaming, then a male voice yelling back. A shadow moved across
one of the windows fast, followed by another. My heart was racing. I moved as
quickly as I could without being too loud back to the back door.
Before
I popped the board off I peeked in through the boards on a windows near the
door, it didn’t look like anyone was there, so they must have all be upstairs.
I
popped the board off, smashed the window, and unlocked the door. I could hear
aggravated yelling upstairs as I stepped inside, and then heard two sets of
footsteps coming down stairs. I ran to the opposite corner from the door, and
drew the bow string back.
“Must
be another walker,” I heard one of them say from the next room. Two figures
came in. I shot the first one with the bow. The arrow went through his head and
stuck in the wall on the opposite side. I didn’t have time to draw another
arrow, so I dropped the bow, drew my machete and stuck it halfway through his
head before he could shoot me. He turned to look at me, it was dark, but his
eyes had a greenish tint for half a second. As he twitched and fell, he
squeezed the trigger on his rifle and fired off a round, but it went into the
floor.
It
took me a second to realize what happened since it went so fast. I noticed that
the first one was James, and the one with my machete halfway through his head
was Dave. I’d known those guys since I was a kid. We never got along sure, but
this was different than the guys in the warehouse. They had names, they had
lives that I knew. I looked at their eyes but only saw green. I shook it off,
it wasn’t important now.
I
walked slowly through the doorway and strung another arrow, ready for someone
else to come down the stairs to my right. I tried not to make a sound, knowing
whoever was left upstairs didn't know I was here, or that Dave and James were
dead. I got to the bottom of the stairs and waited, I didn't want to be stuck
on the low ground. I waited about fifteen minutes, probably the longest fifteen
minutes of my life, until I heard someone talking from upstairs.
I
only heard two voices, but I couldn’t tell who they were. I drew the bow, ready
to fire, when I saw the guy coming at me. He was big. I fired as soon as I had
a shot, but I heard a yelp, and then a gunshot. I dove and rolled to my right,
toward a couch as soon as I heard the shot, but the pain registered as I was in
mid roll. He had shot me in the left shoulder. I dove over a couch, and looked
at the quiver, only one arrow left, the others had fallen out when I rolled. I
set the bow down.
"Fuck
it," I thought out loud, and drew my pistol from its holster. They know I
was here now. My shoulder was hurting bad, but when I felt the wound I could
tell it only grazed me, but it still got me pretty good. Luckily I wasn't
bleeding too badly, so I focused more on the big guy who shot me and was still
there.
