Decay: A Zombie Story (11 page)

Suddenly, before I even realized she came from the back room, Tara ran past me and through the front door. She ran at the seemingly crazed man and wrapped her arms around him.

Peter looked back at me in the window with a confused look on his face as I began to realize that this must be Tara’s boyfriend. But how was that possible?

TARA

I
t was the only thing I wanted for my birthday, to see Joey again. I was almost in shock when I saw him in the parking lot and I still couldn’t believe it as we stood in the store together. Mike and Peter laughed as he told them about thinking they were violent looters at the gas station.

He also said that he was angry at first when Mike smashed the door to his shelter, but if he hadn’t there would’ve been no reason to follow them back here. At this point, I thanked Mike for breaking the door. He said it was an
enjoyable experience
.

Eventually, Joey gave Mike his shotgun and they sorted through that and the box of ammo he had brought with him. Everyone seemed quite pleased with having another gun. After that, Joey and I went into the office while the rest of them stayed by the window.

When we entered the office, I poured him one of the last cups of lukewarm coffee we were able to conjure up. Joey loved it. He has always liked that simple crappy coffee, while I’ve preferred more flavorful fair-trade products. Regardless, I was very happy to give it to him after what he had been through.

Then, he went straight to the TV, turned it on, and began flipping through the channels of static. “Did you guys ever see anything on here?” he asked frantically.

Shocked at the aspect of uncertainty he must’ve been suffering through this whole time, I sat down and explained everything we knew—the Arthriphagy virus, the safe zones, the timeline of how it had spread, everything…

After a while of sitting together and talking, he told me what had happened to him the night he disappeared. And, I told him what we had been through. I somewhat explained what had happened with Peter, Jen, Sam and Mike too.

Eventually, Jen knocked on the door and asked if we could join them. So, we headed out to the store where everyone was sitting by the window and cash register. Joey got his first look at Sam and I could tell he saw the distress she was going through.

Joey and I sat with the group and we all discussed a plan. Jen then walked away without saying anything. Then, Peter began by saying, “Okay, we have some good supplies and now that we have some gas in the car, we have to go get some food and anything else useful from the grocery store. Now, I am volunteering to go. I’d like to have one other person with me to help.”

Then, Jen came back holding a packet of food and a plastic fork. The smell was cheap—but amazing. She then handed it to me. “You can kick off our dehydrated food supply by trying out this Chicken Parm. Happy birthday!” she said.

I smiled as I took the warm packet from her and smelled the food for a moment. “Thank you so much,” I said.

Then Peter put a piece of paper on the cashier’s counter. “We need to come up with a shopping list,” he said.

PETER

T
here I was, walking into this small diner, with clean and brightly colored walls and décor. I walked to a booth where Jen, Sam and Robbie were sitting, looking at menus. Robbie’s face was buried in his menu and if it wasn’t for his Fix-It shirt, I might not have even known it was him!

As I sat down, I looked to the bar where Mike and his daughter were sitting. Mike was feeding her pancakes and he nodded to me when I saw them. Ellie had her back to me though, so I didn’t say hi. Then, Tara walked by with a tray of waters and quickly greeted us but continued on her way because she had her own tables to wait. I watched her walk to her section and began to chuckle when I saw Joey wiping down her tables—he was the busboy?

After having a good chuckle at the irony, I began looking at the menu and the first thing that caught my eye was a cheeseburger. Now that sounded good!

“I’m definitely getting a burger!” I said aloud.

At this point, the waitress came to our table. The light hanging over our table blocked my view of her face so it was kind of awkward, but I ordered my burger and she immediately handed one to me and said in a cheerful tone, “Enjoy!”

I was delighted as I looked at the juicy burger and fries. Then, I bit into it and pulled it away from my mouth quickly. The inside of the burger was bleeding like a gaping wound and had little maggots crawling around the inside.

It smelled terrible and I dropped it on the table as quickly as possible. “Is something wrong with your meal?” I heard the waitress ask. Then, I looked up and her face came out from behind the light fixture and revealed a rotting and wrinkly undead face with tons of makeup on—like she was trying to hide the fact that she was infected.

“What the hell!” I said, shocked.

Robbie then lowered his menu to reveal the same type of look as our waitress. Needless to say, I stood up and tried to back out of the restaurant as they came towards me. Then, Mike, Ellie, Sam, Joey and Tara joined them as they all appeared to be walking corpses.

“Jen!” I shouted.

She looked over and revealed that she too had been infected. Was I alone? What happened?

I immediately opened my eyes and felt as if I could taste the rotten meat from my terrible dream. This felt like one of those dreams that were going to stick with me for a while. The thought of everyone I was with currently—including Jen—trying to eat me was not something I enjoyed waking up to.

Despite all of the terrifying aspects I had endured, I kept thinking of the sight of the nice fresh burger and realized how much I wanted some real food. I guess it was a good thing we were going to the grocery store today. The thought of food got me up and out of bed quickly—anything to think of something other than the horrible dream I had.

We spent last night making a list for the grocery store, talking, eating small portions of Tara’s chicken parmesan, and relaxing as well. We got to know Joey a bit too—he seemed like a real cool guy.

Once again, Mike and I prepared to venture out this morning, taking a trip about four times as long as our last one. This time, however, we have the car, two guns, a walkie-talkie, and an enlightened hope that there may be others out there.

As we looked over our list, it was safe to say that we were both feeling pretty good about our mission ahead of us.

The list we all compiled was broken down into three groups: essentials, non-edible essentials, and finally treats—non essentials that we certainly wouldn’t risk our lives for, but if we had space and could easily grab the item or items, we would.

As we prepared, Joey checked the shotguns and discovered they both took the same size shells. We had about two dozen, not an indispensable amount, but much better than the few we had before.

So, we split the ammo equally between Mike and me. Then, we armed ourselves with shovels in case of some typical protocol. We gathered the rest of our necessities for the trip and loaded the car.

As she walked away, I began to feel that I was acting a little overconfident as we looked ahead to this trip. After all, Joey was near us this whole time, no one here had been as far as the grocery store.

We had no idea what things looked like there. Her little pep talk made me realize that we would have to go into this trip expecting the unexpected and keeping our guard up. I think we both still felt confident, but we weren’t going to lose our surroundings.

MIKE

P
eter and I piled our things into the car as Joey stood outside with us. It was a cloudy morning as we prepared to leave. Though, it was hard to tell if it was going to be a rainy or stormy day.

This would certainly add an extra element to our planning for the day.

I observed the gray sky and smelled the air, searching for that scent of incoming rain. Jen and Tara joined their significant others by the car.

Tara immediately latched herself onto Joey. I can’t blame her… If Ellie was here, I don’t think I’d let go of her for a second. Joey’s safe arrival had given me new hope that Ellie was alive. She has to be.

Peter then gave Jen a hug and kiss in such a way that I knew we were leaving.

I hopped in the passenger’s seat as Peter was far more familiar with the area than I was. A moment later, Peter grabbed Joey’s keys and got in the car. Jen came up to the car. “Be careful you guys,” she said.

We both nodded and said we would as Peter put the key in the ignition and started the engine. Then, we proceeded to slowly pull the car out of the parking lot, taking it pretty slow as the car had sat idle for quite some time.

Jen, Tara and Joey watched us for a moment as we drove away from Fix-It. Then, they turned around and headed back into the store. As we continued on route, the skies worsened and a fog started to settle in.

I could finally see the incoming rain as I started to search for a button that would cover the roof of the convertible. The interior had been enduring the weather since it was parked at the store originally so it wasn’t a huge deal. But, the cover would keep us from getting wet—and while I wasn’t scared of rain, I did want to keep from catching a cold which would greatly exacerbate the situation.

However, Peter caught me looking around curiously and pressed a button. As the collapsible roof began to extend over our heads, he said, “Was this what you were looking for?”

I laughed. “Yes, thank you.”

We continued on our way as the fog greatly thickened and it seemed to become much darker outside. Peter turned on the lights—high beams and all. Soon, we drove beyond the area of the gas station and into the previously unknown territory.

Things looked no different—abandoned cars, trash and various items strewn about, and some bodies lying in the road. Many bodies had been picked apart as if a vulture had feasted on them for dinner.

Moments later, I found out my thoughts were correct about the picked apart bodies as we came upon several vultures ripping apart a corpse in the road. However, these vultures were not the avian kind—they were the A. Phagy kind, the formerly human kind, clawing and gnashing at the bloodied remains in the road.

As we drove by the herd of vultures, several of them looked up and reached towards the car while some could not be taken away from their meal.

As they reached their bloody hands in our direction I noticed that the tips of their fingers were torn apart with no evidence of finger nails and little of flesh. The bloody and bony stumps wiggled in our direction as Peter tried not to look at the vultures and slightly pressed on the gas a little harder.