Dying Days (12 page)

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Darlene tried to justify her actions: he was using her, the library was too cold with the hole, the fire would eventually draw unwanted attention, she was better on her own, and she saw no future with Pierce. “Future? That’s really funny,” she whispered.
       It had stopped snowing sometime in the early morning hours. With Pierce wrapped up in at least four covers, his back to the smoldering fire and snoring softly, she’d risen and gathered her meager belongings. She pondered taking half the food, roughly twenty cans, but decided against it.
       Filling her pockets with three cans of food and one of the can openers, she sneaked outside into the parking lot.
       A lone zombie was struggling through a snowdrift across the street but it hadn’t seen her. She waited in the still, cold air as the sun tried to break free from the clouds.
       “Which way to go?” she whispered.
       She could head north towards Maine and hope someone – anyone – she’d known was still alive. She wondered if south was a better move; get out of this cold weather. As much as she’d complained about bad weather reports on the news, having a report was better than looking out the window and figuring it out on her own.
       As she stood there freezing, she decided south was the better choice. Darlene advanced through the snow.

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Gray plumes of smoke mixed with the gently falling snow, creating a fog-bank effect. Darlene couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of her. Twice, she’d stumbled into a zombie buried in the snow. Her left boot had a gash in it from one biter and her socks and feet were soaked. She prayed frostbite wouldn’t be a problem.

When she got closer to the actual fire, she had to laugh. The movie theatre where she’d first met Pierce was ablaze, the diner before it already gutted and smoldering.

She heard snow crunching behind her and turned to see three zombies, all formerly women, moving slowly towards her. One twisted an ankle and went down, disappearing for a brief moment in the snow before her dirty claws reemerged and she tried in vain to pull herself up in the soft snow.

It was easy to sidestep them and go back the way she’d come because the route south was blocked. Darlene was almost as slow as the undead, and that scared her. She would tire in this mess, while they could keep on stumbling along and eventually pounce on her.

Another noise to her left made her realize that while she’d been moving south, a group of zombies had been tailing her. Now they were spread out in the street before her, some caught in the snowdrifts.

“Fuck,” she whispered. Leaving like this had been ridiculous and suicidal. For what? Because of an expression Pierce had used? Really? Had he done anything to make her think that he was going to abandon her? Anything at all?

“Stupid bitch,” she murmured to herself as she moved as quickly as she could. She’d grown up in Maine and knew how to traverse the snow well enough, but she’d never done it while being chased by zombies who wanted to rape her.

Three long blocks later she had put some distance between her and her attackers but she was winded. She glanced back to see at least twenty of them following slowly and silently, the plodding of so many feet in the snow unnerving.

“Pierce!” she yelled when she got in view of the library. He was on the roof, shoveling. She tried to run and wave at the same time.

He glanced down at her but didn’t respond.

“Help! I need the gate opened, I can’t climb it.”

Pierce didn’t say a word, just stood above her with the shovel.

Darlene pointed at the gate.

She could hear them behind her, inching closer.

“Hello?” she waved up at him. “A little help would be nice.”
Don’t panic, don’t fucking panic.

“I thought you were leaving,” he finally said.

“Who said that?”

“I said it. I watched you get dressed, steal food, and slip out.” Pierce waved the shovel in front of him. “You’d better keep moving before they fuck you.”

“You sonofabitch! Open this fucking gate!”

Pierce stooped and scooped some snow from the roof, depositing it on Darlene below. “Nope.”

She felt something cold touch her face and swung around without looking, connecting with a dead face. Darlene staggered to the locked gate and willed her body to respond as she tried to climb.

A zombie grabbed her ankle but she managed to kick it away, getting farther up the chain-link fence. She was halfway to the top and feeling confident that if she could just slip over the top, she’d be free. She’d deal with Pierce later – thinking about her Desert Eagle if she had to use it – but right now, she needed to simply survive.

The sudden pain in her ankle was brutal. Darlene looked down to see a tall, thin male zombie sinking his rancid teeth into her flesh right through her boot.

I’m bit, I’m fucking bit… after all that I’ve been through, killing my dad, getting raped by those militia jerk-offs, almost dying from a hundred other zombies and the living alike, to have it end here, hanging from a fence…

Darlene pulled the Desert Eagle and fired a single shot into its head, satisfied that it would never bite someone again. Despite the throbbing from the bite, she managed to get the rest of the way over the fence and dropped down into a snow bank. Inches away, at least twenty zombies slammed against the fence, hands and arms reaching for her.

She packed the bite – already red and black and bubbling – with snow.

Her shot had alerted another score of undead to her position.

“Pierce? Open the door.”

He actually did open the door a crack on the other side of the parking lot, peeking out. “You were bit.”

“It was just a scratch. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“I swear. Help me in, I think I busted my ankle.”

“You were bit, you lying bitch. I saw it.” Pierce started to close the door.

“Wait! Why are you doing this?”

“Go to Hell, zombie.”

“Asshole.” Darlene crawled behind a car in the parking lot to escape the prying eyes of the undead and so she could have her last meal of cold corn and soup, waiting for the poison to course through her veins and turn her into one of them.

She hoped she had the strength to get the door open and see Pierce one last time.

Chapter Twelve

Frozen Blood

Somehow she’d managed to crawl under the car and fallen asleep. She dreamed of fire, zombies and gunshots.

Her eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the unnatural light. It was nighttime and freezing cold, but the car above her was aflame. Several bodies were alight near her, casting much-welcomed heat. Darlene pulled out her trusted Desert Eagle and scampered from beneath the car, careful to keep from being burned.

Legs stiff from disuse and from the bone-chilling cold, she stood on wobbly legs and searched the parking lot. At least a dozen bodies littered the surrounding area, three cars and several bodies ablaze.

She glanced up to the roof of the library and saw that her makeshift fire buckets had been used, spilling debris, flammables and oil down to the ground, where they’d caught fire.

The fence to the parking lot had been ripped apart as well as the back door to the library. Darlene didn’t know which way to go. There were no zombies on the streets but that could change at any moment.

Inside were likely more zombies, either attacking Pierce or already turning him. “Food and blankets are also inside,” she whispered. Despite her lying about her ankle being broken, it still hurt where she’d been bit. She needed to wash it soon. She fought back the thoughts of why she wasn’t undead yet.

If she left now – and she thought that north was the only way passable to her – she would need supplies.

“Inside it is,” she whispered. It had stopped snowing but the sky was a pillow of soft white and she knew it would begin again.

The doorway was a black mouth, a stark contrast to the piles of white surrounding it. Darlene didn’t see movement as she approached.

She wondered if Pierce was alive. Even though he’d left her for dead, refusing to open the gate or the door and save her from the zombie horde at her back, she still had to admit that the short time they’d spent together had been good. The sex had been more than good, she mused. Being with another person had been wonderful, able to talk and laugh and help one another. “If I hadn’t tried to run out on him, would things be different?” She didn’t know.

Her instinct had been Pierce was going to leave her, so she decided to go first instead of waking to find him gone. All that had done was bring back the undead to the library and destroy it, get her bitten and probably infected – although, when was this evil change supposed to take effect? – and get Pierce killed as well. Her plan to head south to safety had blown up in her face.
Monumental failure.

Swallowing her fear she stepped over the threshold and moved slowly down the hallway. The main room of the library, despite having a gaping hole in the ceiling where the weight of the snow had opened it, was warmer than outside. Not much, but enough to know the difference.

Six bodies, ripped apart by bullets, were tossed across the floor. Darlene looked to the spiraling staircases but didn’t see anyone on the landing. None of the bodies were Pierce. He had to be upstairs.

Her ankle wasn’t broken but it hurt like Hell as she ascended the steps. There was frozen blood on the steps and pieces of flesh. None of it was Pierce, as far as she knew.

She peeked around the corner as soon as she got to the landing. Three undead stood in front of the door to the room that she’d occupied with Pierce up until she’d left. They weren’t slamming against the door, weren’t scratching or trying to break it down. Instead, they stared with unseeing eyes.

Her machete still at her side, she decided to use it instead of her pistol in such close quarters. Regardless of whether Pierce was alive or not, she needed to get in there and gather the supplies.

The first zombie took two chops to sever its neck before the others had even turned. Darlene stepped back and was glad the other two collided with one another in their haste to get at her. She swung and connected with an upraised arm.

Taking steps back to the landing, making sure nothing was climbing behind her, she whipped the machete around and it dug into the neck of a zombie. She almost panicked when it stuck, but instead of freaking out she kicked the thing in the stomach and dislodged her weapon.

In no time she’d finished the pair off, kicking them into the corner of the landing as far from the stairs as she could.

She went to the door and listened. Was that Pierce breathing?

“Pierce,” she finally asked. She pulled the Desert Eagle.

At first she heard nothing but just as she reared back to kick the door open she heard his thin voice, but couldn’t understand what he was saying.

Darlene kicked it open the door, shattering it as it slammed against the wall. The room was just as she’d left it so many hours ago: food and supplies piled in one corner, their bedrolls, pillows and blankets heaped under the shuttered window, and clothes stacked on the far wall.

What was different was the amount of blood that coated everything. At quick glance she noted at least seven bodies in various states around the room, limbs, fingers, and heads everywhere.

Pierce, his stomach a jumbled mess of spilling blood and guts, was leaning against the supplies. His breath came in short, frozen gasps. His eyes lit up when he saw Darlene.

Darlene was impressed with the fight Pierce had put up in this room. “You’re hurt,” she finally said to him.

“Just a flesh wound,” he whispered and laughed, a trace of blood flecking the corner of his mouth. “I need a stiff drink and some bandages. I’ll live.”

“You’ve been bit.”

“So have you.” He glanced at her ankle. “Why are you still able to talk?”

“Just a flesh wound,” she said.

Pierce closed his eyes, his chest heaving.

She could see he’d been bit multiple times, the black poison coating his veins and slowly working through his bloodstream. Both legs and arms were gray, his neck a dark smudge of blacks and blues.

“Help me,” he whispered. “I need a bandage.”

Darlene decided that she needed to head north as soon as possible. She’d gather as much as she could carry, eat whatever food she couldn’t, and set the library ablaze. Hopefully it would attract any zombies in the area.