LEFT ALIVE (Zombie series Box Set): Books 1-6 of the Post-apocalyptic zombie action and adventure series (10 page)

“I’m going to fuck you up,” the young man says, brushing his dark hair from his eyes. His eye sockets look bruised, or darkened at least. This man hasn’t been sleeping well. He might be alone, on the watch at night by himself.

He attacks first, swinging his crowbar upwards and making it easy for me to dodge. Sure, if that swing made contact with me, it would have broken my jaw or sent the knife flying from my hand if I’d attempted to block it. But I didn’t. I step aside, letting the crowbar swing upwards and reveal the perfect target, which I do not hesitate on taking. I push forward with all my strength, driving the thick, iron knife into the young man with both hands. The blade sinks into his abdomen with a sickening register and I feel the cloth of the man’s shirt against my thumbs and forefingers. A little less than a foot of blade penetrating this man’s stomach. I look into the young man’s eyes and watch as he realizes what’s just happened. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the crowbar drop with a heavy thud against the earth and I see a flicker of defiance in the man’s horrified eyes. He’s going to attempt to fight death.

I don’t give him the chance.

I twist the blade and release a guttural scream from the young man’s lips as I sink my weight into the process of pulling the blade upwards, shredding the young man’s intestines, stomach, liver, then I feel the resistance of the diaphragm, the popping crunch of hitting his ribs and pulling one free of the sternum until I’m in the man’s lungs. I look into his horrified, dying eyes as he takes a few, final, sharp breaths as we both feel his blood spilling out of the foot-long tear in his core. I can hear his intestines slipping out, a sound I never, ever wanted to hear in my life. The young man is handsome, I’ll give him that, but his cocky, angry face is now softening into a scared understanding of what’s to come. My hands are covered in his warm blood as I pull the knife free and push him backward. He topples over his buckling knees and falls to his back, groping for the massive tear in his body. He’s dead before the dust settles around him.

He did not die without a fight and I instantly drop to my knees in a pool of the man’s blood, feeling the unbridled pain rampaging through my back and ribs. I pray that nothing is broken. I can’t even imagine how I’m going to heal from broken ribs. Stopping now is unacceptable and I know after maybe a few days of resting, I’ll want to pick up and leave—compelled to do so. I know that will only end up hurting me more, so I tell myself to relax, let the pain wash over me for a moment. It’s just my body telling me that something’s happened and to take it easy.

I hear a click behind me and my head snaps to the side to see a woman standing in the black, gaping mouth of the cellar. I haven’t a slightest clue where she came from, how she got there, or what she even looked like. My eyes are glued to the captivating object in her hand, after all, it was pointed straight at me. She held the pistol as she shook violently, aiming it straight at my head.

“Jason!” the woman screams. All I see is the infinite black expanse of death down that barrel of the revolver that she’s holding. It’s a black hole for my attention, sucking all my thoughts down into its dark depths. I am about to die. It’s the only thing I can think of. Whoever Jason is, whoever this woman is, why they’re here, none of it makes a bit of a difference to the undeniable fact that I am about to die. I don’t think about Lexi or Val. I don’t think about Tiffany. I don’t even think about how this world has gone to hell and there was no hope really anyways. All I think about is that there is a gun pointed right at me and that I’m about to die.

Death is a strange and horrifying thing. It’s what inevitably comes for us all and I remember that once I thought I didn’t fear death, but then I got married, and then I had children. When you have something precious to lose, then death becomes far more horrifying. Sure, I bought life insurance and wrote up a will, but in the end, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live forever, or just long enough to see that my girls are safe. I want to run. I want to be like one of those superheroes who can move faster than a speeding bullet and I want to zoom out of here with the blink of an eye. I want to be standing anywhere but here. The woman’s hand is shaking. God, what if she takes off an ear, or only wounds me? What happens if she wounds me and I go running and slink back to the second farmhouse only to die of an infection and lead poisoning?

“Jason,” she screams again.

She holds the revolver with both hands, making a cautious, inching step toward the body of the man I’m assuming is Jason. I keep still, looking down that wavering barrel with cold certainty that this is the end. No more questions. She’s going to see that he’s dead and she’s going to kill me in a fit of vengeful rage. She takes another step toward the dead man. I wonder why he’d given her the revolver. Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to shoot me the moment I opened the cellar doors? Kill me and get rid of all the risk that fighting brought with it? Maybe he wanted her to keep it in case there were others and that might be their only gun. Probably is. Why else would she have it and he’d come out with just a crowbar? Maybe they expected more than just me. I don’t know.

She is standing over him now and I feel dunked into a pool of relief as she lowers the pistol and stares at the remains of Jason. I gutted him. I did what I had to and she is staring at the corpse with a blank, vacant gaze that tells me nothing. She is looking over his remains as if her eyes were bees buzzing back and forth. This is my chance, but I know I can’t risk it. If I risk it, she might point that gun at me again and squeeze the trigger. If she does, I’m close enough that she’ll most likely hit center mass if she even takes a second to aim. In that case, I’m dead and Jason will have one more friend in the afterlife.

“Oh God,” she whispers calmly.

I see her now, my eyes flicking from the pistol to the woman’s lips. They’re pink, a wonderful, full set of pink lips. To be honest, just from the shape of her pointed chin and her full lips, I know she’s beautiful. I dare to look at those soft cheekbones that lead up to her almond, wonderfully blue eyes and I realize it’s been so long since I’ve seen a beautiful woman. It’s stunning, like encountering the face of God in the darkness of night. Her blonde hair is flat and unruly, but obviously they’ve been living in enough comfort that she’s had the time to comb it, to keep it subdued as much as she can. She has not starved in the wake of the Panic. It is obvious that Jason has been the one who was cutting a little from his meals while she kept fed. I’m not meaning that she’s fat, it’s just that she’s lean. She’s not gaunt. She’s a woman of fitness, which makes me immediately survey her body with envious gratitude that if I’m to die, at least it’s at the hands of a beautiful woman that I get to appreciate before the end.

I’m loyal, always have been. In fact, I never really dated after Tiffany died. It always felt like adultery when I went on a date with another woman, but I had needs. I’m not above appreciating a woman who looks beautiful, and this woman was a goddess that I didn’t ever expect to encounter on the dead earth that I now walk. I expected—as cynical as this is—that all of them were raped and left for dead or in some sort of hellish slavery for what food they can get. But here she stood, beautiful in her short shorts and tube top, staring at the man who had been with her for who knows how long. She is in her early twenties maybe, too young for me to feel comfortable about the way she makes me feel, especially at gunpoint. I banish those thoughts from my mind and focus once more at the situation I’m now cemented in.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, clearing my throat as I notice that she has her first tear running down her perfect cheek in the scorching kiss of the sun. She doesn’t look away from the dead body on the ground. I feel a knot in my stomach. She’s not giving me any signs.

“Oh God,” her quivering voice causes my world to quake. “He’s dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I utter louder this time, but still hushed enough that I’m not sure she heard me. Beauty is a curse in this desolate world and the immediate impression of her beauty is wearing off on me. Bewitched for the moment, now I’m back to my senses. This woman is a threat. She has a gun and I killed someone important to her. “I’m sorry.”

“You killed him.” Another tear breaks the seal of her eyes and rolls down her left cheek, a diamond in the sunlight of her suffering. I don’t hold up my hands. I remain on my knees, looking at her with my scruffy, remorseless face.
No apologies
, I tell myself. I killed him because if I hadn’t, then I would be where he is now.

“I did,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

Okay, maybe I’ll apologize to her—but in the end, I regret nothing. Her shoulders shudder and she buckles forward, covering her face with her free hand as a sob ripples through her. I can hear her crying and I immediately look away in shame. Why is she doing this? Kill me and then cry. I don’t want to be here for this. She lowers her hand and blinks a few times, the twisted mask of sorrow on her face receding as she looks into the ether and then at me. She stares at me for a moment, strong, unyielding to her grief, but within an instant, it’s gone and she’s sobbing again.

“You killed him!” she cries in a heart-shattering wail of sorrow.

“Yes,” I say again.

“Why would you kill him?” She looks at me with her beautiful face ruined with grief. I feel for her.

“He attacked me,” I say cautiously, not wanting to turn her sorrow to rage. “He kept attacking me and I defended myself.”

“You were trying to break in,” she sobs.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think anyone was here,” I say again, slowly rising and holding my hands up. The knife is still on the ground where I left it. “I looked around for any signs that there were people living here and I don’t see any. I just came looking for a bottle to hold some water. When I went to search the cellar, your friend—“

“Jason,” she corrects my ignorance.

“Yes, Jason,” I nod and correct myself. “Well, Jason started hurting me with that crowbar and when I tried to get away, he refused to let me go. So we got in a fight and he didn’t survive. I’m sorry, but he didn’t give me a chance to explain myself. I didn’t want to kill him.”

“But you did,” she said, with tears running down her cheeks still. She looks at him with loving eyes and an expression of pure sorrow that makes me feel like I’m looking upon the face of a weeping cherub. “You killed him,” she says like a broken record.

“I know,” I say again. “Listen, I don’t want to hurt you and I’m alone, so there won’t be others coming for you. I’ll just turn around and leave. No one else needs to get hurt. I’ll just go my way and you can go your way.”

“Go where?” she wails, throwing up her arms, and I flinch as I see the gun move.
God, please don’t shoot me,
I want to scream. “What’s left of this damned place? What’s the point? Jason said we’d be okay, that we’d be safe and no one would think to look for us out here.” She looks at me as if she’s forgotten everything I’ve done. She looks at me as if I’m just a face in a bar that she’s talking to after a reasonably difficult day. She almost looks at me as if I’m a friend. It makes me feel sick. “This isn’t even our house.”

“Whose house is it?” I ask, trying to keep her talking. As long as she’s talking, she isn’t shooting me.

“My dad’s,” she says, wiping a tear from her eye as the hot wind picks up gently, tossing her golden hair freely. “Jason said he’d keep me safe, that we’d be fine. My parents were gone, though. I don’t know where they are.”

“Where did you guys come from?” I ask her, my hand shaking.

“Arizona,” she says quietly.

“I walked here from Lake Huron,” I tell her.

She looks at me with recognition. “That’s pretty far.” She breaks and starts crying again. If she didn’t have that damned gun, I’d reach out and hug her, she’s that sad and pitiful-looking standing next to her dead man.

“Yeah, I’m headed to Florida,” I say calmly, not sure why I’m telling her this. “I’ve got two daughters—a bit younger than you. I’m trying to get to them.” I hope that making her see me as a human makes her second guess anything that she’s thinking while she holds that pistol. She looks at me through red eyes.

“Jason drove the cars and tractor far away and walked back,” the girl says, trying to wipe her eyes again. “Or I’d let you have one, but I don’t have a car.”

“I don’t want your car,” I say. “I’m fine on my own. I’ll be just fine walking.”

“Florida sounds nice.” She looks at me with a soft smile on her lips. “I went to Miami for spring break a few times.”

“Yeah? They’re in Gainesville,” I say. “But it’s still nice.”

“I’ve been there.” She looks back at Jason and closes her eyes. “Go Gators.”

“Go Gators,” I nod. I take a step forward, hoping I might be sensing something. To be honest, it’s the loneliness that’s getting to me now. I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about companionship. Granted, the beauty of this woman makes me desire her presence even more, but just to have someone with me, someone to watch my back as we travel, it’s as precious to me as water has become. I know that she lost her Jason right now, and whatever capacity of a relationship that was, times have changed. Sorrow and grief have become things that are shoved deep down inside of us. We move on quicker. We have to. If we want to keep living, we have to keep moving. I’m afraid that if I leave her, she’s going to starve or wander into a city full of Zombies or cannibals. I don’t want her to die being eaten alive or raped and then served as barbecue. Maybe there’s a chance that she might come with me. Maybe if I can keep her alive, then she’ll one day understand why Jason had to die. I’m not saying forgive me, just understand. Besides, it was the least I could do to buy back my life from her hands. “Are you alone here?” I ask her. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she says. “Jason and I have been fine for a while now. We’ve been through a lot.”

“But will you be fine on your own?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

“I only ask because I feel like I might owe it to you to help you,” I say hopefully. “I have to get to Florida and I’d be willing to make sure you’re safe before going. Or if you don’t want to be alone, you can come with me as far as you like, until you find somewhere else to call home.”

I realize how stupid I sound and stop talking. She is quiet, looking at me with a vacant expression on her face as the tears keep rolling, an incessant tide. Her eyes are swirling with thought and for a moment, I feel like the odds might swing in my favor. Maybe she will help me. Maybe she will give me a shot at being my traveling companion.

“I hope you find your girls,” she says as she stands there in her white top and white shorts. I wonder now why she’s wearing white. I haven’t seen white in ages. I haven’t seen white since before I left the university. Bathed in the golden sunlight, she looks like an angel. My hopes wither the way the world has and I look down at the knife in the pool of Jason’s drying blood. “I’m sorry Jason tried to kill you.”

“No apologizing, I understand.” I take a step back.

She lifts the revolver and points it directly at me and my hands slowly rise to meet the threat. My heart begins to pound and I feel a calm sense of understanding in my mind. I knew that this was how it was going to end before I even whispered that I was sorry. Vengeance is a very real and powerful force and it keeps the world in balance.

“There’s nothing left,” she whispers before withdrawing the pistol and sticking the barrel in her mouth. Before I can say a word or comprehend that I’m not about to die, the pistol goes off. It is the sound of the world shattering. It is the explosion that ripples across the world that one of the last beautiful things in the world has died. The rose in the field of weeds has died and as I watch the gun fall from her hand and the beautiful woman fall flat on her back next to her Jason, I stare in utter disbelief at what I just witnessed.

“Oh Jesus,” I gasp as I stare at her body.

No thinking. No sorrow. No regrets. I reach down for my knife and quickly look around. The gunshot was so loud that suddenly I am filled with dread that someone might have heard it. I listen for a sound carried across the wasteland on the wind, but I hear nothing. I stand still, listening to the wind for little more than a minute before I rush over to the dead girl and pick up the revolver. I flip out the cylinder and look at the rounds.