Love in the Time of Zombies (8 page)

Spotting some camo shirts and pants, she pulled them on over the lacy bra and panties; the only clothing Martin let her wear. She grabbed a cap and pulled in on over her shorn head. All the boots were many sizes too big, so she tiptoed past Gomez and slowly slid the door open and stepped outside.

She took a deep breath. Free! She glanced at the burning hospital lighting up the twilight and turned in the opposite direction, melting into the deepening gloom.

Everything I am as a man;

I learned from my mother.

Everything I am as a person;

I learned from my mother.

Everything I am,

I am because of my mother.

—
Seth Ripley

Night fell as Seth came over the rise of the road just before the hospital. Death, destruction, and fire greeted him. He slammed on the brakes and turned off the truck with a hard twist of the keys. What had started out as a few hours, maybe half a day drive to Concord, had become a nightmare of two days on the road.

The drive to the Antioch riverfront had taken longer than expected, but not because of danger, just lots of disabled cars filled the streets. Every path stopped him dead in his tracks, forced to back up and find another way. One detour led to another, until he wished for the good old days of GPS. He would have even welcomed the robotic female voice telling him ‘Recalculating.’ He’d been forced to use landmarks and the sun’s position to find his way north to the river.

Once he faced the San Joaquin River, he scanned the area and spotted nothing. He radioed in to Canida and let him know he was moving on to the hospital. What should have taken a few hours dragged on as he used the push bar on his truck to clear wreck after wreck. The metal-scraping sound settled a pounding in his head. Uncountable numbers of undead flooded the road as well. He’d seen nothing at the river, but the freeway was packed. They all seemed to be marching west toward Concord. Good news for the Streets of Brentwood group, but not for the hospital and those few souls left in Concord.

Night had fallen and forced him to sleep on the road in his truck. With the number of shambling undead, he climbed on top of the trailer and stretched out to sleep. He lay back on the warm metal and watched the stars in a clear sky. No light pollution, no pollution period. The sky had probably not been this clear since before the Gold Rush. The Milky Way streamed across the sky. He could pick out Perseus, Cassiopeia, and Pegasus no problem at all.

Years ago, in rural Woodland, Uncle John had taken him and his cousins out to a pasture with a telescope to point out the planets and constellations. He sighed. Were Uncle John, Aunt Jen, and the cousins, Ben and Becky even still alive? He closed his eyes to the rhythmic moaning and shuffling on the road below.
Go away. Just go away.

The next day had been more of the same, until long past dark he’d reached the hospital. All the hallmarks of a devastating battle shone in the weak moonlight. Dead bodies littered the road as far as he could see. Part of the hospital had collapsed into a pile of rubble, and fires flickered in the shattered windows. Like a news broadcast from the war-torn countries of Iraq or Afghanistan.

His heart beat against his ribcage. The doctors and nurses had had no way to move the patients. Some couldn’t be moved at all. He lowered his head and uttered a prayer. “Please let my mother have gone in her sleep. Let her soul be at rest.”

He crossed himself and jumped down from the truck.

Nothing moved as he ran to the building. Still, he didn’t yell. His throat was dry. He probably couldn’t yell, even if he’d tried. The doors were blasted off their hinges, on the ground or barely hanging on with scraps of twisted metal. His steps crunched in the eerie silence as he walked over broken glass.

The bodies of men and children filled the corridor. Bullet holes in the foreheads told the story. This hadn’t been a zombie horde, or at least not just the horde, as he spotted burnt bodies among the other dead.

Farther down the hallway, he saw older women and invalid patients shot in their wheelchairs and on their gurneys. Bile rose in his throat. He refused to release it and further foul the dead. Swallowing hard, he moved onward. Silent prayers clouded his head.

He examined every female body, but none was his mother. He found a stairway and started up. Carla’s room had been on the second floor. No dead or undead littered the upstairs floor. The smoke was heavier up here, as if a fire still raged in the building, although he spotted no flames or heard any crackling sounds.

When he reached her room, he stopped at the door, his hand resting on the handle.
Did he really need to see her? Did he need to see if fire or the undead had taken her?

Taking a dead breath and holding it, he pushed the door open. It stopped after a couple of inches. He looked down and wished he hadn’t. Charred flesh covered a leg. He assumed it was attached to a body, since the door was stuck.

“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. Leaning his shoulder against the door, he pushed until the body gave way. He fell into the room. His mind fought to comprehend what his eyes saw. A group of the undead surrounded his mother’s bed. The unmistakable sound of them feeding was the last straw. His stomach rebelled and he lost its contents all over the floor.

Like hyenas spotting a fresh meal, they all looked up at once. Blood and gore dripped from their mouths as they started shambling his way. Their moans raised the hair on his neck.

A quick glance across the room showed a man—or what was left of one on the bed. He caught his breath and gagged on the rancid stench. His gaze shot right and left, trying to spot anything to use against them. They were moving in too close for him to reach his gun.

He lunged for the IV stand and used its metal feet to push the group away. They stumbled and fell over each other. Seth ripped the stand apart, throwing the bottom half against the wall. Grabbing the top, he turned it around and used it as a sword. He plunged it into the eye socket of an older man, and pulled it out in time to stab a young woman in the throat.

Both went down with a wet thud, and stayed down.

A hand grabbed his foot. The body on the floor moved. He pulled his gun and shot the thing.

He whipped around at a scraping noise on the floor. The abomination coming toward him shouldn’t exist. The burned flesh had fallen off most of its body. In places, he could see through the creature to the other side of the room. He said a prayer and shot it in the head. It hit the floor with a sound like falling pins in a bowling alley.

Shuddering, he looked up as the last one reached him.

He looked into hazel-colored eyes that matched his own, except covered with a milky film.

His heart stopped.

“Mama,” he cried, his voice breaking like a teenager’s.

The gun shook in his hand as he placed the barrel against her forehead. His finger trembled on the trigger. His vision blurred with tears raining down his face. A thousand priceless memories ripped through his mind in a split-second. Of this woman holding him, kissing his skinned knees, and being there every moment of his life.

The moment of inattention cost him. Bloody hands grabbed the gun and the hand holding it. Teeth sunk deep into his flesh. A scream echoed in the room. It took a second to realize it was his own.

“Why?” he yelled, pulling his hand back and flinging her body across the room. He cradled his arm and bleeding hand as his mother’s body connected with the wall. The sound of her neck breaking reached him as he slid down the door and plopped to the floor at the same time she did.

“Mama,” he cried like when he was a child and had a nightmare. Only his mother couldn’t chase the monster away; she was the monster. Or maybe he was the monster and there was no escaping himself and what he’d done.

He raised the gun to his face.
It would be so easy to end it now. Do it. No more of this shit. Just check out.

The gun chattered against his teeth as he placed the barrel in his mouth. It tasted of metal and oil and death. His thumb pressed on the trigger. He pressed harder. A moan sounded from the bed.

He ripped the gun from his mouth, scraping his teeth in the process. Marching over to the bed, he put the gun up against the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger. He put the gun back in the holster on his belt.

“One death in the family is enough for today.”

With care, he squatted down and scooped his mother into his arms. She weighed nothing. Her illness and coma had stolen the solid shape of the woman he remembered from childhood. He left the room behind and moved down a deserted hallway to the stairs. He whispered the Twenty-third Psalm as he took the stairs one at a time.

By the time he reached the ground floor, the sweat was dripping off him in buckets. His mother’s weight had increased a hundredfold and still it wasn’t as heavy as his heart. His whispering stopped as he pushed open the door to the outside.

“…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

His knees refused to hold him any longer. He fell to the ground, his mother slipping from his slick, wet arms. He tried to open his eyes. His hand throbbed with every heartbeat. The scent of blood filled his nostrils and cramped his belly. It smelled so good.

A shadow passed between the moonlight and his eyelids. He squinted. A young soldier stood over him.

“Mr. Ripley?”

He prayed it didn’t hurt to die.

He prayed that Heaven wasn’t a lie.

He prayed the young man did it right and he didn’t come back.

Miranda Stevens stood over a man she was sure was Seth Ripley, the truck driver. She’d had a crush on him, just like every woman, young or old, when he’d deliver supplies to the compound. She stared at the woman he’d dropped. Hazel eyes staring straight ahead, she may be a relative. The woman seemed old enough to be his mother, with gray in her hair and wrinkles around her mouth.

His mumblings drew her attention back to him, something about making it quick and painless. She spotted his bitten hand and drew in a gasp. Her shoulders slumped. He was as good as dead.

She tried to turn away but he grabbed her ankle. Tugging did nothing; the man had a vise grip on her.

“Let me go,” she gritted out.

His eyes opened. “Please.”

She sighed as he passed out and his hand dropped from her ankle. She should leave now and try to find others. Some people may have escaped the hospital. Not everyone had to be as evil as Martin Peters. Or the monsters at the compound, who’d followed Peters’ lead and treated women like whores and toys to discard when they were done with them.

Just go. He’s going to die anyway. And then rise up. Better to be far gone when that happens.

She couldn’t. It was that ‘please.’ Her memories of his nice treatment of everyone when he’d come to the compound and brightened everyone’s day. Sometimes, he came with footballs for the boys and toys for the little ones. Occasionally, he’d bring a doll or two for the little girls. Not necessities, but treasures of what was gone, that he’d risked his life to find and bring to them. He’d done it with no thought of gain, just because it was his nature to be kind.

Looking around, she spotted a wheelbarrow. Probably used to haul the sandbags they’d needed for the useless barricades. She pulled it over and after a lot of huffing and puffing and moaning and groaning, on both their parts, she got Seth into the thing.

She pulled his gun out of the holster and laid it on his chest for easy access. Turning to what was surely his mother, she debated with herself what to do. He’d obviously carried her outside for a reason. Most likely, to bury her with respect. She put her hands on her back and bent backward, groaning as it popped. She could get Seth somewhere safe, maybe, or bury his mother, but she wasn’t managing both on her own.

Miranda moved to the woman’s side. She straightened out the legs and moved her bent neck so it was where it belonged. Then, she moved sandbags until the woman was covered.

“Sorry, Seth. That’s the best I can do.”

The man’s mumblings were building in volume until Miranda stopped and crammed her cap into his mouth. The wheelbarrow gathered weight as they traveled, harder to push with each step. Her stops became more frequent as her sweaty hands slipped off the handles.

After what seemed like the hundredth time, she took a break and gazed around. Still no zombies in their area, although their moans echoed across the empty streets. She shivered. They had to get inside. Somewhere.

A glimmer shined in the corner of her eye. She turned and spotted an intact window, a surprise all its own. The word Pharmacy written across it was like a sign from above, if she still believed in all that crap.

She grabbed the gun off the man’s chest and pushed through the door. Taking a deep breath, she tasted dust and not much else.

“Hello,” she whispered. Nothing.

She spotted a stairway in the back. With the gun pointed in front of her, she made her way up the stairs to an apartment. Tapping on each door raised no sounds at all. Going into each room, she made sure it was empty and moved on, shutting doors behind her. No zombie was sneaking up on her.

Not believing her good luck, she spoke louder. “Anyone home?”

Still nothing.

Miranda rushed down the stairs to get Seth.

Seth started thrashing around in the wheelbarrow, threatening to overturn it. She grabbed a hold of the handles and held it still.

With limited options, she dumped the wheelbarrow over and Seth to the ground. He moaned slightly, the cap still in his mouth. Moving inches at a time, with her hands under his arms, she got the man through the door, across the floor, and to the stairs.