Savannah's Only Zombie (Book 2): A New Darkness (3 page)

I wished Johnny would have offered me one of his
guns, a pistol at least, but the only thing I had for a weapon was the steel
pipe I kept on the truck. It was about a foot and a half long, with a ninety-degree
elbow on the end. I kept it on the truck, just in case I ever got into any
trouble and needed some physical reinforcement.

The boy saw me and began to shamble in my
direction. Zombie children are not really something you see a lot of in zombie
video games or movies. And I understand why now.

They’re hard to look at.

His gait was uneven as he hobbled over to me,
his little jaw clamping open and shut. He held up his arms, fingers curled,
reaching for me. I knew what I had to do; I just didn’t want to.

I swung the pipe, the steel elbow connecting
with the boy’s temple. His skull quickly shattered and his body fell limp onto
the ground in front of me, thick, red blood oozing from the gaping wound in his
head. I stood there in silence for a moment, not sure what to do with myself.
The boy was in between the ages of my niece and nephew. My desire to get home
grew exponentially.

I would pull into the Savannah area later that
night. My wife’s sister and her family lived outside of Savannah in Port
Wentworth. It took some time avoiding the city, but I finally made it to their
house around ten. The place was a mess when I got there. A pile of bodies in
the living room, the front door broken in, everything missing from the cabinets,
and a trail of blood leading away from the pantry to outside. At first, I was
really worried, but quickly relaxed a little. All the food was missing. It took
me a minute to realize that meant they were alive. Scavengers wouldn’t have
taken everything. Pots, pans, and all the other cooking utensils were gone too.
No, my family made it out alive.

I was still concerned with all the blood though.
Obviously, the bodies in the living room were zombies who had broken in the
front door. As I pulled them back outside, I took note of the bullet holes in
each one’s forehead. No doubt, my brother-in-law’s doing. The last one I went
to pull out didn’t have a bullet wound in the head, no, its face was smashed in
completely.

I spent some time securing the front and back
doors as best as I could, before I walked around and inspected the house. Like
I said, the kitchen was empty. I guess they didn’t think I’d want a snack. Luckily,
I still had one MRE left. After finishing that off, I went to check the rest of
the house. The master bedroom was a mess, but to be honest, that was somewhat
normal. I walked into the adjoining bathroom.”

Josh pauses for a second before continuing his
story.

“There was a note written to me on the mirror.
It was written by my wife informing me that they were gone to the cabin. The
cabin is an old farmhouse that we restored out past Statesboro. It’s our little
vacation spot. I had feeling they would be there, but knew I should check
Savannah first before heading out west, just in case they didn’t make it out.
But seeing her handwriting on the mirror was just further evidence that they
had escaped.

She also left me the combination to the gun safe
as well. I was relieved that although they didn’t leave me anything to eat,
they had at least thought to leave me a weapon. Upon opening the safe, I found
out that wasn’t entirely the case.

Sitting inside the safe was a single six-shot,
snub-nosed revolver. And one bullet. One. A note written on a post-it, in my
brother-in-law’s handwriting, read, ‘just in case.’

Just in case? It took me a second to understand
what it meant. It was a way out. Not that I would use it now, but if I ever got
trapped and the only way out was to become a walking corpse, this would give me
an alternative. It made me smile, because they knew that I would make it to
them alive. They knew there was no way I would let it come to that. And they
were right.

I slept like a baby that night.

I woke up the next morning ready to get to my
family. As I passed my niece and nephew’s bedrooms upstairs, I stopped and
remembered the two of them and how much they meant to me and my wife. We loved
those kids like our own. CJ was thirteen now and just growing into this awesome
guy. He was huge for his age, as tall as me and his father, maybe even taller.
The boy was solid too. He had played football since me and his aunt started
dating.

But the kid had character too. He was light
years ahead of his friends in maturity. He was respectful and a hard worker.
While most kids his age were playing video games, he was restoring a Chevrolet
Chevelle with his father so he would have a car when he was sixteen. Crazy,
right? You know what I was doing at thirteen? Trying to figure out how to catch
all the Pokémon!”

Everyone laughed, except for Lexx, who mouthed
to Tori, ‘What’s a Pokémon?’

“Hailey,” Josh continued. “Hailey was just as
much fun. She was eight going on nine and talked nonstop. She had grown into
that age where everything she thought, was also broadcasted to the world. It
could grow old real quick, but I would have given anything then to hear her
little voice.

As I took one final look at her room, before
passing on, I noticed that all her stuffed animals were still sitting on her
bed. I guess Chris didn’t let her take any, to save room in the vehicles for
important things. I walked into her room and grabbed the green frog I had seen
her with numerous times. I smiled and went downstairs.

After retrieving the revolver from the gun safe,
I had left it there the night before; I made my way to the back door. The blood
leading out from the pantry began to worry me. Why would there have been a
bloody something in the pantry? It was empty now, so whatever it was, was long
gone. I shook it off and readied myself for what could be waiting for me
outside.

I opened the back door and there were three
zombies in between me and the truck. Two of them I didn’t recognize, but one I
did. It was Susan Powers, whom the kids lovingly called, “Ms. P.” She was
missing chunks of flesh from her right arm and neck. She was wearing a
half-open bathrobe and pink house slippers. Her eyes were the same dead black
just like all the others, any trace of who the woman was before long gone. The
three of them smelled me and fumbled their way up the steep driveway.

I clutched the steel pipe tightly as I ran
towards them. I swung the pipe connecting with the first one’s forehead, a mist
of red spraying me in the face. I pulled the elbow out of its skull and swung
again, bringing the pipe across the second one’s face. It too caved in, leaving
me and Ms. P.

She wasn’t the least bit concerned with her
fallen friends’ demises, but continued her small uncoordinated steps towards
me. No remorse, no concern except to feed. I put her down quickly as well.

More dead were coming into the neighborhood, so
I made haste to get into the truck and leave. I pulled out of there quick, as
the mass of undead inhabitants poured in. I wasn’t sure if they smelled my
fresh meat, or maybe it was the sound of the truck, but they were coming from
all over.

I came around a curve on my way out and hit the
brakes.”

He pauses again, tears welling up in the corners
of his eyes.

“I stopped and… and there she was. She was
standing there in the middle of the road, almost as if she was blocking me in.
It didn’t take long for me to notice who the short, little, blonde haired, once
blue eyed girl was who stood out in front of me. Except her eyes were no longer
the vivid blue, but black as starless night. Near her ankle were the remains of
dried blood. In the hand of her slack left arm a pink teddy bear was still
grasped.

It was my niece.

I remember getting out of the still running
truck and walking up to her. She let out a small moan as I neared; my hands
trembling. I had left the pipe on the seat of the truck. What was I to do? The
fact that she was standing there in front of me, dead, well, all the hope I had
of finding my family alive vanished. Her one free arm reached out for her uncle
and it took everything in me not to reach out and pull her in and whisper that
everything was going to be okay.

I pulled the revolver from the back of my pants,
and put my niece to rest.

***

Josh stopped for a moment; his eyes tightly
closed. They finally opened and he stood up and smiled.

“I was sitting in the truck after that when your
voice came on the radio. You sounded so scared and like you had no way out. I’m
not sure why, but I knew I had to help you.”

“And we are so glad you did,” Tori said.

He nodded.

“We should get some sleep,” he added. “We have a
long day ahead of us tomorrow. No idea how blocked the roads will be.”

The group all agreed and the four of them stood
up, stretched, and went upstairs to the bedrooms after Lexx put out the fire in
the fireplace. Josh and Jeremy took the children’s bedroom, each getting their
own twin-sized mattress, while Lexx and Tori shared the master bedroom’s queen.

As Jeremy lay in the bed, staring up in the
ceiling, his mind wandered in thought. He felt sorry for Josh and the loss of
his niece. He knew what it was like to lose someone close. His mother had at
least lived a full life. An eight-year-old girl on the other hand, that was a hard
thing to accept.

He did his best to push the thoughts from his
head and it was not long before he drifted off to sleep.

***

As the four of them slept, the last whiffs of
smoke pirouetted up out of the chimney, out into the now cool night’s air. The
scent of the burned wood was carried by the wind to and fro, crossing the path
of anything that had the sense of smell, drawing it to the quiet house where
Jeremy gave in to exhaustion.

Sunlight shone through the semi-closed
blinds, hitting Tori in the face. She slowly opened her eyes, one by one. For a
second, she had to remember where she was. Lexx lying next to her in the bed
helped her relax. They were safe. She smiled as she watched him sleep. His
mouth hung open as he lightly snored. She giggled to herself and closed his
mouth.

Tori gently got out of the bed. Dressed
in a t-shirt and panties “borrowed” from the dresser, she moseyed over to the
window. The sunlight was pouring into the room. Maybe she would close the
blinds and crawl back into the bed with Lexx. She couldn’t hear Jeremy or Josh
stirring around in the house. Maybe she would wake Lexx up in a more unorthodox
manner.

She stopped when she got to the window.

“Shit.”

She turned and ran back to the bed,
shaking Lexx awake.

“Get up!” She whispered through her
teeth. “C’mon you big doof!”

“Huh? Wha?” Said the man as he came
violently out of a deep sleep. “What? What’s going on?”

“Hurry and get dressed! We’ve got company
outside! A lot of company!”

This registered with the man and he
sprung from the bed, completely naked. He bent over and began pulling up the
also “borrowed” jeans, as he stumbled towards the window.

“Fuck! That’s a lot of zombies!” He said.

Tori didn’t answer as she finished
getting her tennis shoes on.

“I’ll go wake the guys, hurry up and meet
me downstairs,” she said.

Lexx nodded. Tori ran out into the
hallway, towards the other end where Jeremy and Josh were sleeping. She burst
through the door, not worrying if the men were both dressed.

“Rise and shine kids! Time to go to
school!” She yelled before turning around and running towards the stairs.

Both Jeremy and Josh shot out of their
beds and began to fumble with getting their clothes on. Once Josh had his shoes
on, he took a peek out their window and nodded.

“C’mon man, let’s go.”

Jeremy nodded and they ran towards the
stairs, meeting Lexx at the top of the step.

“Mornin’ boys,” Lexx said with a grin.

“Mornin’,” Josh replied.

“You smell like sex,” Jeremy said.

“Smells a little different than your
hand, huh?” Lexx shot back.

“Touché, Lexx, touché.”

“Guys! The zombies?” Tori yelled from the
bottom of the stairs, her hand placed on her cocked-out hip.

The four of them quickly gathered what
they could into the “borrowed” bags they had. Food, batteries, matches,
anything they could find. Once they were ready to go, they stopped to plan
their escape.

“So, get to the truck sound good?” Josh
said.

“Works for me,” Tori answered.

Lexx and Jeremy also nodded in
affirmation. The four of them grabbed their weapons from the kitchen counter.
Josh had his steel pipe, Jeremy a machete from the garage, Lexx a meat cleaver
from the kitchen, and Tori the .22 rifle found upstairs, with her pistol tucked
in the back of her skinny jeans. The men decided she would be the best one to
hold the gun, seeing that she probably spent more time on the gun range than
the three of them combined.

Once in the garage, they quietly made
their way to the side door. Josh and Jeremy would take the front; Josh getting
the truck running and ready to go. Lexx and Tori would provide cover from the
rear. That was the plan. The plan was good.

Well, it would have been. As soon as
Jeremy opened the door, they heard the screams from the approaching runners.

“C’mon let’s go,” Jeremy yelled.

They ran towards the driveway, Josh
bringing the bent end of the pipe down onto a z’s head. He yanked it back,
brain matter flying from the opening in the skull.

“Ew. Dat’s nasty,” he said with a grimace.

He swung the pipe again and took out
another zombie. There were twenty wandering corpses between them and the truck.
Jeremy cut the head off one, sending the still snapping jaws to the ground. He
turned to slash at another, but the head jerked back, and the body fell to the
ground. A small, round hole had appeared right above its left eye. Jeremy
looked back to Tori, who gave him a thumbs up, and fired off another shot.

Lexx hung back next to his trigger-happy
companion. If anything came near her, he would take it out. A zombie wandered
around from the back of the house, so he might get to try out that clever
sooner rather than later. He looked back to the other guys and saw Josh and
Jeremy running back towards the house.

What the hell?
He thought, as the two men stopped back
by the side door to the garage. The backyard zombie was still a few yards away.

“What are you doing?” Tori asked.

“Runners! Lots of ‘em! We gotta get back
in the house!” Jeremy answered.

She turned to look at Lexx, who motioned
with one finger for her to wait, turned, planted the meat clever in backyard
zombie’s head, and turned back around to them.

“C’mon, let’s get inside,” he said.

They quickly ran back inside, Lexx
locking the deadbolt on the side door.

“Did they see you?” He asked.

Before Jeremy or Josh could answer, there
was a slam against the door. Lexx looked towards the door and grimaced.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.

“Yeah, they saw us,” Josh said.

Lexx motioned for them to leave the
garage and go back into the house. Again, he dead bolted the door. Once back in
the kitchen, they all looked at each other, waiting for someone to say it.

“Plan B?” Lexx finally said.

“Yeah, Plan B,” answered Josh.

And with that, it was off to work.

***

Plan B was a simple plan. The night
before they talked about what would happen if they so happen to be surrounded
by the living dead. Plan A was also a simple plan. Josh was fond of keeping
plans simple, and since the escape from the construction vehicle factory in
Pooler, everyone else was fond of keeping the plans simple too.

Plan A was this: Run to the truck. Mostly
everything was packed, except for the food and weapons in the kitchen. They had
already raided the house for spare clothes, found the only gun, and stashed it
all in the kitchen. If they were surrounded, they would exit through the
kitchen, to the garage, and then proceed to the truck. At that point, they
would drive away. Simple.

But if there was one thing that past few
days had taught them, it was this: Sometimes things do not go according to
plan. So, a Plan B was conceived. There were talks of a Plan C, but everyone
knew that if Plan B failed, Plan C was simply “Get the Fuck Out” or Plan GTFO,
for short.

Plan B though, Plan B was pretty solid.
Plan B was this: In case they were surrounded and unable to reach the truck, or
if runners joined in the festivities, they would run back into the house,
ransack the liquor cabinet in the dining room, pour alcohol all over the bottom
floor of the house, then light aforementioned alcohol. At this point, they
would run upstairs to the children’s bedroom, go through the window to the
roof, jump from the roof to the back of the well-placed truck, and drive away.

Slightly more complex than Plan A, but
still pretty simple. Extremely simple when compared to Plan C. Josh summed it
up in three, easy to remember steps: Pour, Burn, and Jump, or PB&J, as he
liked to call it.

***

Thick, black smoke was billowing out from
the house.

“ARE YOU GONNA JUMP OR WHAT?” Tori
yelled, as the dead gathered around the burning house.

Some would get too close to the flames,
catching themselves on fire, and spreading it to their friends like, well, like
wildfire.

“Okay! I’m ready!”

And with that, Josh jumped down from the
roof and hit the flat bed of the stake-body truck. Zombies began to shake the
metal gates that fenced him in. He looked back up to the group and gave Tori
the thumbs up. She nodded and began picking off the zombies on the driver’s
side. Once clear, he jumped over the side gates and down to the ground, not
stopping until he reached the driver side door.

***

Screams came from inside the house. The
runners had continued their assault on the garage door, while the four humans
began the bonfire inside. They eventually breached the house and were greeted
by the searing flames of an alcohol-induced blaze. Several of them were
consumed by the fire, but others were able to make it upstairs, despite being
severely charred, and slipping into “grey mode,” or their slower counterparts,
as they tended to do as they decayed. The first of them reached the bedroom,
bolting for the window, and screaming through their burned, dry vocal cords.
They reached the roof only to find it empty and the truck below driving away. A
large man on the back end of the truck was holding up his middle fingers.

The still smoldering runners screeched at
this and dove off the roof in pursuit. In their weakened condition, they only
succeeded in breaking several bones, rendering them unable to move, and spreading
the small, flickering flames from their bodies to their dead friends outside.