The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave (24 page)

CHAPTER 42

T
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HAT’S
L
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ESIGNED

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aura stopped at the end of the driveway. She watched as the zombies crowded around her husband. Caught up in grief, she didn’t notice the zombie staggering toward the back of the van. He hurled himself headfirst at the back passenger window, cracking it into a glittering spider web of glass.

It was a hideous creature. Freshly turned, it would have looked like a normal thirty-five-year-old man if not for the baseball-sized hematoma in its cheek and a bite wound so deep that it revealed the clavicle. No blood issued from the ravaged muscle.

It threw itself again at the van, catching the same window, scattering the glass, and then scrambled to get past the tightly packed provisions. Emily whimpered with fear as the living corpse scratched at the supplies, digging to reach her. Its hands couldn’t find purchase. It reversed itself out of the van and prepared to attack in a different spot.

Laura got out of the car and taunted the zombie. Maddy was hysterical. “Mom! What are you doing?!”

The walking corpse pivoted to lunge at Laura’s body, it’s head down as if to tackle her Maddy was certain her mom would be knocked to the ground and fall victim to the flesh-hungry creature.To Maddy’s astonishment, she saw her mom’s right hand streak to the side of the zombie’s head. It halted with an abrupt jerk, sank, and vanished from view.

Slowly, Laura lifted her right hand. In it she gripped a long butcher’s knife she had secreted under her seat. Mucous and blood dripped from the blade to the street. She got back into the car and glared at her oldest daughter.

“Shouldn’t poke Mama Bear,” she said angrily, her cheeks wet with tears.

Laura realized the van would soon be overwhelmed with walking corpses. She considered waiting anyway, determined to keep her husband alive and her family together. Scott’s ear-splitting command for her to leave reached them through the raised window.

Maddy began screaming. “No! Daddy! Daddy!”

Laura kept her promise to save the girls. She whipped the van left, slammed the transmission into gear and gunned the engine, gathering as much speed as the van could muster when loaded with people and gear. A handful of zombies slammed their shoulders into the van as it sped off. Laura’s eyes were so watery she could barely see. It mattered very little. There were no cars to avoid hitting and it was desirable to take out as many “people” as possible.

Zombies packed the street near the entrance to the neighborhood, and Laura decided to take the long way out, threading through the streets, surveying the aftermath, hoping for a miracle. Her husband might get away. The detour was a last-ditch effort to save her husband if he had escaped, no matter how infinitesimally small the possibility.

It amazed her to see how few zombies there were in the rest of the neighborhood, concluding the bulk of them must be at her house trying to feed on Scott. The ones that remained behind dotted the yards and streets. Some sat in a stupor next to partially consumed corpses, their mouths and appendages bloody. Spasms of emotion flitted from guilt, to sorrow, to revulsion, then winked out, their expressions wiped etch-a-sketch clean.

Laura drove past house after house with broken windows and splintered doors. She saw a few lawns with Christmas decorations. They had been trampled and smashed. If a house appeared miraculously untouched, she slowed and leaned on the horn. Its sound attracted little attention from zombies sitting in their dazed state. No other souls made themselves known. The neighborhood appeared to be devoid of the living.

She held her breath as she rounded the corner near her home. Bodies were strewn across her yard. The hook of Scott’s crowbar was embedded in a zombie’s skull. Near the base of her neighbor’s fence, she saw a large pool of blood. She couldn’t remember if it had been there before or not. She broke down when she saw Scott’s jacket lying in her front yard. Her stomach heaved and she fell out of the van just in time to empty its contents on the hot asphalt. Zombies were coming for her. She couldn’t pause to collect herself before driving away.

It was just a cute thing that Laura started during their engagement, which over time had evolved into a special communication they shared whenever they were in a place that made it impossible to talk. Using a finger, they tapped out a five beat rhythm gently on the other’s hand to silently say “I-love-you-al-ways.”

Laura pressed the horn five times as she pulled away from her home for the very last time.

CHAPTER 43

U
TTERLY
F
OUND

F
rom the top of the garage, Scott spotted his silver van coming down the nearby street. Laura drove slowly between houses, accelerating whenever she attracted a corpse's attention. His stoicism evaporated with the prospect of reuniting with his family.

He shouted and waved wildly, knowing that while he could see Laura, the reverse wasn’t true for her. He was hard to spot in the mosaic of the neighborhood.

When he saw Laura climb out of the car, he shouted to her, “I’m here, Laura! I’m here!”

He thought she might have a good chance of hearing him in the absence of any other human-made sound. But she couldn’t hear past the sound of her retching. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and climbed into her seat.

He continued yelling for her, even as she pulled away from the curb. Her five-beat goodbye took the life out of him. He couldn’t breathe.

His mind raced through options for getting a vehicle in time to catch up with them. The overturned motorcycle popped into his mind. It would be perfect.

Scott slid to the edge of the roof and lowered himself to the ground, then ran between the parallel fences, this time bypassing the hoarder’s house. He made his way to the house closest to the bike. From behind the building, he crouched low to the ground and spied it. The street was relatively clear. He waited a few minutes longer, eager to get on his way but at the same time hesitant to make a fatal mistake.

When he stood up to make his sprint to the bike, he heard a girl’s voice pleading weakly from above. “Uncle Scott. Please, help me.”

Katie stood at a second-floor window of Bill's house, pounding on the glass. She looked frightened, glancing frequently behind her. Blood painted her head and neck.

Scott wrestled with his feelings. It was probably too late for Katie, a lost cause. He’d just seen his family and had a narrow window of time to get to them. If he missed it, he might never see them again in this life.

However, he couldn’t abandon a child, no matter how hopeless the situation. Besides, Katie wasn’t just any child; she was Tom’s daughter and the lone survivor of her family, and Chase had sacrificed himself for her, then used his final moments of life to save Scott’s wife and girls.

He could no more desert her than he could Emily. Scott would protect Katie and comfort her as well as he could for the rest of her life, even if that was only a very short time.

Scott stole to the back door. He peeked in carefully. A menagerie of gory hollow men were milling at the base of the stairs. A few were climbing to the second floor.

He abandoned his idea to get to her from inside the house. Scott ran to the backyard shed, hoping for a ladder. He found one too short for the second story. Time had more than run out. He would have to make do.

He hefted it up and extended it to its maximum height. The spring loaded latches clacked against the rungs as it slid toward the window. Knowing the sound was like ringing the dinner bell for the neighborhood’s new inhabitants, he scaled the ladder and stood precariously on the top rung.

Katie tugged at the window unsuccessfully. It had been nailed shut. Over the girl’s birdlike shoulder, Scott saw the zombies breaking down the door. He didn’t hesitate, smashing his elbow repeatedly into the glass. Blood streamed from the resulting cuts, wounds he didn’t notice in the moment.

Scott yanked her out of the room just as the first of the living dead tumbled inside. He did a fireman’s carry down the ladder. Upon reaching the bottom, he kicked it over. The hollow men flopped out of the second story window in clumsy pursuit, shattering leg bones when they slammed into the earth.

He kept Katie over his shoulder as he ran. In her hands, she clutched the lightly stuffed pillow case she had taken from her home. It tapped the back of his legs with every step.

Katie was in awful shape. She was feverish, swaying in and out of wakefulness. She was in no state to speak. Dry rivulets of crusted blood from her injured ear covered her neck. Scott couldn’t inspect the wound underneath her matted hair. He couldn’t determine whether or not she had been bitten.

He made his way to the nearby tree house—a small but sturdy platform with dramatically bowed walls constructed from poorly fitted quarter-inch particleboard. It had no roof. There was a child-sized bench made of weathered two-by-fours nailed to the floor: barely enough room for both of them. Still, it kept them out of reach of the searching dead and would give Scott a place to stabilize Katie and to make a plan for their escape from the neighborhood. Scott wasn’t sure when he’d catch up to his family. They’d need some supplies in the meantime: clothing, blankets, first aid and food.

Mentally, he made a house by house inventory, winnowing the list of possibilities to a few best bets to find the things they needed. He settled on the nearby house of Joe Furnari. Joe was a widower who took his RV out for long stretches during the summer. When the weather had warmed again after Halloween, he’d welcomed the chance and got back on the road again just a week ago. Scott would either discover a cache of everything he needed or find the house bare.

Katie held the pillowcase tightly in her hand. She snuggled her face into it, the smells of her parents’ things comforting her even in the depths of her fever.

Scott wondered what to do with her while he searched Joe’s house. He feared her waking up in a delirious state and falling out of the tree. He also considered the possibility that he might return to a flesh-hungry creature excited to have her food deliver himself to her.

He tore up his sweat-soaked shirt and secured her to the small bench. After all she had suffered, it felt to Scott like he was further torturing her. He hated himself for doing it.

Scott broke into Joe’s house and the smell of stale air assaulted his nostrils. Second, the loud electronic horn of the alarm system blared, summoning every undead creature in the neighborhood.

For Katie’s sake and for his own, he checked the medicine cabinet first. His shoulder pain was almost paralyzing him. The cupboard was empty, with the exception of some old Gillette razors. He detached a crusty bar of soap from the sink and went to the kitchen.

Garbage sacks would serve as his temporary bug-out bag if he couldn’t find anything else. He raided the pantry for canned and boxed food, retrieving only enough for three or four days. He found 2 liter bottles of warm Coke. He took a quick drink as he rifled through cabinets and drawers: a pan, Teflon spoon, kitchen knife.

He hit the jackpot in one of the kitchen cupboards. Ibuprofen, antihistamines, Immodium AD. He scooped up the half-full prescription bottles: sedatives, painkillers, muscle relaxants and antibiotics. He hadn’t known Joe was an amateur pharmacist.

Far in the back, he found two bottles of methylphenidate—Ritalin.
Dr. Feelgood.
He hesitated, having put drug use far in his past. But his energy reserves were all burned up, and given the situation, he added a couple of the small white pills to the Advil he had in his palm and swallowed them all with another gulp of warm Coke. His drug cocktail would soon kick in.

In the garage, he found an old Buick. The grill hung askew, the rear side panels were rusted through. By that time, a force of zombies had reached the house. Their hands drummed on the aluminum door. Scott’s experience getting the minivan out of the garage discouraged him from risking an attempt with that old heap.

Under the Buick’s driver’s seat, Scott hit pay dirt again when he discovered a holstered, old-school Smith & Wesson revolver. He held the gun by its factory wood grip and checked—fully loaded.

Despite an abundance of gear in the car, he needed to travel light and so limited himself to a few essentials. Matches. Flashlight. Multitool. Rubbing alcohol. Rope. Deep-Woods Off. First-aid kit that included Mylar blankets.

In the bedroom he gathered some clothes. Joe was approximately the same height but rotund. Scott took some baggy T-shirts, donning one as he strode to the bathroom where he relieved himself and snagged three rolls of toilet paper. In the linen closet, he discovered a baseball bat and a large olive green U.S. military-issued field pack. Though the pack had seen better days, it was more than serviceable.

Returning to the kitchen, Scott dumped the two-liter bottles of Coke into the sink with deep regret. He replaced the Coke with water. Thinking of Katie’s fever, he collected a gel pack he found in the freezer and stuffed everything into the canvas bag. He’d made out like a bandit.

Hollow men were banging on the doors and windows. They would soon be in the house. Scott was sick of being in people's backyards. Sick of being on the run. He wanted some payback.

Scott grabbed a twenty-pound propane tank from the garage and two gallons of gas. He dropped the propane tank from a second story window. He had always wanted to see what happened when one ignited. Today was the day he would find out.

He shouted to attract a cluster of shuffling dead. They clawed at the siding, futilely reaching for the window. Their prey was out of reach, and he showered them with petroleum. They caught it in their gaping mouths, reminding Scott of kids trying to catch raindrops.

He lit a match and tossed it into them. Even though they erupted in flames, they didn’t react in any way. He knew in less than two minutes the flaming zombie torches would burn out, leaving a gap in the ranks that would soon be replenished.