Z Children (Book 2): The Surge (27 page)

The
weak barrier satisfied me and I pulled the pack off of my back. My shoulders
protested; the place where the straps had been were sore. I didn’t think the
weight had been that heavy, but my body disagreed. I was pathetic—as feeble as
the chair, drying rack, and sofa I’d banked my survival on.

Pulling
out the protein bar and single bottle of water from the pack, I ate and drank too
quickly. Another last minute piece of wisdom from Dad out the window.
‘Only
eat and drink when you really need it, Susan. You don’t have much in that pack
to sustain you.You could get pinned down somewhere and need to make it last.
It’ll be worse if you don’t find water. Please take that bottle at least—’

I’d
cut him off with a glare then. I had found water. I hadn’t needed to take that
lonely bottle with me from the boat. Of course, finding water early on was just
luck and a prayer.

“Sorry,
Dad. Guess one morning of training wasn’t quite enough,” I grumbled the words
over the final bite of bar and swallow of water. I should have taken at least
one more bottle from the flat I’d found at the dock. My kids could have spared
just one more…

I was
already thirsty again.
Shit.

Moonlight
was shining into the store now; the rays dancing across the floor were
mesmeric. Watching them caused my eyelids to feel heavy. I hadn’t done much
since leaving the boat. Carried a pack of water, walked some streets, a few
minutes of running and moving furniture, but stress is exhausting.

I just
needed to nap. Not deep sleep, nothing substantial. Only a quick rest so I’d be
ready to go back to the church. Back to hope and survivors and those bells that
hadn’t sounded once since I’d run from the Z adult.

I woke
with the sun. The Victorian couch had been comfortable, if a little short. I’d
never slept well on my sides, always a back sleeper, but I couldn’t stand
having my feet dangling over an edge. Maybe it was an old childhood phobia—monsters
under the bed and that sort of thing. Of course now, there were truly things to
fear, in broad daylight and darkness.

As I
got up, my bladder protested. The bottle of water before bed was back.
Realizing that there were no other doors inside the shop except for the one I’d
fully blocked, I wondered if that, in fact, was the restroom. A place like this
had to have one; you couldn’t serve wine and expect patrons to not need a pee
break. Once the seal was broken, it was broken.

Crap.
I groaned as the need to pee reached a painful level.

Straining—which
did not help the ‘need to pee’ situation—I shoved first the couch, then the
drying rack, then the chair out of the way. Reaching towards the gun, I paused,
and the pause was followed by panic. The Colt wasn’t where it should be. My
gaze bolted to the front door. It was still closed, still locked. The windows
were all unbroken. No one had come in at night. No one could have taken it.

You’re
a complete moron, m
y mental voice chided. It was on the floor near the
where the sofa had been. I’d taken it out in the middle of the night because it
had been so uncomfortable when I’d rolled from side to side. I got the gun and
returned to the door.
I’m coming in, hands up.
My mental voice was
snarkier and tougher than I’d ever be.

Swinging
the door open like some rookie cop, I stepped inside. A bathroom, brought to
life by the sunlight filtering past my body. It was clean and unmarred by the
ugliness outside.

It is
hard to describe how good it felt to sit on a toilet that fit my butt and
wasn’t rocking back and forth with the tide. I sat a little too long after
peeing, just to help me remember the feel of a proper porcelain throne. It’s
truly funny how the little things in life are what you miss the most once you’re
brutally yanked from your routine and the loveliness of common, convenient
things.

My
bliss lasted until the stench of my own body wafted to my nostrils.
Oh, Miss
Susan, you are not going to get a man smelling like that.
“You don’t smell
too peachy yourself.” I was beginning to think it was a bad sign that I was
interacting with the little voice inside my head. The sooner I was back at the
boat, the better—for my sanity.

I
stood up and pulled my pants back into place. Out of habit, I depressed the
flush lever. To my disbelief, I heard the sound of rushing water. I didn’t
expect facilities to still be working. I felt a wave of anxiety as I watched
the gallons of water move across the somewhat yellow interior of the toilet. So
much water. Undrinkable, unpotable, poo water. There was nothing I could do
with it and it was pointless to lament what ‘might be’ if I could purify it.

Leaving
the bathroom, I looked forlornly at the couch. I could sleep longer. Put this
off.

Again
I was being the wuss at the dock.

Maybe
if the bells were ringing again they’d motivate me. Instead, I had to rely on
self-motivation. That usually wouldn’t be an issue for me. But this was not my
usual circumstance so I was (most definitely) not my normal self.

I
peered out the windows for a long time before I started unlocking the front
door. There was stillness outside, no movement anywhere I could see. Even
though I was grateful that there was only one Z so far, I knew that had to be
wrong. There were more of them here, I just hadn’t seen them for some reason
yet.

Walking
out into the sunlight, I tried to become the survivor my Dad had drilled into
my head yesterday. I wasn’t her, though, I was just a single mom on a mission
trying not to die. Simple enough.

Go.
Don’t die. Get some stuff and things. Stuff. Things. Don’t die.

That’ll
be my new life motto if I make it out of this
, I laughed—inappropriate
given my surroundings—a little too loudly,
“I’m the girl you can count on to
go, not die, and get you some stuff and things.” I should start a business.
Maybe even some of the monsters will want some stuff and things. Yes, I accept
all types of clients—alive, dead, undead, diminutive creatures who want me to
visit the local blood bank. No problem!
I almost laughed again, but I
clamped a hand around my mouth.

I
didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me. It was like the stress was eating
away at my common sense, corroding it like nature’s elements bombarding copper.
I was going green around the gills. I needed help. I needed the people in the
church.

There
seemed to be more bodies on the street today; or maybe it was a decent sleep on
a stationary sofa giving me clarity; or maybe it was because the carrion birds
had not yet settled for breakfast and obscured the scene.

It
wasn’t just victims on the ground. There were Z kids and the adults also, a
large hole in the foreheads of every one. New Orleans had fought back. And won?
That would make sense, why the streets were so quiet, why I’d only seen one
adult zombie so far. Hope sprung anew in my belly, which was rumbling and
aching for breakfast.

A
glint of pink caught my eye as I started walking away from the arts and crafts
store. I’m not sure why I was drawn to it, but I was. Stepping carefully over
bodies, I made my way to the flash of color that seemed so out of place amongst
the dark clothing and dried blood—some obsidian, some dark brown.

It was
a shoe.

A
small shoe the color of a rose-hued begonia, one of my favorite flowers. It was
nearly buried now, the foot and leg it was attached to down against the road
and mostly obscured by a woman’s much thicker leg. I shouldn’t have seen it
from the storefront. It was too low to the ground, there were too many larger
objects in my sightline.

I
couldn’t take my eyes off of the shoe, as if my brain knew what was going to
happen because there was only one obvious answer. The shoe had moved. It had
risen high enough for me to catch a glimpse of it. And that would mean that the
foot and leg it was attached to had also moved.

Because
this Z kid didn’t have a see-through window in its forehead.

“Shit,”
I exclaimed, rushing backwards and nearly falling over a body behind me. The
leg had twitched again and the woman’s body that was atop the rest of the Z
kid’s body had jumped a quarter-inch into the air. It was trying to get free.

I
couldn’t immediately run this time. There was too much on the ground to step
over, too many things that could trip me up. Once I was free of the street,
though, my shoes pounded against the sidewalk with desperate purpose.

The
church was in view in minutes.

Standing
at the top of the small flight of stone steps in front of the doors to the
church that belonged to a bygone era of craftsmanship, I took a deep breath.
Several deep breaths. The silence was back, filling my ears with a vacuum that
affected my brain in hallucination-inducing ways.

Turning
around, I scanned the street one more time. No Z adult this morning, no
pink-shoed Z kid clambering after me.
Hope. Keep hoping. Through these doors
is the end of all this. No more struggle.

A bead
of sweat rolled a track down my chest as I stood a while longer in the early
morning rays. The heat felt good against the receding cool of the night. It
would never be properly fall or winter this far south; but you could still get
chilled in the months past summer and into spring. I thought of my neighbor Mr.
Roseburn and his obsession with leaves. He was dead now. No one would rake his
leaves. They’d rot against the grass all winter.

I made
a mental pact then, that if we ever got home again, I’d take care of his lawn.
Every single leaf that fell, in his memory. In the memory of the world before.

Both
my hands lifted at the same time, bringing me back into reality like my body
was pushing me forward against the unwillingness of my wayward thoughts. My
palms came to rest against the cool wood of the double doors. Hesitating, I
took another settling breath. Then the bells started and the sound of a piano
and violin joined them and I felt like I’d die of excitement and good feelings.

I
pushed with enthusiasm, with fervor. There were no knobs. These were the outer
doors, likely leading to a large foyer where I’d be met with another set of
doors. Another frustrating barrier to keep me away from hope and a future for Sophia
and Marcel.

The
piano music faltered, turned novice, fingers plunking against keys.

It
was all going to be okay.

The
violin music ended with a crash. Wood against wood.

This
was the end. We didn’t have to run away, rely on Dad’s boat.

The
chimes died then burst again to life.

I’ve
found help! We’ll go home again!

The
optimism I’d been feeling shattered inside of me as the gap between the two
outer doors widened. There was indeed a second set of doors leading to the
sanctuary, but they were already open.

The
scene on the inside was a carnie house of mirrors meets bloody Cirque du Solei.

The bright
morning sun streamed through the multitude of stained glass casting psychedelic
patterns across the pews and onto the pulpit where the preacher once stood. The
preacher wasn’t there anymore. Instead there was what was left of a wedding
party.

The
bride stood center stage, her arms hung limply in the air as she stumbled about
in a stunted, pitiful waltz without a partner. She was surrounded by groomsmen
and bridesmaids, as if by some autonomous reflex they had all returned to their
assigned positions after the chaos.

And chaos
was the only word that could describe the scene.

The
dead were everywhere, dressed in their finest attire, torn limb from limb, and
left to die where they fell. A woman in a once-lovely dress carried a violin
like a child, its neck held to its body only by mercy of the still-attached
strings. Another Z adult was bent over the piano, her head thudding against the
keys. Had she been the one playing before? It had been a song in those first moments
of playing as I’d held my fingers against the wood. Had she remembered for an instant
how to place her fingers, how to play the notes? And then forgotten. Awareness.
Memory.

Trapped
in rotting bodies.

I’d
always thought Alzheimer’s would be the worst thing that could happen to me—to
have an able body and an unable mind, yet this was infinitely worse. To be
trapped in a body that was decomposing, that was failing you, that could not
function. To be dead, but still remember life.

Then
there were the
children
.

This
was why I had only seen the few dead Z kids. They were
all here.

The
bell ringers—a boy and girl duo clad in their finest suit and dress were
swinging from the long ropes connected to the tower bells—had summoned them all
to this one place, had sounded the chimes so that all within hearing distance
would know where to gather to enjoy the festivities. I saw them scampering in
the shadows, poking at the adults with acolyte candle snuffers and wrapping
religious table runners around the Z adult’s ankles so that they’d lose their
balance and fall. A dozen or so of the small demons even seemed to be sleeping
in the pews.

Did
they sleep?

My
mouth was hanging open; I could feel my tongue drying out. I needed to swallow,
but I couldn’t work up enough saliva.

They
hadn’t noticed me yet. Where I stood in the church was still somewhat shadowed.
I was afraid to move, to attract the attention of kids or adults. I remained
perfectly still, unable to look away from the ghoulishness of it all.

I
stayed in one place for long enough that the light began to angle, creeping
across the darkness protecting me. If I didn’t move, I’d be fully lit—standing
out like a prostitute in a nunnery. There’s no way I’d live through this. There
were too many. It would take more than a quick loader, decent reload time, and
a single gun.