As Josh surveyed their faces, he could tell they had all been there, seen the horrors this new world brought. Some hid it better than others. Like the Jesus-Woman, who seemed to act as if all were well, as long as they had the Lord in their hearts. There was no sadness in her eyes, only hope.
Ranger Steve was practically shitting himself. Josh figured one loud sound and he’d need a new pair of underwear.
“Your mother’s right, Emily,” Josh said. “You’re going to be okay. My friend Ben outside—he has a car, and there’s room for all of you—”
“You think we’re leaving this place?” Ranger Steve asked. “You’re outta your mind if you think we’re leaving this place.”
Josh glanced at him, his eyes narrowing.
“Steve’s right,” Victoria agreed. “I mean, we have food and water here. Enough to get us through the week. By that time, this whole thing’ll blow over and help will come. It doesn’t make any sense to leave.”
Josh frowned. “Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don’t think this thing is going to blow over.”
“What do you mean?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah,” Jesus-Lady chimed in. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“What I mean is…” Josh began to say, then noticed Emily peeking at him, her head still resting against her mother’s stomach. “I think this thing might last a little longer than that.”
“So what do you suggest we do? Go out there?” Jesus-Lady snootily inquired. “Uh-uh, no way. I’m keeping my fanny right here. Couldn’t pay me to go out there with those… demons. The devil is out there, sonny-boy, and I plan to stay here with God. Yessir.”
“Okay, well that’s fine and dandy,” Josh told her. “But what’s going to happen when you run out of food and water? Or worse, what’s going to happen when those so-called ‘demons’ of yours find this place?” He could see his questions bothered Emily, but he didn’t care. Jesus-Lady was being intentionally stubborn and she needed to face the facts. “What’s going to happen then?”
“Someone will come for us. The police. The government. Somebody,” Victoria told him.
“Suppose they don’t.”
“God will provide for us. All we have to do is pray,” Jesus-Lady announced. She closed her eyes, humming a spiritual tune quietly.
“Jesus.”
“Hey!” she snapped. “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, mister!”
Josh waved her off, turning his back. He wondered how exactly to convince these people that it was only a matter of time before the swarm found them.
Ben watched one of them stumble out from the brink of the forest. It was a brownie scout, a little thing, no older than seven. She was walking with an uncoordinated limp, like she had broken her foot.
With the exception of dried blood caked around her mouth, she didn’t look very dead. Yes, Ben noticed the lifelessness in her eyes, but other than that—she appeared perfectly normal, unlike some of the other zombies he had seen on Densberry Avenue.
It’s because she’s fresh. It made physiological sense that the bodies of newly converted zombies were in better shape than those who had been dead for quite some time. Like Mrs. Yoland, who had probably been dead for close to a week, was badly decayed and reeked like something Ben never had the displeasure of smelling before. Just thinking about the awful stench was enough to make him gag.
He thought back to the old woman on the side of the road, and how unmotivated she was. Maybe the older they are, the less energy they have. It made good sense to him. Some of the zombies in the suburbs could flat out run. He supposed fresh corpses could do that. Maybe they hold onto something from their past lives, like their physical attributes. Sooner or later, though, their bodies would decompose, and left to rot. This made Ben think that if he survived long enough, maybe every walking corpse would rot away and become maggot-infested clumps of decayed flesh. But how long would that take? A year? Two? Five? Ten? He had no idea.
Ben watched in awe as the little girl slowly staggered across the dirt parking lot. She was twenty feet from him, her putrid scent wafting through the air, cutting away the freshness. Ben kept himself hidden behind the car. He doubted the zombies had any sense of smell, that their ways of locating their quarry were restricted to sight and sound only. She walked past the car without glancing in his direction.
Ben’s heart rattled in his chest.
As the little girl limped on, Ben heard something rustling behind him. He turned and watched another girl scout, slightly older than the first, emerge from the trees and foliage. Then another. Then a park ranger stumbled out of the dense shrubbery. His face was covered in blood. There was a gaping hole in his stomach where his intestines dangled like strings of pink sausage. They appeared recently gnawed on. The ranger’s left arm was missing, detached at the shoulder.
One by one, zombies came forth from the forest. Snarling. Hungry.
“So how’d you break your arm?” Victoria asked. She handed Josh a bottle of water.
“A friend hit me with his car,” he replied.
“Some friend.”
“We weren’t really friends at the time. It was more of an accident—it’s actually a really long story, and I’d love to tell it to you, but I really must insist that we get the hell out of here.”
“You’re not going to give up, are you?” Jesus-Lady asked. “Can’t you accept that the Lord Jesus is going to come down from Heaven and collect us into his loving arms?” The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked Josh up and down. “Oh, I get it. The devil’s got a hold of you.” She paused, expecting Josh to argue. “Doesn’t he?”
“Maybe that’s enough, Ruth,” Victoria told her.
“I’m not listening to this crazy bullshit anymore,” Josh said. “If you want to stay, lady, then fucking stay. I don’t care. As for the rest of you, I suggest you come with me. Before whatever happened down at the lake happens here.” He glanced at Ranger Steve, glaring at him apathetically.
Ranger Steve kept his mouth shut, staring down at the floor.
“We’ll go,” Victoria said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Vicky,” Ranger Steve snapped, immediately whipping his head toward her. “You weren’t out there when we were attacked. You don’t know what it’s like—”
“We don’t know anything,” she told him. “Josh is right. We can’t be certain that someone is coming for us. Usually in situations like this the government sets up survival camps, right?” She looked to Josh for verification, as if he were an expert on apocalyptic protocol.
Josh shrugged. “I don’t how things are going down out there. All I know is—if you stay here, it’s a deathtrap. You can’t hold them off forever. There’s too many of them.”
“That’s exactly why we stay here,” Ranger Steve said. “They overran us.”
“Sooner or later they’ll get in.”
“We’ll see.”
Something crashed into the sliding-glass door, causing them to jump. Victoria screamed. Emily gripped her mother tight, wrapping her arms around her waist. Ruth backed away from the direction of the sudden outburst, signaling the Stations of the Cross. Ranger Steve pointed the shotgun toward the unexpected commotion.
The noise repeated.
Josh faced the enormous sliding-glass door that practically made up the entire back wall. Beyond the glass was a massive porch, stained the same color as the rest of the recreation center’s exterior. On the porch, stood a little girl, clad in her scout’s uniform.