Allison breathed heavy. She’d let go of her iron, perhaps because it looked wedged in place.
That was one down, out. Three to go.
“Behind you,” I said, rolling the dead thing off me.
I got to my feet told Allison to duck, and swung my iron, full swing. The lug nut end slammed like a piston into the woman’s ear. The zombie cried out, shrieked. It backed up, backed away. Hands covered the ear. Blood poured, spewed from between fingers. I didn’t give it time to rebound.
“I can’t get mine out of his head,” Allison said. She grunted. I envisioned her foot on the back of its neck as she attempted to dislodge the weapon, as if she was Arthur retrieving her Excalibur.
I swung again. The woman, already badly injured, didn’t do anything except take it. In the temple. Bone shattered. Flattened. She went down. Hands no longer over her ear, but with arms straight out at her side. If that brain still pumped activity or energy through the body, I’d clunk myself in the fucking head next time.
Two down.
I spun around, expecting to have to help Allison. She chopped through the air with her iron. With a large arch that started at the spine of her back, up over her head and finished by smashing down onto the crown of the third zombie.
Stepping around my woman, I used the pointed end of my iron like a dagger. The man looked young. Early twenties. I saw nothing human in his facial expression. He didn’t come at me. He stayed by the car behind the Chrysler. Like he’d been watching it all. As if he’d just seen three of his friends pummeled to death, but didn’t have the balls to jump in and help. It was almost like if he wasn’t hungry, craving a bite out of me and Allison, that he might be tempted to turn and run.
I didn’t know how to handle that.
“Alley,” I said.
She stood next to me. “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“Kill it?”
“Let’s back away. See what it does.” I put my arm out. It didn’t do a thing to protect Allison. The gesture made me feel better. I’d used it hundreds of times when driving. Threw my arm out in front of Charlene—even Julie when we were married—whenever I had to stop faster than normal. Of course, they’d worn seat belts. Again, it wouldn’t do a thing to protect either one of them if we’d been involved in a collision. It was about the gesture.
I think.
We backed away, around the Chrysler. We were on Lyell Avenue.
The lack of people out might only be because it was so late. Still felt eerie.
“It’s not coming after us,” Allison said. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t like that answer. Did it imply more than it should? Was there still someone inside? Had Alley and I just murdered three people? “The others attacked. We were justified.”
“We were,” she said. There was no conviction in her tone. It sounded surer than when she told me she’d bash in a zombie’s brains if it meant saving my life, and she had.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For?”
“Saving me,” I said.
“You said you’d do the same for me. Now I’m holding you to it. I do not want to get eaten by one of these things. Got me?”
We still walked slowly backward away from the lone beast. It just stood where it was, watching us.
“You kill me first. Okay? Deal?”
I nodded. I felt the same way. I did not want to get eaten by a zombie. “You think if we get bit, and don’t die, we become one? Like in all the movies?”
“I don’t want to find out.”
I shook my head. “No. Me either.”
“What now?”
I lived at one end of Greece, my kids further west at the opposite end. “We need more than tire irons. We’re going to run into more of these things. Plenty more. Way everyone was pushing the vaccination shots; I don’t know many people that didn’t get them. I mean at work, we were like it.”
“I know.”
I didn’t know much about the Avian Flu. I knew it became really popular a while back, caused a lot of deaths. I knew the government started studying each year’s flu, and providing “cures” for expected strains to hit the hardest.
From what I remember, China was a player in the mess. Their government got caught messing with crops. Spreading the flu through chemicals sprayed onto farms. Crowd control at its finest. Natural Selection and all that.
“Tire irons are not going to cut it.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Let’s try to get to the mall.” A few stores in there, the sporting goods store, and the pawnshop alone should help us stock up on useful weapons. While guns sounded good, carrying around ammo, reloading and risking gun jams didn’t sound appealing. “I want a sword. Some knives. Follow me.”
Chapter Twelve
The mall was not close at all. From Lyell Avenue, and on foot, we had a heck of a hike ahead of us. It was dark. Things were out there. We heard them. All Allison and I were armed with were tire irons. Tire irons.
I checked my phone continually. My daughter, Charlene, had not called back. Without a signal, I was unable to call her. Naturally, my brain went wild with that. Imagining the worst possible scenarios filled my thoughts. I couldn’t stop picturing my ex-wife and her husband feasting on my children. It made my stomach flip-flop, churn and grind.
Allison stuck her iron through a belt loop. The L-head held it in place. I kept mine gripped in my hand. If more of those things appeared, jumped at us from out of the shadows, I didn’t want to struggle freeing the iron from the loop. Thought about sharing that tidbit of wisdom with Allison, but she looked content. Who was I to mess up her mood?
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I wasn’t big on cutting through yards, or wandering behind buildings though. Seemed the safest route would still involve following roads, staying to the shoulder, taking advantage of as much of the shadows as possible.
We had started north down Lee. Industrial area mostly, once we walked the bridge over the canal. Homes to the right were at least a mile away to the east.
“It’s so quiet now.”
Allison was right. It turned out to be a good street to walk. Not sure that was what she’d implied. Still, we hadn’t passed a single car on the road, which sucked. Would prefer driving. Walking took too long. If Julie and Donald were sick, and Charlene and Cash were in trouble, the longer it took me to get to their house . . . the more I worried about their safety.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“About?”
“What if we’re, like it? Like the last few survivors? You said it yourself. Everyone and their mother got that shot. They gave them to people at all the corner drug stores, even. And, you saw how it was tonight at work; whoever didn’t start turning into a zombie creature was getting attacked and eaten by their family and strangers.” Allison stopped walking.
“We need to keep walking,” I said.
“Chase, we are in some trouble here,” she said.
“We need to keep walking. I need to get to my kids.”
“I know that,” she said. She started to walk, short, slow steps. “We’re going to get them. We’re going to save them from your ex. But then what? That’s what I’m asking. Then what do we do?”
“We go to Mexico,” I said. I tried to sound confident. She seemed to need that. “We’ve talked about this.”
“No, I know. Mexico. But…look at our highways. The expressway looks like a parking lot. We can’t just keep going from one vehicle to the next blockage, and then get in another vehicle. . .”
“Why can’t we?”
“Why aren’t we now? Why are we walking? You know how far the mall is? I’m already tired. My feet hurt, and I’m already thirsty,” she said. “Do you see what I’m saying, Chase? The mall. We’re what? Like two miles from the mall? We’ve come like, what? Two miles already? Know the last time I walked four miles, Chase?”