“We’ve got to get off the road. Completely.” Josh ran toward the closest house. He tried the knob. “Locked.”
He was right. We needed to get into a house. Ride this wave out and hope the monsters just passed by. Best I could tell, there were forty, maybe fifty of them. They seemed different from the other zombies encountered. These appeared organized. Just the way they walked the street together gave off a sense of order, order I didn’t like seeing.
“Should we back track?” Dave was looking the way we’d come.
“Try those houses,” I said. “Be quiet about it.”
Dave took off, running up the porch steps of the house we’d just passed.
“That’s the retirement home across the street,” Allison said. I looked. “We don’t want to be anywhere near there. You know they all got the shot.”
I tried a smile. It felt awkward. It wasn’t for my benefit. “We’re going to find a house. We’ll get in--”
“Chase!”
I closed my eyes. Not sure what part of quiet confused Dave. Was it the whole word? The double syllables? I took Allison by the hand. “See, we’ll hole up in the house until they pass. Then we’ll be on the move again. Won’t be in there long at all.”
Josh was already running toward the house his brother had found. Allison and I fell in behind him. We stayed in the shadows as best as possible. The zombies coming our way were in the street, under the lights. Hopefully they didn’t have vision like cats.
Dave stood on the white porch. He held open the screen door to the house. He waved us in. It was the shit-ass stupid grin he wore that made me want to pop him in the mouth. Tried to remember the fact that he wasn’t right in the head. “Good job,” I said, instead of a knuckle sandwich. The guy beamed.
Once inside, we shut the door, engaged the locks.
“We need to clear the place,” Josh said.
“What?” Allison looked from Josh to me.
“He’s right. Before we go boarding up windows and locking doors. We have no idea who might be in here.”
With the little moonlight available or it was a street light, I don’t know--don’t care, I saw Dave’s fingers on the wall.
“Don’t touch the lights,” I said.
“But we can’t see anything,” he said.
“David, leave the lights off.”
I looked outside. The zombies were not walking as slow as I’d thought. They weren’t directly outside the house we’d hidden in, but they were close.
“I have this.” Allison pulled the flashlight out of her belt loop. “The batteries died, but if we can find some?”
And then the living room we were all in, went bright. Lit up.
Allison cursed, and fumbled with the flashlight. “They were dead,” she said, switching the light off. “They didn’t work before.”
“Shit,” I said. I had been looking out the window, fingers slightly parting thin drapes. “One of those things is . . . ah shit. They’re coming this way.”
“The zombies?”
“No, Dave. The pizza guy. I placed an order when I knew we were going to be here for a while,” I said. No idea if Dave grasped sarcasm. Didn’t seem to. Part of me thought he was dying to ask what toppings I got on the pie.
“He’s right,” Josh said. “We don’t have time to clear the place. We have to lock it down. Good.”
“This picture window is huge.”
“Everyone just be quiet. Shhh.” I said. “Josh, you and Dave go look for a back door. Stay there. If things go bad out here, and as long as it stays clear back there, we’re going to need a way out. Fast. And Josh?”
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“Stay low, away from windows. We can’t be making a lot of noise. Right now, I think the only thing we got on our side is the flimsy locks on the doors. They start breaking windows, we’re running for it. And Josh?”
“Huh?”
“Allison, give him your radio,” I said. “They make a lot of static, Josh. Only use it if you have to. And Josh?”
He cocked a hip and sighed at me. “Yeah?”
“Take Dave,” I said.
“I don’t like this,” Allison said when we were alone. “This seems worse than when we were in the security office.”
I didn’t have time to compare dire situations. The stairs that led upstairs were directly behind the front door. “Stand behind me. Watch the stairs.”
“Watch them for what?”
I put my shoulder against the door. “Don’t be stupid.”
I pressed my eye to the peephole. At least one of those things most definitely saw Allison turn on the flashlight. But not all of them. They were all off the street now. Forty, fifty of them. And they were on the lawn. They were walking right toward the front window.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Chapter Twenty
We were locked inside a house. We might not be alone. The zombies outside saw us in here. It was accidental, I know. Alley should have known better than to switch on the flashlight, even if she thought the batteries were dead. Now we were split up. Josh and Dave were somewhere in the back of this place, hopefully by an exit, keeping an eye out for creatures back there, while Allison and I had the front door blocked and were silently hopeful the things would lose interest and continue their trek south down Mt. Read. Too bad there wasn’t any traffic. Would love seeing the lot of them struck by vehicles.
This was not the time for day dreaming, or wishful thinking.
“Chase,” Allison whispered.
“Shhh.”
“Chase,” she said, again.
I turned away from the peephole. Turned away from scouting the area on the opposite side of the door. Turned away from watching most of the zombies move on, finding nothing but what must have appeared to them like a vacant house. “What?”
Allison had her arms held out in front of her. Holding the Y handle of her hedge clippers in a white-knuckle grip. “We’re not alone.”
It was a whisper. I heard her as if she’d yelled. I looked up the stairs. Hairs on my arm stood. A cold sweat broke out on my skin. A shudder passed down my spine. “Ah, shit,” I said.
It was like something out of a horror film. The old woman at the top of staircase stood still in a white nightie that reached to just above her ankles. Ruffles around the cuffs and neckline. Pale, decayed skin was the flesh that covered her skull and was her face. Her arms were at her side. She didn’t appear to have any fingers on one hand. Made me think if she was the only one in the house, she might have eaten the digits herself.
“We need to stay quiet,” I said. “Watch the door. Don’t make a sound.”
Allison and I swapped spots. I wanted her to keep an eye at the peephole. I had my back to her. I knew she was watching me and the woman at the top of the stairs, regardless. Suppose I would be too.
I held my shovel; the rounded end aimed at the woman, as if it were a spear, and walked up the first stair.
“What are you doing?” Allison had her hand on my shoulder.
“She has to go.”
“It’s her house.”
I ignored that stupid comment and took another step closer. The woman just stood there. She wasn’t swaying. She wasn’t moaning. Had she been glowing, I’d of sworn she was a ghost and not a zombie. And on a night like tonight, I’d have easily accepted a haunting. Easily.
“Watch the peep hole,” I said. My eyes never left the woman. There was no way to gauge her age. The peeling flesh on her cheeks and milky white eyeballs made it impossible. Only thing I had was the tuft of thin white hair rolled in curlers and held in place with a yellow and blue bandanna. No one did that anymore, just old people did.
Seven steps separated us. The blade of the shovel would reach her in two. I held the wood handle with both hands. Sweat coated my palms. I gripped and re-gripped as I took another step. With a jab, I think I could reach her from here, without having to get any closer. I needed the striking blow to deliver death. Not just knock her back, or cut into her. Like it or not, I’ have to shave more off the distance between us.