It was the way she just stood there, though. Staring. Vacant. She didn’t seem anxious, or hungry to eat me. Drool, or puss, or nothing fell from her lips. If she wasn’t a ghost, I’d put money on poorly crafted mannequin, way before I guessed flesh eating zombie.
I pulled the shovel back, so I could strike fast and hard with some momentum as I climbed the next step. Sweat was behind my knees. I felt more apprehensive about this one. I’d killed a few along the way. Maybe because the few I’d killed put my life in immediate danger. Or Allison’s. And at this point, Mannequin has not made as much as an aggressive flinch.
She freaked me the fuck out, but I didn’t feel threatened. Yet.
Would her freaking me out be reason enough to destroy her skull? She was not human. That was clear. Evident in the black goo that dripped from stumps that used to contain at least eight fingers and a few thumbs. You sever parts of the body, you bleed. Blood. Red blood. Not goo. Black goo.
We were in danger. We were. A flock of zombies were on the lawn. Enveloping the house--Mannequin’s house. They did not seem to be interested enough to force entry. Had a feeling if they suspected four . . . humans were inside, they might. The way they’d appeared all gang-like and organized, I couldn’t put past them that it wouldn’t take much to realize breaking glass would be as good as opening a door. Mannequin had to go. Just like I’d said when I’d climbed up the first step. Whether that had been for Allison’s sake or mine, did not matter.
Feeling like a coiled rattler, and just as I was ready to lunge springing forward to chop Mannequin to death, the radio on my hip squawked and hissed. I stared down at it.
“Chase? What’s it like out front. Clear back here.”
My jaw dropped open. Fucking Dave. Josh gave Dave the fucking radio.
“Chase!” Allison said.
I looked up the stairs. Mannequin was gone. Just, gone.
Shit. Now what. “I have to find her. Please, Alley, keep a lookout.” I took the radio off my hip, handed it down to her. “Turn down the volume, and answer that fuck.”
“You’re going up there?”
“Unless you saw her pass me on the stairs and she’s hiding down here somewhere? Did you see her do that? Did you see her pass me? Is she down here?”
“You don’t have to be a dick,” she said.
I gave her my back, re-gripped my hold on the shovel and climbed the stairs into a windowless and completely pitch black hallway. “Ah, shit.”
I could barely see a thing in front of me. I strained to listen. Thought I might hear Mannequin breathing, or groaning, or something. But nothing. Not a sound. About the only thing I heard was my own heartbeat. It filled my ears with a muffled tha-thump, tha-thump, and my own heavy breathing. I might not hear Mannequin, but if she wasn’t deaf with old age, she’d hear me.
Don’t know if it was strength or courage I conjured, but taking that first step was not easy. Still, I took it. Each step after -- no easier.
I had to take one hand off the shovel to feel along the wall. I was looking for a door, or doorway. Last thing I wanted to feel, but the one thing that kept coming to mind, was the touch of a cotton nightie. I shivered.
My fingers grazed over fuzzy wallpaper. Reminded me of mold. I almost pulled my hand away. Instead, I pushed forward. Seemed like I’d covered more than a hundred yards. A chanced look back told me maybe I’d crossed a foot or two. The baby steps weren’t getting the job done.
Molding. A doorway. I felt around. The door was open. I reached across to the opposite wall, the wall on the east and touched fuzziness. So no one was behind me. I took a deep breath. Held it, and sent the end of my shovel into the room ahead of me. I poked and jabbed at air. Followed in close behind. I swung it back and forth, just to make sure Mannequin wasn’t standing right there, waiting for me.
She wasn’t. The window across the room let in some outside light. I could turn on the light. Josh and Dave had indicated the back yard was clear. This room faced that direction. I didn’t want to risk it. Didn’t seem worth it. Instead, I stood at the threshold a moment, hoping my eyes would adjust. I didn’t have all night. A few extra seconds wasn’t going to hurt, especially if it helped my sight.
Or so I thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
There should have been a warning. Some kind of sound. I should have smelled the decaying flesh. Instead, I tried to jump back as stumps where fingers should have been slammed into my back, sending me forward, reeling. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I lost balance and stumbled toward the bed.
Under the covers lie a man. What was once a man. Best I could tell, it had been a man. If his face had been green, he’d of resembled a watermelon sliced in half and eaten by a dog. Nose, mouth and upper jaw . . . gone. So was most of the brain. His face looked more like a bowl. A deep, hollowed out hole. Only thing that told me it was a male, was the pajama top. Mannequin was in an old-fashioned nightgown, and this old guy wore pajamas. Didn’t think people wore that kind of stuff anymore.
And then I was on him. Chests criss-crossing. I smelled him. Insides reeked, emptied bowels mashed by the extra weight of me on the deceased.
Before I could push off, or roll off of the dead guy, Mannequin was on me, fell or dropped onto my back. Envisioning those gooey stumps slapping at me, as if trying to get a finger grasp on my shirt, or to dig fingernails into my skin for a hold, had me bucking like a bull that did not want to be ridden.
I felt trapped, pinned between two bodies. The shovel useless, sandwiched like this. I’d seen enough horror movies to know I was in some shit. Had no idea if getting bit infected me with whatever they had. Would I become one of them? That thought alone had my own bowels ready to release.
Unlike when I first entered the room, I heard her. Mannequin. She breathed hard and heavy. Like an excited woman. She seemed to be scaling my back. Perhaps getting her head in position to chomp down on my exposed and highly vulnerable neck.
This kicked my adrenaline into hyper-drive. I thrashed. Twisted. I was not going to be bitten, but neither was I able to throw her off my back.
Her hot breath was on my skin. Near my neck.
The inevitable happened. I felt a prick on my shoulders. Sharp teeth sinking into my flesh. I screamed. Couldn’t help it.
“I got her,” I heard.
Dave.
All at once, the weight was lifted off me. The sound of a body hitting the floor followed. I rolled over, and off of the dead man. In the dimly lit room, I saw Dave. He stood with a two-handed grip on his pitchfork.
I sat up, looked down. The tines of his weapon had pierced Mannequin’s head. He stepped on her back and pulled free the pitchfork. My hand went to my neck. There was some bleeding. Warm, and sticky. “I think she bit me,” I said. I felt sick. Thought I might throw up. I had no clue what was in store.
“Let me see,” Dave said. He slapped a hand on my shoulder and spun me around. “My bad.”
“What’s your bad?”
“She didn’t bite you. The pitchfork went too far. I think those marks are from this,” he said, and held up his weapon.
“Not a bite?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
I wanted to cry. Relief washed through me. My shoulders deflated. I sighed. And sighed again. “Oh my, God. Thank you. Thank you.”
“For stabbing you?”
New respect for the slow man filled me. I stood up. Put out my hand. “For saving my life.”
He shook it. “It was nothing. You saved ours earlier. It’s what friends do.”
I’d not had many opportunities to save lives. Of friends, or otherwise. There was the one time a guy was choking on a mouth full of french fries at Schaller’s. I performed the Heimlich. He spat a wad of chewed potato across the room, but he was breathing, and alive. “I suppose in days like this, it is. I appreciate it.”