Zombie Waltz (Book 2) Read online

  “Just stayon this road. Turnon the next block. It’s clear back there, I think. That road goes to the faculty parking lot, the bus lanes, and on around to the driver’s ed. range. I ran out through those bus doors. They should be open.” Chris answers, leaning up between the seats again.

  “You went to school here?” I ask.

  “We all did. Nick and I were seniors.” Kim answers.

  “So, you were here when this all happened?”

  “Yes.” Kim responds.

  “Me too…” Chris says.

  “I wasn’t in school that day.” Nick says very quietly with a thick mucus-filled sounding voice.

  “When the zombies came into the school, I just happened to be in a good place close to the doors. I ran from them…all the way to the mortuary. There were lots of people running behind me at first but by the time I got to the mortuary I was practically alone. They were on me by then. All the people around me were either already wounded or just gone. Mr. Petrova helped me get inside. I was the first one there with him. Levi showed up about anhour later with a dying girl in his arms. She must have beenhis daughter. He said that theygot them all; his whole family.” Chris says, as Iturnagain down a narrow but thankfullydebris free street. “Dead Boy, you know, you really should have a gun.”

  “No.” I say, shaking my head.

  “I’m serious. You need one for protection. Ihave an extra one. It’s a 9mm. It’s not a great gun, but it is better thanfist fighting.” Chris argues.

  “I don’t even know how to use one.”

  “We could teach you.” Faith says, looking over at me with a shy smile.

  “Yeah, it’s not that hard. It just takes practice.” Chris adds.

  “I said no.”

  “It’s okay you don’t have to…” Faith whispers.

  “What’s the bigdeal? Iam just saying you should carryone. Learn how to use it and keep it handy, you know, just in case.” Chris refuses to relent.

  “He said he doesn’t want one.” Faith turns to Chris and looks between us, concerned.

  “But he could need one…”

  “No. No. No. I said no damn it, Chris. I don’t want a gun.” “But why?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I just don’t understand. I’m not saying to use it on people. Just keep it in case you are in a tight spot.”

  “Chris, let it go.” I say. My temperature starts to rise. I know I don’t want a gun; the reason whyis a certain thing. And besides, it doesn’t seem…safe; especially with hordes of zombies surrounding us. Maybe most people want one because they are afraid to be bitten. I have already been bitten; twice.

  “But can you just tell me why?”

  I have had a fear of being shot since my mom passed. The reason is obvious. She was shot and I would imagine, even at 12, strangling the bastard that did it, and being shot at the same time. I would even dream about it. It’s horrifying. But I say none of this and clench my teeth getting angrier and angrier.

  Faith begs, “Chris, please!”

  Then from the middle of the backseat, Kim unexpectedly breaks in, “He obviously doesn’t like guns, Chris. Anyone can see that he’s shy of them. Besides, he defends himself well. He defends all of us just fine without one. So just let it go. He isn’t going to take your gun. But I will.” Faith turns to look at her and I do as well through the rearview.

  Chris fishes into the wedged space between his legs and my seat and opens his big backpack. He reaches down into it and comes up holding a blackened metal gun. It looks dangerous enough. He hands it to Kim and she sits it in her lap and says, “Thank you.”

  Dead Bird

  After the four of them leave Les to rest in peace forever, Brian, Lynne, Daniel and Jill travel back to Lynne’s brother’s house. Theyarrive safely at Sean’s and for 2 weeks, 8 people hole up in his two-bedroom duplex. Eventually, things turn bad there. In the end, 4 flee.

  On Tamiami, Brian loses control of the car when hordes of people

  -or whatever- rush into the road like a flooded river. The car spins and high centers over a multitude of corpses. “There’s no choice!” Brian yells. He reaches across Lynne and opens her door, the only one currently without a hand or face or body pressed against it.

  All four pile out the passenger side door. Daniel is snatched away before he can clear two steps. He screams as several of them latch onto him and pull him down. Jill freezes in disbelief but Brian grabs her hand and yanks, “We gotta move now!”

  Lynne is already several paces in front of him, running back down the road. Brian closes the gap quickly though and pushes Jill ahead as he has to push back a man that nearly grabs Lynne. Jill can make out a faint sound coming from up ahead, but can only see the back of Lynne’s head as they sprint away from Daniel’s screams. The sound ahead is like the rumble of thunder. Jill runs toward it as if it might save her. Jill passes Lynne, the horror of one biting down on her pushing her to run as fast as she ever has. She crests a hill putting a small amount of distance between herself and the throng of zombies swarming their car like so many angry bees. The thunder grows louder and Jill puts her hand up to shield the sun and can see three motorcycles roaring up the highway.

  Jill runs madly at the advancing bikers as if they were God’s own Archangels or the National Guard. She would be too ashamed to admit it, but she doesn’t even look back for Brian or Lynne. When she reaches the closest motorcycle, she jumps on the back, grabbing on to the jacket of the rider. She holds on tight as they speed away. There is a gun blast and a screamand she looks back in time to see Brian fall with a mass of ghouls on him. Lynne is pulled onto another motorcycle where the driver holds a pistol backwards and upside down firing into the mob as he follows the first bike. It isn’t until they stop that Jill opened her eyes again.

  She jumps off the back of the motorcycle and blows bile into the bushes. When the tears clear her eyes, she sees a dead bird lying near her vomit. The whole body of the thing is crushed but its wings flap and its tiny beak opens and closes rapidly despite itself. Jill screams down at it nonsensically then smashes its head in with her boot heel.

  Finallylookingaround for her friends, Jill watches two more bikes pull up. Lynne’s on one, but Brian is not. As Lynne ejects herself from behind the silver haired scruffy faced blue-jean-vest wearing biker, Jill absorbs the scene. On the third bike a younger guy maybe her age dresses and acts the part just like the others with a pistol in a holster on his hip and a leather vest and black tee shirt. He smiles at Jill and she turns from him. The man that she rode with has the same look of the other two, only wearing a worn leather vest instead of denim and a white and very dirty tee. His hair is greying but not silver like his brothers. “Rodney,” he says and offers Jill a hand, complete with leather gloves without fingers.

  “I’m Jill…this is Lynne…and uh…” Jill says shaking his hand lightly and then turning and indicating towards the dark-haired girl who approaches slowly, looking down and visibly shaking. Her throat grows dry.

  Bus Doors

  Sarasota High School is a strange building. Built in no waysquare, it has strange tunnel-looking walkways jutting out at odd angles. The largest of them leads to a big gym. There are beautiful lawns and fields made for soccer and football practice, and then a swampy thicket between the parking lots and driving ranges and Tamiami Pkwy. The school is surrounded by flowering bushes and bromeliads. It is very secluded naturally by the swampland surrounding it, finished with tall pines lining the road’s edge.

  The street dead ends in a parking lot with several long driving lanes bound by yellow linesand an extendedsidewalk with little pavilions topped by painted metal roofs, but no walls. I pull right across the bus lanes and up onto the sidewalk right in front of a pavilion. There is an open breezeway before a long awning running along the side of the big tan-brick building.

  “Well, for better or worse, we’re here.” Kim says. Chris and Iboth open our doors and step out looking around. The parking lot is near
deserted. The cars thatare leftare smeared with blood, glass shattered out, and some are burnt to a black hull. Faith’s door opens and after sitting Kevin carefully down on the seat, she steps out, shuts the door and then opens the back door. Wordlessly, Kim hands over her shotgun. She slings it over her shoulder and walks over to us.

  “Let’s check it out.” I say, staring under the awning. Chris has his rifle out and is scanning across the parking lot. “We look good, Chris?”

  He pulls the scope away from his eye and turns to me, “I don’t see anyone or anything around here but I want to get to the roof for a better view.”

  “We need to sweep the school quickly first. After that, I would love for you to check out the roof. We need to keep a look out for…that at all times.”

  “What is it? What is that? What did you see back there? Why did we run out of the hospital like that?” Faith asks.

  “It…is hard to describe.” I start.

  “It’s a huge wall of zombies. They are coming north through the city. Down the streets…and through the buildings.” Chris interrupts.

  “Wall? I don’t understand.” Faith puts her free hand on her hip and tilts her head to the side looking toward Chris.

  “Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.” I add.

  “Thousands of what?” Faith asks, her eyes wide but voice near a whisper.

  “People.” Chris says solemnly and starts towards the awning.

  “Where are they?” Faith asks.

  “They have passed through the hospital by now…” I start to say, still looking past Chris at the darkness beneath the awning. Behind us I hear a car door open and turn my head to see Kim bounce out.

  “Faith, he is shaking!” She screams. Her eyes are wide.

  Faith turns to me for a moment with a panicked gaze. “We need a clean flat table to operate on…big…at least waist high. And Les, please be careful.” She offers me the shotgun with a sheepish shrug but I shake my head and turn from her.

  “Keep it here. You mayneed it.” Isay, walkingtoward the awning as Faith runs back to the car.

  There are six sets of double doors under the awning. A swath of blood is splashed across all six sets. It covers the poles that hold up the awning and stains the concrete. “Was it like this when you left?” I ask Chris.

  “Getting there, I guess.”

  “These are the doors you came through?”

  “Yeah.” Chris follows me up to the left middle set, which has at least one halfway clean door and I grip the handle. I pull and the door comes open easily. Blood streaks the big triangular hall that spreads out before us, but there are no bodies and no movement. Chris walks in with his gun pointing the way. I follow, but keep ahold of the door until I can ease it shut.

  We stroll into a mostly well-lit foyer that spreads out and turns into a quad with a hall branching off to the left. Then past a huge cluster of rows of lockers, there is another hall continuing past the quad. On the right is a large staircase to the second level. Before it are more lockers followed by a large public restroom area.

  Chris looks through his scope and sweeps from one side of the quad to the other. He takes the gun away from his eye and looks over at me, “Sorry, Dead Boy.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “Ijust have something to say. Hear me out and then Iwill drop it.”

  “Chris I…my mother was killed by a man…” I start, but choke on the words.

  After a few awkward moments of silence, “You should get a weapon. Not a gun but at least a knife or you could use a baseball bat or something. I bet they have some sports equipment in the gym.”

  “Alright, whatever…we’ll see what’s in there.”

  There are lockers everywhere. Many are open with the contents spilling out. More are covered in blood. On the lower half of the lockers and walls there is an almost solid coat of crimson. Above that, there are handprints and spraymarks all over the place.After the first set of lockers, we come upto thelargeopenings forthe student restrooms. First theboys’, then a set of three water fountains and then the girls’ bathroom stands between us and a big staircase to the second floor. I turn toward the boys’ room but Chris reaches out and touches myshoulder. “Maybe I should go in first. Use the scope.” He suggests.

  “Fine.” I say and step back. Chris moves forward into the cave with his high-powered rifle pointed in. He stops and crouches just inside the rim of darkness. He leans even lower, then abruptly stands and continues in. I hear a bang and then a softer bang as if someone slammed their fist into a metal door. Another bang is followed by the same echoes and I imagine he is kicking open the stalls.

  In a moment, he steps back into the light. Flowing in through skylights, the sunshine fills the quad but leaves caves of darkness down every hall and in the bathrooms. Across the way are four separate doors into the cafeteria. All the doors have similar white signs with blue letters indicating this. The same signs hang above the bathrooms. Chris enters the girls’ restroom and I decide to check if the cafeteria is clear or not.

  I walk over and quickly lean my head in through an empty doorway. Beyond is a wide room full of tables. Not out of character, everything is covered in blood and broken to pieces. There is a long steel bar with a counter a few feet behind it that has a glass case on top. The case is shattered in several places. Past that lies the kitchen through more open portals. There are a dozen large windows on the opposite walls with shades half drawn. Some of the windows are broken out. The odd thing is that the walls have blood on them and so do the windows but not the shades. I hear a small sound over my left shoulder. It is like a bump or a light thump. I retract my head from the cafeteria and look that way. There is a huge locker bank at the other end of the hall. I decide to head towards it.

  Creeping as quietly as I can across the quad, I feel a bit naked. I had not even considered trying to find another type of weapon until Chris mentioned it. I scan all around the quad and see a mop in a spilt over and long dried bucket that has been shoved against some of the lockers, not far from me. I detour and creep to the edge of another dark hall. The mop is only ten feet in front of me but I have to pass by this opening to get to it and I am leery. Nervous, like I have not been in a long time.

  I press myself against the corner of the wall and poke my head around and peer down it. I can see light at the other end from windows in what look to be the school’s front doors. There are trophy cases along the far side and on my side of the hall there are several doors. All of them are labeled but three at the end of the hall have glass panes and huge picture windows exposing a large bar rail desk within, and darkness beyond.

  I hear, “Hey, what are you doing?” Turn back to see Chris looking at me through his scope, coming out of the girls’ bathroom.

  “The front offices are down there and the front doors.” I say, quickly pointing back over my shoulder as if it explains my behavior.

  “So?” Is Chris’ reply as he pulls his gun down and starts towards me. I straighten up and walk over to the lockers and reach down for the mop handle. “What are you doing now?” Chris asks as he arrives behind me and takes a knee. He holds the scope up to his eye again and peers down the hall.

  “I thought maybe I could use this.” I say as I try to figure out the metal bracket that twists around the handle and holds the mop head on between two jaws. I push and bend what looks like a metal clasp out from the mop handle and the head flops on the floor without a splat. I close the jaw and turn to show Chris my staff with the metal cage on one end for bashing. I hold it in both hands about three feet apart in the middle, jokingly swinging it around. In a little flourish, I practice it, “Waahhh!”

  “Cool…anyways…it looks clear down there. Someone chained the front doors. They put a padlock on the chains too.”

  “That’s weird. The bus doors are open but these are chained. I wonder why?” I ask, looking at Chris. He turns and looks back down the front hall.

  “Maybe whoever chained these doors didn’t
get a chance to chain the others.” Chris offers. He shrugs his shoulders and starts down the hall with the rifle held out and scope up to his eye. It would have freaked me out more to see Chris watching me through that scope except his finger was definitely not on the trigger. Plus, he is always looking through that scope when he can. I think it gives him comfort. He walks taller now and seems so much more confident, but I still remember the scared kid in the mortuary.

  I follow Chris, carelessly wielding my mop handle out to the side. There is a large crash as I accidently smack one of the trophy cases.

  Chris spins around yanking his gun down, his eyes wide. I cringe. The metal on the end of the mop made a loud thud that echoes down the silent hallway endlessly. “What the shit, man!” Chris says. At the same moment, there is a loud crash behind him. We both turn towards the ruckus. A woman in a brown business suit top and matching skirt who looks about three weeks’ dead, hangs half way out of the window in the office door. She reaches out for Chris.

  He rounds on her with his rifle, but I hold up the mop in front of him and then pull it back saying, “I got this.”

  I take a two-handed overhead swing with the handle and plant the metal bracket right square into the top of the woman’s balding head, where loose stringy white hair lays limp around it. The handle breaks off right behind the bracket and the woman turns and swings at me with her arm.

  “Shit! Okay hold on.” I take a step back, draw my hands closer together and take another wind whipping swing at her head. This time I connect with her cheek bone and nearly fall into her as the mop handle snaps again, clean in half.

  Istumblebackwards with myhalf ofa mop handle and stand there, dumbly. Chris draws his rifle back and buries the stock into the woman’s forehead. Limp, she dangles half in and half out of the office. We stand there panting.

  “I wonder who she was.” I say between deep breaths.

  “She was the school’s principal.”

  “That was probably a lot of fun for you.” I say and regret saying it automatically.

  “Not really. She was a nice lady. It was kind of funny watching you wail on her with that mop handle, though.”