JACK
Jack checks the pistol for the third time, and Amelia elbows him.
"It's loaded, Jack. Relax." She rests the nose of her own gun on the windowsill and peers out. Jack envies her composure. The bar is surrounded by hungry rotters and she remains cool and calm. He's about to jump out of his own skin, and the wailing back in the storage room isn't helping.
"Why can't they shut up back there? All they're doing is bringing more zombies."
"Cut them some slack, dude." She pokes his arm with her pistol, not exactly the safest thing to do, especially since he isn't sure she's ever shot a gun before. Not that he has much of a clue either.
"I just want out of here," he mutters. Not two feet away what's left of the bartender lies in a growing puddle of blood, one of the first casualties of the attack. No one had even realized the woman was a rotter, not until she'd bitten the poor fool nearly in half.
Jack swallows hard just thinking about it, and does his best to avoid that corner. The splattered zombie doesn't bother him; in fact, it had been his lucky shot to the head that had stopped the thing, but not before killing its victim, unfortunately. Or maybe the dead guy's the lucky one, and the rest of them are the losers.
Amelia, for all her tough talking, lets him take all the risks. Except for doing stupid stuff like look out the window. He's beginning to think her calm is merely stupidity and an inability to take anything seriously.
"Look at that one, Jack!" She points at one of the zombies. "He looks like Uncle Fester. Did you ever watch that show, Jacky?"
He tightens his fingers around his pistol. "Get away from the window, Amelia. We gotta board it up."
"Then we won't be able to see, Jack. Ha, we won't be able to see Jack shit. Ha ha! Get it, Jacky? Oh, come on, laugh. It won't kill you." She flips the long blonde hair that had first caught his eye over her shoulder and sends him her killer smile.
There's a crash behind her as rotting arms burst through the glass, grabbing her neck, her waist, her hair.
"Yum yum," the things chant. One licks Amelia's face, another nibbles at her ear. Blood trickles down her neck, so maybe it isn't just a nibble. She screams, her eyes bulging from her head, arms reaching out to him.
For a moment Jack can't move, transfixed by her screams and the sheer number of rotters attacking her. He raises his pistol too late: the creatures drag Amelia back through the window and she's gone.
The night is abruptly silent but for a solitary dog barking somewhere in the darkness.
*****
In the movies it was a virus that turned the recently dead into zombies, a virus from outer space or created in a laboratory. There's a germ (ha ha) of truth in that, Jack realizes as he trudges down the abandoned highway, pistol tucked into the waistband of his dirty jeans. It's funny, before the bombs fell, he was so fastidious, he never skipped a shower and he never went anywhere with even a speck of dust on his clothing. He'd never even considered touching a firearm.
A grim smile creases his face. Renee wouldn't recognize him now. If she's even still alive. He tries to remember her face, but gives up. She was beautiful, he knows that much. If she's lucky, she died in the first wave of germ bombs.
A sudden wind whips past, tugging at his loose clothing. He shivers, stops to zip up his coat. Winter is right around the corner, although he isn't sure it ever left. The only things that seem to thrive since the Blast are the big, thorny weeds. Even the trees look sick.
He has to stop thinking. Digging in his pocket, he pulls out the old iPod he found the other day in an abandoned car, laughing in wonder that those things even existed anymore. He turns it on, plugs one earphone in and lets the music carry him away for just a bit.
It's a dangerous thing to do, because distraction can be deadly. He can't help it, though. Music was his whole life. He can still see the CDs on their shelves in his apartment, can remember every single cover and band and song.
There's only a little battery power left, so he allows himself a mere two-song distraction. It's not even the kind of music he used to listen to, it's some kind of top 40 bubble gum crap, but it's music and it's better than the oppressive silence that presses down upon him since it happened.
He's stopped searching for his parents, his sisters. They're dead, or as good as. For all he knows they could be rotters--they probably are. His father wouldn't have taken any precautions against the viruses, he didn't believe in that kind of stuff even when the evidence was right in front of his face.
So Jack is alone, and he likes it that way. Amelia had been a pleasant distraction, but thanks to her he nearly got eaten, so no more women. He can't afford to care about anyone. It's every man for himself, and damn the ones who get in his way.
He stops beneath a twisted oak tree to rest, to try to catch his breath. The thick air makes it hard to breathe sometimes. A crackle of breaking sticks makes him jump, makes him claw at the pistol, heart seizing up. It's just a small brown squirrel, scampering from one tree to the next. Jack drops his hand, wipes his sweaty forehead with a shaking hand. It's the first living thing he's seen since he left the bar (and Amelia, let's not forget her, she of the brilliant smile and bloody ear). At least he thinks it was a squirrel; it had two tails. Animals are just about as scary as the rotters, most of them mutated and just gross to look at.
Jack starts walking again, not really knowing where he's going, because there's really nowhere to go, not anymore. He needs to find some place to hole up for a while, some place where he doesn't have to worry about something biting his head off, a place to get his head together. A piece of white paper flaps toward him and he reflexively grabs it.
It's an advertising leaflet, similar to the ones he used to design, back in his other life. But this one's crap, the lettering crude, the paper cheap.
Looking for Paradise? You're on the right track!
He starts to crumple it up, then changes his mind and folds it carefully, stowing it in one of his pockets. Paradise. Wouldn't that be nice?
He keeps walking, heading towards who knows what, and he keeps seeing the leaflets. They're everywhere, stuck to trees, hanging from fences, and, as he gets closer to the city, stuck under car windshield wipers, as if the car owners will be right back.
Jack zips his coat up to his chin, disgusted. This weather totally sucks. First it was sunny, or at least what passes for sunny now, the sun straining through grimy, thick clouds, then more clouds rolled in, these a sickening yellowish gray, and now slick rain is falling.
His belly clenches with hunger, and he swallows hard. He's got to find some food, and soon. The last thing he ate was a couple sleeves of stale saltines scrounged from the back of somebody's kitchen cabinet. The crackers had made him so thirsty he'd ended up drinking the toilet bowl water, something he isn't proud of, but hey, what can you do?
His thoughts return to the flyers. Someone has to be putting them up, but who? And why? Jack hasn't seen another person in days. Even the area appears to be free of zombies, which makes no sense whatsoever, or maybe it does. Humans equal food. What a nice thought.
As he approaches civilization after so long in the country, his pace picks up and his
spirits lift. The gravel road changes to cracked and split asphalt, both lanes blocked by vehicles. There must have been a huge crash, car after car crashing like dominos. Jack keeps his eyes straight ahead as he climbs through, not wanting to see what's left of the occupants. He has enough nasty things in his head, thank you very much
.
The carnage draws his eyes, however. There isn't much blood, whether due to rain or feasting rotters, he has no idea, just a bunch of bodies strewn all over the road and hanging out of the cars. Women with half their faces gone, men with gaping holes where their bellies used to be, it's horrible. The worst, though, are the children. Seeing them makes him sick to his stomach.
