Reanimates, p.16
Reanimates, page 16
part #1 of Reanimates Series
Without needing to be told what I wanted, Frank entered the house with the gun pressed against his shoulder and ready to be used. I had Michelle leave her bundle of guns with me and enter behind Frank. She chose a pistol as her weapon, it looked like a forty caliber. Karen and Jess went next, and I entered last. I had to make three trips to grab all of the guns before closing the door.
We found ourselves in a living room of what must have been an elderly couple. There was a couch and loveseat along with a recliner. All three of then covered in a plastic cover that was meant to keep them looking new. They were a soft peach color as were the walls. Mounted on the wall to my right was a large flatscreen television. The rest of the walls were covered with pictures of what I assumed were members of their family. The floor was covered by a dark brown carpet and that had a plastic runner that led from the front door to the door leading to the next room.
I could not see very far past that doorway, but it looked as though it went to the kitchen. That meant that the bedrooms and bathroom were off to our right. I called everyone in for a huddle.
“We are going to search the house. I want Frank in the lead, followed by Michelle and then me. Karen, you should bring up the rear with Jess. We are going to try to be as quiet as possible, so no talking. We do not know if anyone or anything is here yet, and I do not want to give them the advantage of hearing us coming, understood?”
Everyone nodded and like a well-oiled machine we began to move. Frank was the first through the doorway with Michelle right on his heels. I went next and found that I was correct, the room was a kitchen. It was a large room with a table tucked along the left wall. There was a lot of clutter on the table, mostly comprised of magazines. The old linoleum on the floor was once white but had yellowed over time. The walls were covered with blue and white wallpaper that featured cows. The countertops looked new, a deep grey marble and the cabinets were so new that they had not been painted or stained yet.
Whomever had lived here before the world fell apart was clearly doing some renovations. This might explain the plastic covering the furniture, but I doubted it. All of the appliances were old, they were probably waiting for the room to be finished before replacing them. The refrigerator was a lime green, and the oven was a pale yellow, they both looked to be from the seventies.
As we passed the refrigerator, I opened the door. I was beyond pleased to see that the power was still working here and that it was well stocked. I opened the freezer and saw that that too held a lot of food. We would be feasting this night, that much was certain.
We were about to proceed down the bright, white hall that stood before us when I heard the sound of the horde passing by the house. It was loud, which meant that they had entered the lawn, which was not a surprise given the sheer numbers that made it up. The only problem with the noise was that it would make it impossible for us to hear someone or something moving within the walls of the house.
I nodded to Frank to move and he did so without hesitation. The first room we encountered was on the left. The door was closed and locked. Frank looked like he was about to force it when I signaled him to stop.
“Let’s finish our sweep first,” I said. “I would hate to be distracted by this room, only to have someone sneak up on us from a different room.”
Once again Frank moved up forward. The next room was on the right. This was an office, though it was large enough that it was probably once a bedroom. The walls were all new sheetrock and freshly painted a soft sky blue. The floor was either new hardwood or a very good laminate. The only furniture was a desk and office chair. Frank checked under the desk while Michelle checked out the closet while I hung in the doorway to keep an eye and ear out for any impending threats.
They found no one lurking in the dark recesses of the room and we moved further down the hall. There were two doors that awaited us at the end, and they were directly across from each other. Frank paused a foot before them and turned to me to see what I wanted us to do. The tension in the hallway was so high that it was almost a physical thing now.
I signaled that he and Michelle should take the doorway on the left and that I would go to the right. I motioned for Karen to stay where she was with Jess. I counted down from three with my fingers and we moved as one.
The room I entered was a bathroom. It was average size for this kind of house. On the left was a toilet and on the same side of the room was the sink and medicine cabinet. To the right was the tub. The shower curtain was pulled closed and there was no way of knowing if there was someone hiding behind it. The curtain was an opaque white that prevented anyone from seeing through it, so I knew that in order to clear the room I had to open it.
I turned my body so that my left arm was closest to the tub and trained the gun in my right hand directly in front of me, I slowly reached out and grabbed the shower curtain and gave it a quick yank to the side, exposing what was behind it. There was nothing but the white ceramic walls and other accoutrements one would expect to find lurking in a tub.
I released the curtain and lowered my gun, and returned to the hall. Frank and Michelle were exiting their room at the same time. I looked at Frank and raised my eyebrows in askance.
“Bedroom,” he said softly. “Nothing exciting in there either.”
With most of the upstairs cleared we knew that we had to go to the room with the locked door. I took the lead this time. When we reached the door, I again signaled my intent with my hands. I would kick in the door and I wanted the others to all have their guns ready to shoot if anything came out to eat me. Again, I counted down from three, kicking the door just below the knob with all I had, which turned out to be more force than needed.
The door was hollow and shattered around the point of impact, causing it to lose a lot of the momentum that was meant to swing it inwards. We all stood there for a moment, the door slightly ajar and not knowing how to proceed. I was just about to reach up and push it further when there was a slight growl that came from the other side.
I backed away from the door perhaps a bit faster than I should have and my back hit the wall behind me. I aimed my gun at the door and just before I gave the order for us all to open fire the growl changed into a whine.
Curiosity won over the fear I had been experiencing and I strode forward, pushing the door fully open. A dog that looked like a lab mix came running out and just about tackled me. I thought I was going to be attacked at first until it started to lick my face. In spite of myself this caused me to chuckle and I gave the dog some pets.
While I was busy with the dog, Michelle entered the room. She came back pretty quickly, her face a mask of disgust.
“Nothing in there except a pile of dog food that is mostly eaten and several piles of dog shit. And a terrible smell.” As if to emphasize that last point, she closed the door as tight as she could.
“Her owners must have locked her away,” said Karen. “Looks like they never came back for her. How sad.”
I was reluctant to take on the responsibility for a dog, not only because they tend to bark at anything that moves. She could give us away when we were trying to hide. However, she had not yet barked, and we had been in the house, her house, for quite some time.
“Looks like we have a mascot,” I said.
This caused the biggest smile I had ever seen to brighten Jess’s face. She came running over and threw her arms around the dog’s neck before smothering her with kisses and pets.
The sound of a reanimate banging into something outside made me remember the precariousness of our situation and I shushed everyone. I got up from the floor and went into the kitchen.
At the corner that was at the furthest point of the house stood two more doors. One that went outside and to the back lawn, and one that most likely went to the basement. That was a space that I did not want to explore. If there were hidden threats, or if we were all down there and somehow the reanimates gained entrance into the house, we might be trapped down there with no way to escape.
We also could not leave ourselves exposed to any threats that might be down there. I walked over and checked the door and was correct in my assumption that it did not have a way to lock it. I had an idea, though I was not entirely certain that it would work. I looked over at Karen.
“Can you please grab me a chair from the dining table?’
Karen nodded and grabbed the one closet to her. She brought it to me. I wedged the chair under the knob. My hope was that if there was someone or something down there that meant to harm us, this would prevent them from exiting the basement. Even if the chair would not keep them from opening the door, there was now only about seven inches of room between the legs of the chair and the opposite wall. In theory, even if someone opened the door, the chair would prevent them from opening it far enough to fit through.
By my best guess it was around noon. We had power, we had shelter and none of the reanimates had yet figured out where we went. I would say that at that moment, life was as good as it was going to get.
“Well gang,” I said, “how does everyone feel about eating some lunch in here while we wait for our friends to pass on by?”
The mere mention of food was enough to cause my mouth to water and I could tell by the looks on the faces of my group that I was not the only one. I started to go to the freezer to grab a couple of the frozen pizzas that I had seen when Michelle walked up to me.
“Jim,” she began. “Why don’t you let Karen and Frank worry about doing some cooking while you and I go down to the bathroom so I can clean up that arm?”
I looked down at my left arm and remembered that it was scratched and bloody. In all of the excitement I had completely forgotten about it. I was a little concerned that it did not hurt.
“Sure,” I chuckled. “You two just make sure and cook up those pizzas. May be the last ones we will ever have.”
I followed Michelle down the hall, dreaming of the delicious pizza about to come.
Chapter 15
After we ate, Frank and I took up positions in windows on opposite sides of the house. We hid behind the curtains and opened them just enough to see through, watching for the last of the horde to pass by. It took more than an hour, though time had essentially lost all meaning by then. We had nowhere to be and all day to be there, so we had become free of our master, the clock. We now ate when we were hungry, slept when we were tired, unencumbered by any sort of schedule.
I left the den and went down the hall to find Frank in the bedroom that was across from the bathroom. He was still peering out of the window. I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. Frank turned to look at me.
“They are all gone from here,” he said.
“Out back too. I have not seen one for around ten minutes,” I replied.
“Same here,” he said. “I guess we should go out for a look.”
He was right. Before I would feel comfortable letting my guard down enough to relax on the couch I would want to know that there were not going to be any surprise visitors. I leaned up against the door and motioned with my left hand for him to lead the way. Frank smiled at me and headed out of the room.
We stopped briefly to tell the other three what we had planned. We each grabbed a pistol and a rifle and made sure they were both loaded and chambered. We walked to the front door, Frank first and me close behind.
He opened the inner door and looked through the screen in the storm door before opening that one as well. Once outside, I went to the left and Frank went to the right.
The grass on the lawn had grown pretty long and thankfully it was not dry. This helped hide the sound of out footfalls and kept any hint of our approach secret. There were a couple of large pine trees in the front lawn that blocked my full view of the road. I hoped that there was nothing on the other side but knew that there was only one way to be certain, so I made my way as stealthily as I could towards the nearest pine.
My plan was to slowly circle around to the front and use the tree as much as possible to hide from anything that was on the other side. The rifle that I had grabbed had a strap, so I slung it over my shoulder and pulled the pistol from my waistband. I figured it would be easier for me to use that instead of a rifle that would require two hands. This freed one hand so that I could move branches out of my way with the other.
As I neared the halfway mark, I saw more of the street, but I also heard what sounded like someone dragging their feet. My pulse immediately quickened, and I slowed my pace.
I reached out with my free hand and grabbed a branch, ignoring the feel of the sap as it coated my palm. I slowly pulled the branch towards me which revealed almost the entire street. Standing in the middle of that street and facing away from me was a reanimate. It looked like it had somehow gotten separated from the horde and without any sort of stimuli, had just stalled in the street.
I was very reluctant about using my gun. I knew that any sort of loud noise risked gaining the attention of anything in the area, including our friends that had unleased the horde. My plan was simple, I would stuff the gun back in my waistband and use the knife to stab it in the head, rendering it harmless. My only concern was about how to approach it. I did not know if I should continue my stealthy approach or try to rush it.
I thought about that for far longer than I should before I decided on the stealthy approach. The entire time I stood there wrestling with my thoughts, the thing had just paced side to side and snarled at nothing. I waited until it had turned fully away from me again to pace west and made my move. I held the knife above my head, the blade extending from the bottom of my hand. I figured that a solid strike from above and coming down on its crown would suffice.
I had my eyes locked on the reanimate as I closed the distance between us. In life it looked like it was a teenaged boy, around sixteen. I tried not to dwell on the life that had been snuffed out and instead focused on those that I was trying to protect. I knew that I had no choice but to essentially re-kill this kid in order for my group to continue to live. It was quite the hurdle to pass for me. Especially in the case of this kid. He was newly undead and mostly intact. The only evidence that he was a reanimate from the back was the bite wound that he had on his left forearm. He must have gotten free of his attacker and ended up succumbing to the infection. His clothes were in pretty nice condition, from his new looking Levi’s to his slightly ruffled green t-shirt, even his hair looked well-tended to from the back.
I suppose that I should have paid more attention to what was directly in front of me that obsessing over this poor boy. I was so worried about making sure it did not see me approaching that as I transitioned from the lawn to the road my foot found a small rock and kicked it. I heard it skitter across the pavement, and so did the reanimate. It spun to face me and saw lunch standing a few feet away. At this point I knew that I was all in and rushed at it as it rushed at me.
When we me I grabbed its right arm with my left, hoping to control it. I mustered all of my strength and slammed down on top of its head with the knife in my right hand. As is often true in life, the things we see in the media end up not being true. During countless television shows and movies, I had seen people stab a zombie, or some other undead threat in the head with a knife. In the real world, the knife made impact with the skull of the reanimate in front of me and was forced up into my closed hand, slicing my palm wide open. I should have known that a human skull would not be so easily pierced, but I guess I had fallen victim to the stories I had watched.
I released my grip on the knife and in spite of the injury I had just sustained, grabbed the other arm of the reanimate with my right hand. We were now locked in a dance of predator versus prey. We all know which I was. I was doing a fairly good job of keeping its gnashing jaws away from my arms and throat, but I knew that I would tire out way before it did, and at that point I would lose. As it snapped at my limbs and throat, I was sprayed in the face with fetid, blood-tinged spittle and had to fight the urge to throw up. I did not know to whom the blood had once belonged, and it was carried forth by a breath that smelled like a week-old carcass that had baked in the hot sun.
We had been struggling for less than a minute, yet it felt like days had passed. My ribs and my injured arms both sapped me of strength, and they did so with an alarming speed. My only hope was that Frank would discover us before my body completely gave out and I became a meal.
Sweat was starting to pour down my face and the blood coming from my right hand caused its arm to grow slicker, causing me to need to use a stronger grip to hold it at bay. I knew that I had maybe a minute or two of strength left and had to come up with a solution. The only one that presented itself was me trying to twist and throw the reanimate to the ground where I would have a superior position. From there I hoped to stomp its head to a pulp. I dug down deep and mustered up all the anger, all the fear and every powerful memory I could. I knew it would take more than the strength that I currently had to accomplish what I wanted.
Without preparation or warning, I twisted my body to the right, locking my arms in their current positions. I was relieved and surprised when the reanimate started to go where I had hoped. Luck would step in though, as I did not count on it to fight back or flail. One of its legs tangled up between mine and caused me to fall. My head slammed into the pavement and stars flashed before my eyes. I had to use all my willpower to keep from blacking out. As my vision cleared, I found myself of the worst of all spots, flat on my back with a reanimate on top of me.
I somehow managed to keep a grip on both if its arms, but that did not matter. I had nowhere to retreat, so it was a guarantee that part of my body would soon end up within the jaws of this undead asshole atop me. I am usually the kind of person that enjoys being right, however, this was not one of those cases. I immediately felt its teeth on the bandage on my left arm. This looked to be the end for me. Once its jaws penetrated the bandages on my arm, its teeth would pierce my flesh. If no one found us, I would be consumed until something else caught its attention, but ultimately, I would come back, doomed to walk this area in the endless search for flesh to consume.
