Left Alive 1 Read online

  Light pierces the gloom of the pantry and I immediately follow it to the source. One of the creatures has pried free a board from the kitchen window. The glass shatters just seconds later and I move as quickly as I can into the study. I know the house well enough now. I walked through it all last night. There is a backyard patio that has a sliding door in the small den just next to the study. Old, forgotten books line the wall and the gas fireplace is dead. I pass the desk, noticing the bloodstains on the papers covering the desk, one of them says: To whomever finds this. The body is long gone and I realize that this house wasn’t inhabited by the original occupant. A shiver passes through me, but I have no time.

  Footsteps begin moving upstairs and I know now that one of those things is in the house. I can hear it growling as it moves slowly through the guest bedroom. The thumping of it running into doorframes or knocking into walls draws me deeper and deeper into the den. The sliding door is completely undefended. If those things had any way of getting into the back yard, they certainly would be breaking through the glass right now. The room is full of light. It’s pale, gray light that makes me think of October. I can see straight down the hallway that runs alongside the stairs. It’s a straight shot to the front door.

  Turning my attention back from the sliding door, my heart slows, my hearing nearly deafens, my hands blindly grope for the sliding door’s handle, as my eyes fix on the back of the creature standing at the opposite end of the hall. What remains of its shirt is a tattered, blackened ruin of whatever it had once been. Its sunburnt, darkened skin is like leather across its emaciated husk of a form. This one has lost most of its hair and I’m not sure if it’s a man or a woman. They all look like walking skeletons now. It’s looking at the front door, its head tilted sideways as if perplexed by the structure. Slowly, my fingers wrap around the handle behind me and I push the sliding door open yet still the thing stands unmoving as a rasping sound slides between its dried and cracked lips. When there is enough room, I slip out, watching the creature foolishly grope for the handle of the door, oblivious to my escape. I slip out onto the parched earth, thanking God, or whatever’s left up there, that it didn’t see me.

  Chapter Eight

  The freeway. I have to get to the freeway. I put the house behind me. I know that in seconds, the Zombie will figure out how to get the door open and others will be lurking through the house. One of them will inevitably walk down the foyer to the open glass door, and I refuse to be there. I step off the patio and into the yard. The swimming pool is dried up, water stains spreading up the side like ghostly tendrils of grime and rust. Across the yard sits a dog house with a withered corpse of a dog whose pelt had been left worn over the rotten dog’s skeleton. It’s riddled with bullets and I can only assume whoever set up shop in the house during the Panic killed the dog to keep it quiet or out of some sort of twisted malice. I try not to look at it as I clamber onto the dog house and plant my hands on the fence.

  The rooftops are clear of the Zombies. Luckily, the one in the house seems to be the only one to discover easier entrances higher up. I’m sure the others will soon catch on, but I’m clear for now. I scan the yard, looking for any signs of something that might lead to trouble. The neighboring lawn is covered in dried, crisp leaves that have browned and remained for who knows how long. A dozen bushes fill the yard that have now turned to brittle spears, waiting for me. I have no choice. I plant my hands on the top of the old fence and throw my weight over. I land as a plume of dust whirls up around my crouched body, my eyes looking toward the house, hoping there’s a gate or something blocking the view from the road. There is.

  Rain and rot has turned the leaves to nothing but mushy, disgusting reminders of a world that has been plunged into perpetual autumn. Avoiding their pool, I cover the neighbor’s lawn in no time. I can hear something moving around inside the house and panic overtakes my senses. I don’t want it to see me. Whether it’s a survivor or a Zombie, I don’t want to have to deal with it. Conflict will only draw others to my location. I can’t have that sort of attention.

  Rather than jump for the row of points at the fence’s top, I lunge upwards, opting instead for the top of the wooden post. All the fences are dry, neglected in light of the apocalypse. I feel the hard, rough wood stabbing my fingertips as I lift myself up with what strength I have regained from my night’s rest. I try not to look toward the street where the sun is beating down on the pale gray ash, illuminating the world so that all I see are black shadows lumbering about. Those blackened shadows are death hunting me. I center my gravity and lift my leg up and over the fence, landing in the neighboring yard. This house is nothing different.

  The windows are boarded up as good as any other house that I’ve seen in the neighborhood. I can hear something shrieking in the street, which is followed by snarls and growls. When the source of the shrieks turn to screams, I picture one of the Zombies with its fingers jammed between the boards, stuck and trapped. Were they eating each other? I can hear them tearing at something and my stomach churns with sickening images. Crossing the yard, I accidentally snag my shirt on a dried bush, rattling the entire dead plant as I continue going. Cursing myself, I listen to the alarm being raised all around me. I knew what they’d be thinking out on the street. Something moved. Something is out there. Food.

  Clamoring atop the fence, I lean over, my arms shaking as I roll and drop into the next yard. I’m losing strength. I can’t keep doing this. The earth is hard as rock and every time I land, my ankles scream in agony. This yard is completely different and I am immediately on high alert. I don’t trust this place. I see tents everywhere—tents that have seen much better days. There is old dirt caked to them, water stains from rains saturated with acid, and everywhere are remnants of a fully inhabited camp. This was someone’s home. I walk past the first camp, hunkered down in a crouch, too scared that they might have taken to the house at the first sign of the Zombies. Had they known I was here? I draw my knife and part the opening of the first tent I come to.

  There is a sleeping bag inside that has not seen an owner in a very long time. Empty cans sit abandoned next to wrappers of long-eaten food. I want to scavenge, but the majority of my mind is too preoccupied with getting the hell out of here to even think about that as an option. I have lost everything I had to that Zombie back in the house. I didn’t even have a bag now. A sleeping bag would be nice on the road. Eventually I was going to need to stop and to find more gear. All I have to my name is a knife, but maybe that’s all I need for now.

  No, I’ll need more. What good is it to survive now, but die later?

  I grab a bag next to me, a pink backpack with some sort of cartoon cat painted all over it with rainbows and clouds. Part of me wants to think of the girls, but I banish all thoughts of them, as if the creatures can feed on such fleeting temptations. I cross the yard to a larger, more promising tent, rounding the dried up swimming pool in the center of the camp. I look down into the white tub full of ash and dust that has drifted into the pit. It’s deep, maybe twenty feet. I notice the diving board. This is the kind of pool you own if your kid is on a diving team at school, expensive stuff. I think to stop and admire the pool a moment longer, but the door to the house bursts open, banging loudly against the wall.

  Dropping down behind a sun-rotten, yellow tent, I listen to the wheezing, slouched creature walking flat-footed onto the patio. Its feet slap the wooden planks of the deck without any caution or care. Its labored, gurgling breaths drift across the yard, making my skin crawl. I grip my knife with determined fingers. I am going to kill it. I barely got a look at it, but I’m going to kill it. I know it. I can hear it walking across the dried landscape and my heart is thumping loudly. Before I step out to kill it, I hear it slip and a loud, wet smack.

  I peek over the top of the tent and I see that the Zombie is completely gone. I glance around, half expecting it to dive through the tent and tackle me. I slowly step out from behind the tent, listening to the sound of a whimper. My eyes d
arting around the camp, I see nothing but still, quiet tents. Stepping into plain view, I check the only place I haven’t looked, the pool.

  In the bottom of the pool, the twisted wreckage of the fallen Zombie writhes as its shattered body tried to make sense of its tumble. Blood is running down its head from a wide gash that runs across the creature’s face, tearing open its forehead and nose. One of its eyes has fallen out of a splintered socket. The creature twists in agony, sucking in staggered breaths as shards of bones rip out of its leathery skin. I look at it with no sympathy, no drop of mercy. This had been a human once. I stare at the obliterated teeth inside the broken, shifted jaw and ripped lips. This is not a walking corpse. It is a man who has lost his mind and given over to unspeakable depravities. I give the creature one last, disgusted look before turning away.

  Fearing that others might be in the house, I drop over the next fence, landing on a pile of ash but losing my footing as my ankle rolls. I grit my teeth against the pain in my ankle as I collapse to the ground, shoots of dust curling around my body, choking me as I wheeze for breath. As the dust clears, I try to see what it is that took me down. My impact cleared the dust off of the object my foot slipped on and instantly I recoil out of fear and horror.

  I don’t know why she’s naked, but she is. My eyes are possessed by some primordial urge to check and my eyes run the entire length of the woman’s body and there isn’t a stitch of clothing on her. She had a pretty face, or what was left of it. Cold brown eyes stare past me as I notice that her body had once been beautiful. She was a woman that any man would have cherished. But something got to her. Something wild and feral had torn at her soft skin after stripping her. Her right arm is completely gnawed down to the bloody bone. The stench is atrocious and I cover my mouth to keep from vomiting right there on her. All over her body, there are bite marks where things have taken mouthfuls of her skin and flesh. Part of her left cheek is gone, revealing the yellowing teeth beneath, the hygiene abandoned in the wake of the collapse. I look at the wounds with disturbed fascination. There is no way these things are human any more. Not even in the most basic sense of the word.

  I step back and feel something underneath the heel of my shoe. Looking down, I see that I’m standing on the fingers of yet another corpse. In my fall, I hadn’t even seen this one. I step away from both corpses, staring with acute awareness that I am very much in a bad place. The hand belongs to a man that’s staring wide-eyed at the dirt, a hole the size of a quarter in the front of his head, and the back and side of his head is missing. The man is wearing clothes, unlike the woman, and in his clenched jaws is something that looks like gray, rotten meat. Looking at the woman, I feel my stomach spinning and I feel very much like throwing up again. This man in clothes is nearly a skeleton and his whole persona looks identical to that of the Zombies. I stare at him for a moment, wondering how a man could think about eating the raw flesh of anything, especially that of an attractive young woman. I still can’t decipher why she is naked. Had they come upon her while she was bathing? Did they still have urges other than eating, and as such raped her while or before biting her flesh off? The disturbing images flood one after another and I shake them off. There is no time for my imagination. Not now. I focus on that around me once again.

  Beyond the dead man are two more just like him. All three of them have bullet holes in their heads. I can’t help but notice that this is the work of a marksman. If I had a gun and there were three of these monsters nearby, they would be riddled with bullets, but these three were all perfectly ended. Three targets, three shots. This wasn’t even an execution. I look around, scanning the two-story houses all around, wondering who this marksman might be. Where was he? I can feel unseen eyes on me, watching me with suspicious interest.

  I think about the tents as I stand here, letting seconds melt away, wondering if there’s a tiny red dot floating on my head, waiting for me to make the wrong move. Whoever was here with that rifle didn’t care about the woman. This mysterious gunman had let the woman be stripped and eaten by these creatures. What does that say about him? And what about the camp? Had he known about the camp? Had he been a part of it? I couldn’t help but picture those poor survivors in that camp each getting dragged off by gritty, horrendous monsters while that lone sniper watched in apathetic disinterest. Had he been here the last time these Zombies came through? I’m daydreaming again.

  I pick myself up from the dark and terrible place that my fearful mind has plummeted and decide that it’s time to leave this place once and for all. Jumping up, I grab ahold of the last fence post and hurl my weight over the fence and land on my back in what once used to be lawn, but has since then turned into a dusty tangle of dead roots and pale brown earth. I’m near a sidewalk and as I look at it, I see an opening to the subdivision. There’s a whole stretch of abandoned road near me and I am filled with gratitude to be done with the whole jumping and rolling thing. I push myself up and look down the road leading into the subdivision, suspicious of any other Zombies that might be roaming around, hungrily waiting for me. I see nothing. They haven’t made it this far, but I have no doubt in my mind that they’ll be coming. They are a wall of unstoppable, shambling cannibals, of course they’ll keep moving through the neighborhood. My time is limited until they round the corner and see me. I’ve been lucky thus far and I decide not to test fortune today. Continuing toward the road, I head south at the first possible chance.

  I’ve decided to avoid subdivisions. I’ve learned my lesson all too well and I don’t need to be told more than once. Not in this world. I pass several cars that have been burned by passersby. Another thing I notice is that several of the houses that I’m now passing are nothing but debris and blackened craters. Fires have consumed so much that I no longer believe that this is solely the work of marauders. There is a thought that creeps into my head. The gas lines. If someone had been smart enough, they might have shut down the gas lines, but out here, it’s unlikely someone had that foresight. I swallow hard as I look at the craters and smoking ruins of the houses. What if no one had burned those houses? What if the gas lines had just blown? I shudder at the thought and once more resolve to avoid houses and strange buildings. It’s better to just keep to my own business from now on.

  To the south is farmland. I know this because the majority of America is connected by the stitched quilts of farmland. I take a few steps forward on the road, passing a tipped-over truck that has been burned to a crispy, crinkled husk, and wonder how much longer until I reach another town, another Zombie den, or another cannibal haven? How much longer until some roaming killer finds me and I’m dead meat? I can’t take that risk. I need to scavenge, but I need to head south, that’s what’s more important at the moment. I need to get to the girls.

  I abandon the interstate, heading west for about half a mile, so long as I can keep power poles and signs in sight. I need to be able to keep safe, away from all the dangers I’ve already experienced. I need the safety of the wasteland. Though I’ll be alone, without the ability to scavenge from cars, I don’t suppose I’ll see that many anymore. This is the no-man’s-land where resources are more and more precious. Those in rural communities would have had first pick and would now be guarding their hoards like dragons. I am out of my element. I am in hostile territory with few resources at my disposal. I swallow and look back, feeling my heart sink. I’m going to stop doing that now. I can’t keep looking back.

  Chapter Nine

  Everything around me is completely void of life. There are no houses, no shops, no gas stations, and no signs of anything appearing on the horizon. Above me, the clouds have even abandoned me. My only companions left are what few stars manage to peek through the miles of tainted air above me. There is a great swirling cloud of them hanging over my head, infinite and dead, just like the planet I am drifting through space on. There is only the darkness on the horizon ahead and that gives me hope. My footsteps thud loudly upon the ground, sending small plumes of dust up my legs, coiling an
d rolling about them like snakes given life by my passing. I feel as if I am on the dark side of Earth. If there is even such a thing, I’m certain that I’ve found it. I look up at the sky and can’t help but wonder if I’m somehow in the great eyeball of some giant creature and that brown haze between us is nothing more than the closed eyelid. I think this because the whole world seems asleep.

  Hunger is driving me to the border of delirium. Thirst is becoming more and more of a problem as I journey south with a girl’s backpack slung over my shoulder, praying that I hit Florida soon, but I know that I’m nowhere close yet. I do know that I’m deep into farm territory, the kind of Great Plains stuff the movies loved to portray in westerns. If it was hellish desolation back then, well, now I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call it. All I know is that this is nothing but horrid, wretched emptiness. With each step, I know that I’m one step closer to the end of this rolling expanse, but I can’t tell if I’m walking toward a greater oblivion or to the edge of sanctuary. I pray that I’m moving somewhere better.

  Every structure that I’ve come across since fleeing into the great openness of America’s heart, has been burned down to nothing but cinders and ash. I don’t know who is doing this, but I wish they’d stop. The roads are home to packs of dangerous people who drive by on motorcycles or in trucks that send up thick trails of ash and dirt that I can see for miles. I avoid them the best I can in this flat blanket of a world. I’ve come accustomed to simply dropping onto my back and spreading out like a corpse before shoveling handfuls of dirt and ash on top of me. Thankfully, I have begun to look like part of the landscape. I am a walking patch of ash and dust that—at the sign of danger—can become part of the earth once more. I’ve seen several of these trails of dust lifting up into the air like a great arrow pointing at incoming danger. I’ve learned how to walk to create the least amount of dust to keep others from spotting me. As for my path, I’ve given up on worrying about it. Out here the ash and dust are deep. When I make a step forward, my feet sink all the way up past my ankles. Pull my foot free to take yet another step, and the ash pours back into my footprint so that only a small trail of dips in the ash remain. When there is a breeze, my trail is obliterated altogether.