Free Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel by Richard M. Cochran Page B

took hold and
reanimated the poor bastard. He, in turn, bit one of the other yard men and so
on until they were all infected. What his imagination couldn’t convey was how
they had snuck up on them without warning.
    From the images he had seen on the
news it wasn’t hard to piece it all together. The infection was relentless.
Within minutes of being bitten, people started to change. Their eyes went
white, their hearts stopped beating, and they returned to this unnatural state,
hungry for blood.
    He didn’t want to know any more,
he didn’t want to consider the spiritual implications or the mass carnage that
was ripping through the city. Beyond anything else, he didn’t want to think of
how far this had spread. He couldn’t begin to imagine what the rest of the
world looked like now. He suddenly thought of distant islands, of places void
of the dead and the idea of escaping out on a boat into the ocean became all
that much more gratifying.
    “Are we going or not?” April
asks, pulling Johnny from his daydream.
    “Yeah,” he shakes the thoughts
from his head, “it’s just up there.” He points a couple of floors up to a
landing.
    They take to the stairs as the
dead moan bellow in nervous hysteria, frantically searching for a way to get at
them.
    “This is it here,” Johnny says,
peering through the window, shielding his eyes to get a better look at the
inside of the apartment. “It doesn’t look like he’s home.”
    Johnny works his fingers under
the window pane and slowly pushes it upward, listening between the scraping
sounds for any signs of life inside. The room is completely dark as he crawls
through, only a faint amount of light filters through thick curtains, spotting
out flakes of dust that whisper through the stale air inside.
    “Wait here,” he whispers.
    After a few minutes, Johnny
returns, pokes his head through the curtains, and waves at April to come in.
    “Is it safe?” she asks.
    “Yeah, there’s no one here,” he
replies.
    The living room is modest with a
set of armchairs and a television. A few magazines litter a side table next to
an empty can of soda. Through the darkness, Johnny opens the curtains fully and
lets the sunlight in.
    “I thought you said he was a
packrat,” April says.
    “He is, but in the nicest sense
of the word,” he replies, showing her the kitchen.
    “Oh my God…” April says in
exasperation.
    In the small kitchen, the walls
are completely covered in shelves. Cans of food are organized, label outward
and spaced perfectly in rows. Boxes of instant potatoes, rice, and pancake mix
are sorted next along with bags of flour and spices. Gallon jugs of water line
the bottom rows, organized in the same way.
    “It looks like a grocery store,”
April comments.
    “I figure we can sleep here
tonight and take whatever we can carry before we head to the coast tomorrow,”
he says, picking up a can of peaches and turning it over in his hand before
placing it back on the shelf.
    “Do you actually think there are
rescue ships out there?”
    “Sure, there have to be some
coastguard ships just waiting to rescue people who have escaped the city.” He
waves off the question. “Are you hungry?” he asks with a smile.
    He thinks again about an island
as he opens the can of pears. He considers the cresting waves and fishing for
their food off the side of a boat. Maybe being rescued wouldn’t be the best
option , he thinks, maybe being away from the dead would be good enough.
     
    Through the night, the dead
pound at the fence line, creating a type of noise that would have been better
suited for a war protest.
    April stares at the ceiling,
pockmarked by glints of moonlight, drifting in through the open window. Her
eyes are heavy, but the sweet release of sleep eludes her as the dead grow
outside, howling out their rabid complaints.
    She places her hands under her
head and tries to get comfortable, but the noise is too much. She rises from
the bed and goes to the window. Down