Zombie Exodus Novel, Chapter 9 - Emma (Patreon)

Emma stared at her distorted image in the broken glass shards of the pharmacy window. Below the words, Fixman’s Apothecary, she watched a version of herself, reflected back, moving with her, mimicking each gesture. She smiled, and the Emma in the glass smiled, but it was crooked and harsh, like the mouth of one of the infected.

Is this how I’d look if I turned into one of those poor things?

No, you idiot. You’d look worse.

The wind blew with a sharp whistle, and a large pane of the broken glass swayed and threatened to fall. It hung from a portion of the window still attached, and one more gust may snap it off. Emma reached her hand out to the bottom of the sharp edge, creeping her fingers closer to the jagged edge.

“Are you nuts?” Heather yelled from the pharmacy. “Don’t touch that.”

Emma’s hand shot back like that of a scolded child. “Sorry, I was afraid the glass might fall and shatter.”

Heather walked through the opening where the store’s front door hung, trampling bits of broken wood and trash in her path. “Are you setting up to remodel or something? Leave that to your sister, before you get hurt. That reminds me, did you try to call her yet? She’s probably worried if she’s even awake. That girl can drink.” She knelt down and placed several bottles of aspirin into a black backpack.

Emma reached into her back pocket and yanked out the cell phone. It was strange her sister had not called yet. Abigail was the worrier, and though she was only two years older, she mothered Emma ever since their childhood. With Emma being gone for several hours, Abi must be up by now. Maybe, she read the note Emma had left and went back to sleep.

Or maybe someone broke in and infected her.

No, don’t say that.

She lifted the phone and stared at the screen. It was Abigail’s phone. “Oops.”

“What’s that mean?” Heather asked, her eyes squinting with worry. “What happened?”

“I know why Abi hasn’t called yet. I took her phone.” Emma checked her other back pocket, and there was her own phone as well.

“Damn, well, that blows.” Heather lifted the backpack onto her shoulder and tumbled back a step from the weight. “I’m sure she’ll find a phone and reach out. Hopefully, she memorized your number. These days, everyone plugs in digits and never bothers learning them. Come on. Let’s head to my place.” She started along the sidewalk away from the empty pharmacy.

“Oh, you’re done looting?” Emma said in an admonishing tone and followed after her friend.

“It’s picked clean. I found some pain killers and a few packs of batteries. People are jerks. They left nothing behind.” Heather crossed the street with a brisk walk as the weight of the backpack lent to her momentum.

“You mean the people stealing are jerks?”

“Why are you trying to make me feel guilty? You know it doesn’t work.”

“It’s fun to try.”

Emma caught up to Heather and walked beside her down the center of Elm Street, once a bustling main strip of stores and restaurants, now empty or barricaded shells of their former selves. A burnt car stood sideways across the road, black scorches marking the side, and the crisp remnants of a body hung from the back window. Empty casings littered the street, and bullet holes dotted the side of Big Joe’s Burger Bungalow. Blood stains streaked brick walls. Trash and debris covered the sidewalks. Even the street sign pole lie bent and fallen.

They walked along Elm, Heather stepping on the faded yellow line once separating lanes of traffic, holding her arms out like she was balancing on a tight rope. Emma watched her friend with fondness.

Even in the apocalypse, she finds a way to make light of it all.

Stupid bitch is going to get herself killed.

Shut up! Don’t say such things.

Emma shook her head. The words played over and over in her mind, and though she knew they were fake, she couldn’t get rid of them. It was getting worse. She forgot to take her pills in the hysteria of the outbreak. It was not her fault. When she heard of the viral plague spreading throughout the world, everything else became unimportant. For two days she didn’t sleep, didn’t shower or eat. She didn’t take her meds. All she knew was the TV news with the same main story. Abigail tried to keep her on track by making her plates of food and even placing those little octagonal-shaped pills on the coffee table with a cup of water. Emma consumed none of it, not from some self-punishing negligence or acute depression over the end of the world. She was fascinated by it: the infected, the chaos, the anarchy. Everything was changing. The human timeline had a hiccup. Nothing would be the same.

“Over here,” Heather said, grabbing Emma by the wrist and leading her to the side of the street behind a graffiti-painted van.

So caught up in her thoughts, Emma didn’t hear the howls moving toward them. There were two of them just at the corner in full sprint, their bodies at the midpoint of crossing over from human to zombie. One wore the shards of a National Guard uniform, though much of it was covered in blood and human soil. A cavern of serrated skin and bone existed where his stomach used to be and made his body fold and lean sideways like he wanted to fall. Beside him ran a woman in scrubs, surprisingly clean despite a few specks of dirt near the ankles of her pant legs. Most of her face was gone, leaving layered skin and skull the color of rust.

“Shit,” Heather said and squeezed Emma’s hand. She looked through the van’s window and then scanned the stores to her right. “We need to hide. Gotta find somewhere.”

Emma saw the two infected coming at them, but her eyes fell to spray-painted words on the side of the van, “Watch Yer Back.” She traced the edges of the letters with her finger, scraping off red paint with her red fingernail.

“Do you see anywhere?” Heather barked. “Maybe that pet store—“

A heavy motor roared from the road behind them as a military Humvee rolled up Elm Street. The noise broke Emma from her stupor, and as she turned to the truck, a tan armored monstrosity with a mounted machine gun tore along the street, cutting around debris and cars with sharp squeals. From a compartment on the roof stood a soldier who swung the gun around and aimed the long barrel at the two creatures ahead. Loud thumps cleared the air as the barrel shook and lit up, and simultaneously the uniformed zombie twitched to his right and collapsed to the ground, followed by his dismembered arm and top helmet of skull.

Heather ducked behind the van in a low, fetal position, and Emma dropped onto her, shielding her friend’s body with her own. Again the machine gun thumped, and Emma felt the shock through her body. The zombie’s howl came to an abrupt stop, and the Humvee rolled past the van, clipping the bumper and knocking it a few feet forward without stopping. 

Heather let out a weak yelp and flinched at the impact, and Emma squeezed her body. She looked up as the sound of the military vehicle moved away, and from the view under the van’s chassis, saw the Humvee turning the corner from Elm to Carpenter Street.

“We’re safe. They’re gone.” Emma sat up and felt something sticky on her hand. She pulled at it, realized it was gum, and tossed it under the van. “Eww.”

Heather took her time to stand, smacking off dirt from her pink-and-green, camouflage-colored pants. “This is ri-dic-u-lous. I remember when this neighborhood was safe. These zombies are ruining everything. Our government needs to step in and handle the situation. I mean, the property values are plummeting and businesses are closing. Pretty soon, no one will want to live here but the dead.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “That sounds like you’re advocating discrimination against the infected.”

Heather heaved her backpack over her shoulder and walked around the van. “Sarcasm and humor is how I cope. I feel better now.”

They continued along Elm Street along the sidewalk in the shade made by the short buildings. A low rumble built in the distance, causing them to pause, but as the clouds barked a sudden thunderclap, they walked again.

“It’s going to rain soon,” Emma said. “The sun is almost hidden by the clouds.”

“And me without an umbrella. At least we’re almost to my house.”

They turned down Acorn Street, picking up their pace. Emma glanced to the row of boarded-up stores and residential homes and imagined a scene from a few weeks ago when this neighborhood was packed with people shopping, eating at cafes, and otherwise enjoying a spring day. She spotted Cerdo Sabroso, her favorite restaurant.

THE best shredded pork tacos. I miss them.

Chef Arturo is infected, for sure.

On the corner of 11th and Holland, the neighborhood turned residential, with two-story brick and stone row homes. Wooden boards covered most. The rest had shattered windows, broken doors, and other signs of abandonment. Heather’s face dropped. Emma watched her best friend as she walked—it was the same way Heather looked after her father died.

Around another corner, they stepped on to 10th street and heard the laughter of revelry. More sounds came: glass shattering, the low pop of a small-caliber firearm, a human howl. A group of figures stood in the middle of the street. Two swung baseball bats at a damaged taxi cab, while two others searched through a blue van. Another stood back and surveyed his companions, a revolver in hand, pointed down. He was young but had mature facial features, a few days of stubble, and a neck tattoo. His leather jacket was too big on his thin frame, and he scanned the area while his friends enjoyed the freedom of lawlessness.

“Over here,” Heather said and pulled Emma to crouch behind the burnt-out frame of a police cruiser. “Why can’t things be easy? I haven’t crouched this much since my last camping trip.”

“Maybe they’re just fooling around and won’t bother us,” Emma said and when she looked at her friend, she saw confusion and irritation.

“Are you high? They’re pure trouble. People stupid enough to draw attention during a zombie outbreak are looking for people like us to rob, harass, or worse.” Heather shifted to peer around the front of the car. “We can wait for those idiots to attract a zombie, or maybe sneak along the line of parked cars. My house is right there, ahead of those looters.”

Heather pointed to a home with a stone porch and large bay windows covered in thick curtains. The upstairs windows, framed in a white siding, gave the house the look of an angry face peering down on the sidewalk. Two trees loomed from the edge of the curb, towering above the second floor.

Heather crept farther along the blackened vehicle. “We don’t need to pass them, but just need to—"

Emma stood and walked around the back of the police car, her face blank.

“Get back here,” Heather said, dulling her shout to a whisper

As she walked, Emma ignored her name called from behind and focused on the five citizens of the apocalypse causing mayhem in the middle of 10th and Holland streets. Whatever fear, apprehension, or self-preservation should exist in her was gone. With each step, she felt more distant from this world, as if she was hovering above the earth, looking down at her body walking into a bad situation. 

From the side of the police car, Heather moved to the next parked vehicle and to the next, leapfrogging out of sight and felt in her pockets for a set of keys.

The man with the gun turned to face Emma, and at first glance, a smile broke out. He scratched his balding scalp with the tip of the revolver’s barrel. “Hey, girl. Lost?” His words drew the group’s attention, and as Emma advanced down the center of the narrow street, the other four looters joined their leader. Two women and three men waited and watched.

“What are you doing here?” Emma said, and she circled to their left, close to the blue van they were looting. She looked inside the darkly tinted windows. An infected woman lie in the passenger seat, her body sliced and stabbed in so many places, her fresh brownish blood coated her corpse like a second skin.

“Doing what we want, when we want.” The man with the gun moved to the van’s bumper. “Live around here? What’s your name?” As he spoke, his companions spread around the lone woman, circling her.

“Emma,” she said, brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and eyed Heather across the street and slinked up the front steps to her house. “No, I’m just wandering around, trying to find a safe place to stay. Maybe you know where I can go?”

The five let out a round of collective laughter.

“Who is this girl?” the tallest one said. He swung his wooden bat over his shoulder, turning it so the bloody part pointed away from his t-shirt.

“I said I’m Emma. Are you deaf?” Emma shot him a puzzled look, though she smirked at the end.

One of the women shot a hand up and smacked Emma’s cheek. Her head turned from the blow, and though the sharp pain registered, it felt like nothing, like a child had done it. In the reflection from the van’s window, she spotted her cheek turning red, and the evidence of the injury enraged her. She did not feel the pain, but the fact that someone wanted to hurt her swelled up a blistering rage.

Emma lashed out and shoved the woman, knocking her to the ground with a thud. Surprised, the other four stood for an awkward moment until the sudden act of aggression registered.

“What the hell?” the leader said and pointed the gun at the strange woman.

Emma did not flinch, did not break her emotionless gaze, nor look away. The gun mattered little to her. She could not predict an outcome wherein the man would shoot. They had the propensity for violence, but she was amusement to them. Her unpredictability excited them all, and though all her emotions had drained away, she could still sense them in others. They longed for excitement, and killing her would end it. She was safer than they would want her to believe.

“Bud, hit her,” the woman said as she rose from the street. 

The tall one named Bud hesitated, but when he saw Emma’s smirk turn to a grin, he spun the baseball bat to waist-high and drove the end into her gut. 

With a breathy grunt, Emma doubled over, arms across her stomach. She sucked in air, which came in spurts as the pain stopped her from wanting to move her diaphragm.

What are you doing? They’ll kill you.

Shut up, you coward.

As Emma fought to breathe, the woman she shoved stepped over, grabbed her shirt, and forced her against the van. A knife slid along the vehicle’s metal surface, creating a screech that ran shivers through them all. Emma glanced at the weapon and the fresh blood blotted on the flat blade.

“We would have let you go. We would have had our fun, but now you’re gonna suffer.” The woman yanked back her arm and pointed the knife’s tip toward Emma.

“Britt, wait,” the leader said and took a few lazy steps forward. His expression as he walked reminded Emma of her fifth grade teacher, Mr. Purcell, who acted like teaching was the hardest profession in the world, took no pleasure in the job, but never missed a day of the school year.

Britt hesitated and then brought the knife flat against Emma’s cheek. “Zach just saved your life.”

Emma could smell the blood on the blade, an acrid odor of burnt metal and human bile. She opened her mouth to speak, but the odor gagged her. Something bubbled in her gut, and fluid rose in her throat. A watery, tan substance expelled from her mouth and hit the street, though some flecked on Britt’s arm.

“Oh damn. This bitch puked on me.” Britt reeled back and kicked Emma’s shoulder, sending her sideways into the van.

Emma did not care about the sudden blow or the vomit. Her mind shot back to reality like an electric shock. She saw the group of troublemakers and saw she was alone with them. Fear crept in like an old song in her memory. She felt a piece of metal on her back.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” Zach’s soothing voice said. His hand on her back still held the pistol which slid along her spine. His other hand helped Emma to stand. “Come on now. Chin up. No one is going to hurt you.”

Emma leaned against the car and looked up to see the leader smiling at her. She was clear now, Emma again, and the full weight of her situation pushed against her in an instance. The jeers and muttering of the men behind Zach spoke to the mischief they intended, while Britt’s harsh stare told a story of pain and consequence. Zach’s face confessed a darker outcome. Emma felt an unnerving desire to run and hide and cry—all of the things she would not do. Breaking down would not help her cause.

Zach’s thumbed wiped a dab of vomit from Emma’s chin. “You’re such a cute girl. No need to be upset or cry. You’re safe with me but only with me. You want to be safe, right?”

No one saw Heather from behind, but they heard the gunshot from her rifle, and the explosion of the van’s back window. Glass shattered, and everyone ducked out of instinct, and as they heard the click of the bolt, their hands raised.

“No one turn around or look this way. I have no problem shooting anyone who flinches,” Heather yelled, her voice strong and hateful.

A moment flashed in Emma’s mind of Heather in the sixth grade rendition of Grease when she played Rizzo. Emma never saw her act so tough, until now.

“Let’s go, Emma,” Heather barked, and the intensity made Emma flinch. “Anyone moves unless I tell them to move, and I put a bullet in his knee cap. Or her knee cap. I’m a feminist.”

Emma rushed to her friend’s side, and grabbed an arm to steady herself as the pain in her stomach from the earlier blow with the baseball bat finally kicked in. She felt Heather’s arm shaking as she held up the rifle and braced it against her own shoulder.

“You—Gargomel—toss the Glock,” Heather yelled.

“How do you know what kind of gun it is?” Emma whispered.

Heather shrugged. “Guessed.”

“I’m not throwing my gun away,” Zach said, his voice even and all-too-confident. He shuffled in a semi-circle to face her.

Heather fired into the van’s tire, which popped and hissed. 

Zach raised his hands higher, dropping the pistol. “Alright, just chill.”

“Shut up. Now, everyone, keep your hands raised and start walking down the street. If you look back my way, you’re dead. I’ve been hunting with my father for years and can hit a running deer at three-hundred yards through the forest. Trust me, I won’t miss you.”

With no hesitation, the group walked along the center of 10th Street, hands toward the sky, marching in silence as Heather kept the rifle’s barrel pointed in their direction. When they reached the corner, the leader broke into a sprint, and the others followed, disappearing around the corner.

“You never went hunting with your dad,” Emma said through gritted teeth, the pain worse when she spoke.

Heather lowered the gun and blew a hard sigh. “Oh right. I guess I’m a liar. I’ll say a Hail Mary later. Come on. Let’s get inside before that gang of hooligans comes back. I swear, this neighborhood used to be hooligan free. Now? An abundance of hooligans.”

“Stop making me laugh,” Emma said as the two walked toward Heather’s house a few yards away. The door was wide open, and the smell of fresh coffee wafted out.

“When did you make coffee?” Emma asked as she hobbled up the front steps.

“Priorities, Emma. I ran in, grabbed the rifle from the top cabinet above the fridge, flipped the pot on, and ran out to save you,” Heather said and held up a plastic medicine bottle. “And I grabbed your spare pills on the way out.”

As Emma crossed the threshold into her best friend’s home, she felt the soothing comfort of safety overtake her. The feeling faded as she pictured her sister back at their apartment: worried, confused, alone. 

I need to reach her. If only she would call.

She’s probably already dead. Soon, you will be, too.