The Rising Read online

  She was looking at the shotgun sitting pretty next to its shells.

  Back to the road my eyes darted. I adjusted the steering slightly so the wheels continued to stay in the middle of the gravel path. I would have looked longer to make sure we avoided the small road sign that told trucks with boat trailers where to park, but a groan of pain and a sob pulled my gaze back. And I worried that Z girl was getting curious. They had the dexterity to run…to kill.

  I’m sure they had the prowess to load and shoot a gun too.

  All I could see was a mass of fur and legs and a single navy boat shoe sitting ownerless on the carpet. It was a moving, undulating mess of monster, dog, and living person. Marty was away from the tussle, his back pressed up against one of the kitchen cabinets.

  Finally, Frank pulled the Z back by force. Sherry scrambled away. I couldn’t focus, though. I couldn’t see why her face looked contorted and pale. I had to look at the road again. By the time I could look once more at what was happening behind me, Frank had dragged the rabid creature several more feet from Sherry and Marty.

  The dog was panting heavily, his breath coming in loud huffs as he kept his jaws clamped around the Z’s arm. He was exhausted, still trying to keep some weight off his busted leg. And he’d left his flank unprotected.

  I wasn’t going to let that damn dog die.

  Road. I had to look at the road.

  Fuck.

  Fuck the road.

  I slammed on the brakes, causing anything standing to slam into the rough carpeting of the RV floor. I didn’t take the time to shift into park. Instead, I got up, letting the RV roll slowly forward with the momentum that wasn’t fully stayed by my foot hitting the brake. The girl monster hadn’t lost her footing for long.

  It was reaching for the shotgun, now shifted and shells spilling from one box after I’d hit the brakes so abruptly, and seemed to have forgotten the scene behind it or found a solution to incapacitate her meal faster. One of the Z adults was now at the mouth of the entrance of the door that was yawning open and closed. Frank was taking care of the blue-shoed monster. I could take care of the second monster and the full-grown fucker trying to get in the RV.

  This time I didn’t hesitate. I let instinct take over. I let the .38 do its job.

  Sight.

  Target.

  Trigger.

  I caught it in the right cheek, the flesh puncturing like rubber and wetter things, and the body was so small that the impact caused it to wobble violently. I rushed forward, kicking the Z girl hard in the stomach and sending her back towards the entrance she was still so near. She held her ground in the doorway, the Z adult holding the door frame behind her. I came forward and kicked again, using everything I knew about harnessing the strength in my body to a focal point to do the most damage.

  The diminutive girl demon fell backwards, a look of anger spread across her ruined face, and she hit the Z adult with enough force to knock them both out of the vehicle. The RV was barely moving now. I glanced forward to find that the large vehicle had strayed from the road a fraction and was headed towards one of the large metal poles that helped support the marina sign. We weren’t going fast enough to do damage. Barely creeping forward at five miles an hour, if that. It can wait. The road can wait.

  Slamming the RV door closed behind me and locking it so the other threats couldn’t reenter, I looked at Frank who was still wrestling with the Z he’d pulled away from Sherry. As I watched, the Rottweiler locked his drooling jaws around the creature’s little head and its black loops of hair were tendrils spilling from between canine teeth.

  I heard the crunch as his jaws tightened, as his teeth dug deeper into rotting flesh and child-sized bone. That didn’t bother me. What bothered me is when Frank staggered. My gut wrenched as I heard him yelp and release the Z child as the pain from his damaged leg took hold, the adrenaline not quite strong enough to fully quiet the sensation of injury. But the pain also spurred Frank into a frenzy of anger. Like an experienced swimmer fighting a violent undertow, Frank went for the flailing Z’s neck. He tore at the area between head and shoulders, worrying it like a dog with a favorite chew toy until he’d destroyed it. And then he was that swimmer once again, making it to shore between heaving breaths and tiring strokes.

  If I’d had any food in my stomach, I might have lost it watching the crushed, child-sized head roll away from the body and clunk across the floor to come to rest against the door.

  I didn’t want to touch the head or the headless body.

  More Zs would come, though. Shit, there were still two right outside the damn RV.

  I picked up the body of the Z kid. The legs swung limply as I carried it, one foot still bearing the boat shoe, the other naked. His toenails were painted purple. I absentmindedly wondered if he’d let his sister do that…before they’d died.

  Shifting the body so I could support it under one arm, I held the .38 with the other. There was only one bullet left. It was hard to unlock and open the door while supporting the body, but I managed. Besides, that was nothing compared to trying to toss the body out, not trip over the head that started rolling down the stairs, and keep the gun poised to shoot in case the Z girl I’d shot in the face or the adult monster came rushing forward.

  Nothing jumped out at me.

  That was because the demon with the pink boat shoes was gnawing on the Z adult’s body. She was sucking and chewing. I stood transfixed just a moment too long. The snacking monster looked up, staring at me holding the body. She didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.

  I think it was my imagination—I hoped it was my imagination—but it almost seemed like the bullet wound in the girl’s face was healing. Blood was pushing out slowly and I could see something metallic glinting in the light. It hadn’t been a through-and-through. The bullet had lodged in her head.

  It was coming out.

  I slammed the door closed, my breathing coming in little gasps. I didn’t move. I stood at the locked door and didn’t move.

  It had felt shitty to toss the body out, to let the form of the once-a-kid land against the gravel marina road, but there wasn’t time to dig a grave, bury him properly, or say a few nice words. Even if the demon sister hadn’t been there making a buffet out of the parent zombie. Jesus…what the hell was that about anyways? They couldn’t possibly heal. Could they?

  One thing was for damn sure, the boy monster’s head wasn’t going to magically reattach after a little blood from ‘momster’ dearest.

  I’d almost controlled my breathing and calmed myself down when screams of absolute fucking terror struck me in the back like shrapnel.

  I jerked around to see what both Marty and Sherry were yelling about.

  A third terror was clinging to the front of the motor home pounding at the glass with her head.

  Pounding.

  Pounding.

  Until a trickle of black blood began to pour from a fresh wound.

  She wore a pale pink bathing suit, the skirt made to look like a tutu. Her upper arms—no, her upper arm since only one was still attached to her body—donned a bright yellow inflatable swim device. The fingers of her one hand clung to the RV for dear life. Her right shoulder, where it should be connected to an upper arm, was a bloody, stringy stub. There were teeth marks, like odd now-blackened tattoos, scattered across her neck and upper chest.

  She’d been dinner once herself. And now she was hungry.

  I ran to the driver’s seat. The RV had stopped moving, aided by the fact that the marina exit was slightly uphill. I had my foot on the gas pedal before I was even seated. The RV lurched forward violently and the Z girl swung like a pendulum trying to hold on, her singular hand gripping with renewed fervor. I hit the windshield wipers function and sent the rubber-coated arms sliding across the glass.

  With one arm, the Z couldn’t let go to swat at it, but it was merely an annoyance. I floored the gas until I could push it no further. The RV was going fast now. We were under the large marina sign.


  “Guys, hold onto something,” I yelled, maybe a little too late for good warning, and I slammed on the brake pedal once again. I heard shit crashing to the ground behind me. The little, dark-skinned Z kid with the neat little corn rows that swayed with the movement of her head rocketed forward, her face jutting into the windshield and causing a circular depression of cracks that spider-webbed out in an almost beautiful decoration.

  If it’s already busted, might as well finish the damn job.

  I leaned over and grabbed the ASP off the passenger seat. I deployed it with a quick flick of my wrist.

  It took a single hit to break through the already-scarred glass. A second hit caught the small head with its rows of expertly-braided hair in the top center nearly where the skull would not have fused in an infant. I reared my arm back and then down again, letting the ASP connect in the same spot. This time, the head dented inward, looking like a malformed can on the discount aisle of a supermarket. I struck again.

  The skull cracked, poking upwards through the mangled, mushed scalp. Blood began to spill, following the corn row lines. Irrigation tracks in a farmer’s field.

  The small Z body fell backwards, landing on the road and then swiftly out of sight as the RV moved forward. It was not big enough to make our tires jump, which was both settling and unsettling at once. I glanced in the side mirror when we were far enough away and saw that it wasn’t quite dead. It was crawling, dragging itself with one arm, red dripping down its face.

  “Is everyone okay?” My voice sounded a little hollow. I think that hitting the once-a-kid with the ASP until her head caved in had stolen a little piece of my soul. Way more so than just tossing the headless body out onto the pavement. No one answered me and the silence made me glance over my shoulder. Sherry and Marty were huddled together, the young boy leaning into Sherry’s body as her arms wrapped around him protectively. Concentrating on the road again, driving at a steady pace now that there was nothing big and bad following us, I repeated myself.

  “I said is everyone okay,” I said it with more force the second time. Frank seemed to be the only one paying me any attention. I looked at him quickly when he let out a quiet whimper from the floor.

  “It’s okay, boy, you did great. Old Juan will stop in a minute and fix you up. You just hold on.” Stopping wasn’t really an option until I cleared the city, but I wasn’t going to tell anybody that. It had been stupid to come down here, and now with a half-empty tank and a damaged windshield, I had to figure out pretty quickly where to go.

  “Juan?” Sherry’s voice was soft, a tremor laced through my name.

  “Yeah, what’s up? You okay?” I was thinking she was going to apologize for taking us into that death trap. Sure, it would be nice to hear, but it doesn’t really matter now. What mattered was the road in front of us and where the hell we were going.

  That was the most important thing right now.

  “Juan,” Sherry said my name again, the tremor was an earthquake now, “I’m bleeding.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  Cold chills ran up my spin to terminate on the back of my neck, making my hair stand on end. “What…how? I didn’t see you get bit.” My mind raced, thinking over the events. I don’t know how I managed to keep the RV on the road with the way my hands started shaking. She couldn’t have gotten bit. I saw everything that had… No, I hadn’t been watching the whole time. Did the Z get that close to her? Yes, shit, it had. I remember looking back. They’d been all jumbled up—monster, dog, and woman.

  She’d been bit.

  Shit. Sherry had been bit.

  The thought of one of us becoming infected had never occurred to me, and now that it had happened, the ramifications were too hard to imagine. I felt sweat break out on my brow and I hesitated to answer Sherry. How much time did we have before she turned?

  One minute?

  Thirty minutes?

  A day?

  How fast did the infection take hold?

  I couldn’t keep driving. This had to be handled.

  I took my foot off the pedal and began to ease to the side of the road. We weren’t far enough away from the shit storm we’d just escaped to be stopping, but what choice did we have? If I had to kill Sherry…

  God.

  I knew I had one more round left in the gun tucked in my waist. One round. And then we’d be left with only the ASP. I didn’t think I could bash her skull in. No, I couldn’t do that. It was one thing to do it to a strange kid, a kid monster, but I couldn’t do that to her. And how was I going to kill her in front of the kid? Could I even kill her? How could I kill Sherry? She was my friend.

  She was…

  Fuck, I cared about her too much.

  The RV had nearly stopped by now; my deeply-tanned hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that the knuckles went ghostly.

  “Why are you slowing down?” Sherry’s voice was a little louder, the vibrating fear a little less, and the question struck me as the stupidest I’d ever heard.

  Sure, you’re just turning into an undead killer, Sherry. Let’s not stop. Let’s keep driving along like nothing’s the matter.

  “I need to take a look at your wound…I need to treat it. Maybe there’s a way to keep the infection from taking hold. Alcohol. Flushing. Maybe some antifungal?” I was hoping my voice didn’t give away the real thoughts going through my head. I had no idea what medicine to put on the wound. I had no idea how to keep the zombie bite from changing her. I had no idea how I was going to kill her.

  To my surprise, Sherry snorted out a laugh. “You’re a dumb ass, Juan.” She laughed again, but it was a tremulous, spastic sound. Something you’d hear from a teenage girl who’d stayed up all night chatting rather than getting any sleep.

  The RV was stopped now. I shifted into park and turned around so I can search her face. Is laughter the first sign? Is she turning even now?

  “Sherry, listen to me, we have to treat your wound. Think about Marty. Think about what you might do to him if we don’t clean and bandage it.” I spoke as if I was talking to someone past the point of comprehending even simple things.

  “Well I don’t think this wound can be treated the way you’re thinking, Juan. I’ve…” she hesitated, the laughter totally gone, and flicked a gaze at Marty, “I just need you to stop at the next safe gas station so I can get some female supplies.”

  “Female supplies?” Hygienic pads would make a good bandage. And…any wound can be treated. You’d think it would have dawned on me. I’m not an idiot. But, no, I sat there like a dumb fuck with my thumb up my ass.

  Sherry must have seen that I wasn’t ‘getting’ it. She clamped her hands over Marty’s ears and stage-whispered. “Jesus, Juan. I started my period. If you don’t stop somewhere and get me some pads or something, then I’m going to be sporting blood-soaked pants and hoping the killer kids don’t have good senses of smell.”

  My mouth dropped into an ‘O’ of realization. “Ah. Right, female supplies,” I say the words slowly and feeling even more stupid for not understanding right off the bat.

  Sherry dropped her hands from Marty’s ears, giving me a ‘wow, you’re a smart one there, buddy’ sort of look. Marty had moved to sit next to Sherry rather than against her. Frank was laid out beside the boy breathing heavily. Since we were stopped, I stood and moved to kneel next to the dog. Stroking his blood-splattered fur, I tried to check for bites or breaks. His leg was worse than before, broken in more than one place now. The way his breathing sounded, so strained and punctuated by little gasps, I worried he had a broken rib or two as well.

  I worried that it was the kind of busted rib that could perforate a lung. He wouldn’t survive that. I knew basic first aid, you had to when you were in my line of work. Some inexperienced fighter was always getting injured. But I didn’t know enough. Not nearly enough. “Thanks, Frank. Thanks so much.” I stopped trying to assess the damage on his body and I just pet him softly. Marty’s hand joined mine after a while. The touches seemed
to calm Frank, calm him enough to close his eyes fully and drift off into a labored sleep. I wished I knew what to do for him, how to ease the pain.

  All I could do was start driving again and hope that something or someone would come along that could help him.

  I stopped for Sherry as soon as I could.

  We’d been through a few towns, saw a few stores. They’d all been overrun with the bestial kids and drone-like adults. Once, as we’d passed too close for comfort to a small strip mall, several of the Zs had moved to the edge of the road to watch the big RV roll by. I don’t know why they didn’t chase us.

  I don’t like to look a gift horse in the damn mouth.

  I ended up choosing a truck stop, a big one, surrounded by 18-wheelers and a big sign advertising hot showers and free internet. Not a family-looking place, maybe we would get lucky. It seemed safe. ‘Seemed’ safe. I don’t like that. I don’t like it being a fucking apocalypse and not being able to just waltz through the sliding doors of a convenience store and grab a giant drink, a candy bar, and a pack of crackers. That’s the kind of shit that we take for granted.

  Sherry wasn’t happy with me. I could have chosen other places to stop, places far closer to Corpus. We’d driving nearly a hundred miles with Marty cradling Frank and Sherry laying on her side throwing pissed glances my way. I knew it wasn’t just the cramps that made her angry.

  I’d made her leave her best friend behind. No, her family. She didn’t have anyone else really. She and Susan had been friends forever. I remember watching them laugh during kickboxing class. Neither of them had any natural skill, but they had fun.

  Not that having had fun was going to help them any now. Shit, if they’d listened more and laughed less, they might be better ready to protect themselves.

  “It took you long enough to find a place to stop,” Sherry grumbled mutinously. I’m pretty sure she’d have the crew rising up against me if we were sailing in the middle of the ocean on a pirate ship. Better not make jokes about boats right now to her right now. Leaving behind the marina was probably still too fresh.