This is the eighteenth chapter of the zombie serial The Dead Life. You can learn more about the story over at the project hub. This series originally ran on Haunted MTL but is being edited and updated in the lead-up to new installments to continue the story.
You can read the prior chapter here.
Day 17
By the time Dani’s cart had clattered onto the asphalt, her forearms were aching from having avoided the cart spilling over down the embankment. It took so much of her strength to keep the cart from tilting over. She rolled the cart forward, just off the curb, and in that moment, her hands loosened from the handle. The cart slammed into the Cadillac with a heavy crash. A rush of blood began to circulate in her now slack arms, and she nearly yelped from the sudden pain.
“Damn it. Sorry,” she groaned.
Edgar was idling nearby, having turned the car around. He rolled down the driver’s side window and leaned out as the cart bounced back from the impact. “You two start going. We’ll ride behind you and give you some cover.”
Dani glanced at Jimmy. He had already begun to push one of the carts down the street, which rattled terribly. The siren was long gone, so the loudest things around were the shopping carts and the Cadillac.
Goddamn it, she thought.
Dani grimaced and pushed her cart forward. She pushed herself to catch up to Jimmy. He began to pick up the pace, not quite a jog, but close enough. Dani picked up her pace, too. Edgar pulled the car out of park, and it began to roll forward, slowly, giving them a little distance, but still at a steady pace.
It was one block, but to their right was a trailer park, to their left was a back alley to a business park, and who knew if any ghouls had made their way to the crossing of Lyon and Acacia. Would they arrive at the cross street only to have that cruiser scream by their base?
Dani glanced behind her, just past the Cadillac, towards Orange Ave. Sure enough, dozens of ghouls had begun to converge on their position, hellish moans carrying on rotting, stinking wind. She gagged at the smell, pausing slightly to fight off nausea.
The pace felt glacial. Dani knew, logically, that she and Jimmy were pushing their carts as fast as they possibly could. But between weaving through debris, abandoned cars, and the consistent creep of Edgar’s Cadillac, things felt as though they dragged on. Their lives were dependent on Bob being able to get the gate open so everyone could get behind the safety of the storage yard’s walls, just before the crush of undead bodies arrived.
…
They had cleared about half of the block when the ghouls caught up to the Cadillac. The car bought Edgar, Mary, and Alicia protection, but greasy, shredded fingertips would slap and break on contact with the car’s body and windows. Even as the ghouls fell to pieces from violently ripping at the car, they were relentless, and in time enough of them could find some kind of handhold, or pile onto the car itself. Even if they could not get in, they could trap those inside. And who knew if the windows could stand up to a dozen flailing limbs indefinitely.
Edgar watched. Dani and Jimmy were pushing their carts as quickly as they could, but the ghouls were surprisingly fast now, as though the stimulation whipped them into a frenzy. He was worried their pace wouldn’t be enough. He did not want to be stuck in a car, covered in corpses.
Edgar glanced into the rearview mirror, past the exhausted Mary and her daughter, out to the street behind him. The bulk of the ghouls were far enough behind that it wouldn’t be a problem. The ghouls that had cut across the parking lot, however, had managed to stumble onto a shortcut. By Edgar’s count, he had about four ghouls right on top of his car. They couldn’t get in, and the windows were rolled up. He and the others were fine inside, but until he could lose the dead, he didn’t want to risk them coming close to the shopping carts.
Edgar dug around with a free hand at the back of his pants and drew the Glock he had hidden on him. He hadn’t separated from it since he and Jimmy had joined the group at the storage yard. He wouldn’t give up his gun for anything. He was thankful for that now.
He placed the Glock on the passenger seat and glanced back. The girl – Alicia, was it? – hadn’t noticed, warily eying the rear passenger window. She flinched when an oozing palm slapped at the glass. Edgar flinched, too.
He would need to pick the ghouls off, somehow, but he couldn’t drive and shoot. He looked through the rearview mirror and watched two of the ghouls fall to the ground. Now there were three immediately surrounding the rolling car.
Edgar couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the sight of the falling ghouls. He quickly turned his attention back to Dani and Jimmy ahead of him. Out of impulse, he scanned the area, a habit from driving back when the world had traffic.
Dani and Jimmy had passed an access road – a narrow lane between a building and a mobile home park with cracked asphalt full of potholes. Edgar glanced down the lane and saw a pair of ghouls stumble out – Dani and Jimmy hadn’t seen them. The ghouls stumbled toward the Cadillac.
“God damn it,” Edgar muttered.
Edgar cranked down the window, not all the way, but enough that he could fit his Glock and heavy hand outside. The two ghouls that had crept out from behind the building moved toward Dani and Jimmy. Edgar tapped the horn lightly, warning the pair. Jimmy glanced backward, puzzled. Dani pointed toward her left, and Jimmy turned to see the two undead wobbling down the sidewalk and nearly collapsing off the curb.
The ghouls seemed to regain their footing and continued their march. Edgar honked again, and the rotting chasers turned their attention to the Cadillac. They stumbled toward the driver’s side door with lurching, clumsy steps.
…
Jimmy wasn’t sure what the best course of action was. Their group was more than halfway home by now, but they were trailing walking corpses, and one pair arrived a little too close for comfort. Edgar has been riding slowly enough to keep the horde as a whole in check, but the other two made him wary. Where else might they emerge?
For a moment, he thought of shredded, oozing arms reaching out from a storm drain. Gnashing teeth from skull-like faces lolling out from hedges. He thought of broken fingertips digging into his arm from an abandoned car he hadn’t cleared. He thought of Dani being dragged around a corner by a tidal swell of rotting bodies. He thought of Edgar opening a door and some floor-bound monstrosity grabbing an ankle and sinking their broken teeth into Edgar’s leg.
He shuddered. They’d been unprepared for this supply run. Arrogant, even. The plan made sense, but the preparation was not adequate. He shook his head to clear it. No time now. He could evaluate everything that needed to be done once they were safe.
If safety was in the cards. He wasn’t sure yet.
Dani picked up her pace, and Jimmy followed suit. The sound of a gunshot ripped through the air.
Jimmy whirled around to see that Edgar had fired at one of the ghouls. A chorus of wild groaning followed from the trail behind the car.
Dani had turned back just as Edgar had taken aim and fired at the other attacker at the passenger side.
“What the fuck, where did he get the gun?” she asked.
Jimmy said nothing.
What could he say? Edgar had kept his gun hidden on him since they’d arrived at the Family Storage. Jimmy had said nothing. Safety first.
He snapped at Danielle, grabbing her attention. “Doesn’t matter right now, we’re almost there.”
Dani glanced between Jimmy and the Cadillac. She furrowed her brow. “A fucking secret gun? The whole time?”
Jimmy grunted and turned his attention back to his cart. This would complicate their stay. He had to think of something.
“Hey, we’ll have Ed lead them away for a bit and come back around, alright, when we get to the gate?” he asked.
Jimmy had hoped he wasn’t too obvious in giving himself time to smooth things over.
Dani cast a harsh glance and shrugged as she focused on the shopping cart. “Sounds like a plan.”
Jimmy slowed down slightly, just getting in range ahead of the front bumper of the car. “Ed, when we get to the gate, we’ll get Mary out – can you lead them away in the car and come back around?”
Edgar honked with the briefest of taps.
Jimmy jogged back toward Dani’s position, pushing the cart along. Dani seemed exhausted. He was fine with the weight; He’d worked on a ranch. As for the plan, it would need to work for now. He’d need to smooth everything over.
They were almost on Acacia, where they would need to make a turn. Dani and Jimmy began shifting their carts to the left, and Edgar slowed the Cadillac down a bit to give them room. Hungry corpses continued to moan and stumble after them all.
The whirr of the siren ripped through the air again, and Jimmy and Dani stared down the cross street on the right. The car was fast enough that trying to cross the street now would be dangerous. All they could do was helplessly watch the police cruiser approach their position with a trail of shambling, human shapes in its wake.
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