Walking with the Dead Read online

  Waking with the Dead

  Waking with the Dead

  PJ Dziekan

  Copyright © 2018 PJ Dziekan

  All rights reserved.

  For Rich, who puts up with my zombie obsession.

  For Rick, who feeds my zombie obsession.

  For Jim, who nurtures my zombie obsession.

  And for my Dad…

  Without him teaching me to read all those years ago, there wouldn’t be a zombie obsession.

  Love and miss you, Dad

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sarah missed the end of the world because of the flu. She’d been down five days, completely incommunicado. No phone, no TV, no computer. While she rarely picked up the latest bug, when she got sick, she really got sick. So she spent the better part of a week, knocking back shots of Nyquil, followed by a shot of Jack, since Nyquil quit working the way it was supposed to after they changed the fucking formula. She slept for nearly five days straight, surfacing occasionally only to nibble on toast and sip some water.

  When she finally felt close to normal, she stepped into the shower and washed away days of fever sweat and sleep induced drool. She was finally hungry, close to starving, and was determined to go out and get a greasy pizza from Ardolino’s down the street. She would probably only manage one or two slices, but she could use the rest to bribe Chuck into giving her the notes for the classes she missed. She couldn’t afford to get behind. And Chuck would do almost anything for her without expecting a return. She shamelessly took advantage of that.

  She got out of the shower; towel dried her shoulder length dark hair, and quickly worked it into a French braid. She walked naked into her bedroom, wondering if Chuck wanted to join her for pizza. She reached for her cell phone. Dead. She hadn’t charged it for five days. Shrugging, she plugged it in and set it on the dresser next to her antiquated laptop. She probably had a hundred emails, but she was too hungry to wait for the computer to boot up. I’ll check them later, she thought while she finished drying. As she was dressing in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt – she was sick of sweats – she noticed the gauntness of her cheeks, the protruding hip bones. She was always thin, but the flu really melted the pounds away. “Maybe three pieces of pizza,” she whispered to herself as she grabbed her wallet and keys and slid her feet into her canvas shoes. Her stomach rumbling, she left the apartment for the first time in nearly a week.

  ♦

  While it was late evening, close to ten, Sarah was surprised not to see anyone around. The neighborhood she lived in housed mostly college students, and Lord knew they didn’t hold to regular hours. It was odd not to see a group of guys walking towards Adam’s Bar or a pair of girls giggling their way across the street. Her mind registered the empty streets, but her growling stomach distracted her. She picked up her pace, mouth already watering at the thought of the thick crust, tangy sauce and hunks of pepperoni.

  Ardolino’s was closed. “What the…” She said, pulling on the locked door. The place was always busy, college students and families going in and out, from 11:00am until midnight and later some days. She moved in closer to the glass, cupping her hands around her face. Did she see movement back there? In the dining room, in the back?

  “Hey!” she called out, pounding on the door. “Someone in there?” She swore she could see movement, but no one came.

  Sighing, she turned and leaned back on the door. No pizza. She’d have to go home and see what was buried in the freezer.

  She looked up the street to see a guy staggering towards her. “Great,” she thought. “Can’t get Mr. Ardolino’s attention, but got no problem with the drunks.” Bemused, she watched him make his way up the street. His gait was unsteady, causing him to lurch from side to side. He was almost shuffling. “Wow, he really tied one on,” she thought as he drew steadily closer. She considered crossing the street to avoid him, but figured she had as much right as he to be on the street. She started walking back to her apartment, which would take her right past him.

  She walked as she always had, like she had a purpose, her strides even and steady. She held her keys fisted in her hand, her foyer and door key poking through her fingers. But she doubted that she would need them. He seemed so drunk that a slight push would send him on his ass.

  As he walked closer, passing from light to dark as he moved under the street lights, Sarah noticed a dark stain on the lower half of his face. Had he been in a fight? Was he the victim or just another mean drunk who got the shit beat out of him? She now reconsidered crossing the road. She had enough of mean drunks in her life; she didn’t need to deal with another one. “Fuck it,” she thought. “This is my street, too.” She clenched her keys tighter and put more purpose in her walk.

  He was only about ten feet away when he seemed to notice her. His head snapped up and he made some sort of noise. An arm came up to reach for her as his gait picked up a bit.

  Sarah eyed him warily as they drew nearer. Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her. It looked like half his throat was gone. She shook her head. Probably hallucinating due to lack of food, she thought. She was prepared to step into the street as she went past him when he reached out and grabbed her left arm.

  “What the fuck, dude?” she said, pulling away from him.

  But his hand gripped tighter and he began to pull her to him. She dug her heels in, trying to pull away, but he was scary strong. She realized with horror that he was moving her arm towards his mouth. This asshole wants to bite me! She thought as her right arm came up, keys fisted, to beat him off.

  Her hand connected with the side of his head, the keys scraping his flesh. Her bones vibrated from the impact, but the drunk didn’t react. He kept pulling her arm closer to his mouth.

  Sarah hit him again and again, tearing his flesh, screaming as she did so, but nothing changed. He pulled her arm so close, she could feel his hot breath through her t-shirt. She braced for the sensation, the pain that was about to come.

  Unexpectedly, her arm was free. The sudden release had her stumbling back, and with most of her weight on her heels, she fell on her ass. She looked up to see another man, another stranger with a baseball bat, bringing it down on the drunk’s head with a wet splat. “Oh my God!” she exclaimed.

  The guy with the bat turned his gaze to her. “Did he bite you?” His voice was deep, but with a ragged tone.

  “Wh-what?” She looked from the stranger to the drunk, brains and blood oozing onto the sidewalk. “What the fuck? You killed him!”

  “Did he bite you?” The stranger repeated.

  “Wh-uh, no,” Sarah managed. She was still staring at the dead drunk.

  “Then let’s go.” The stranger held out his hand. “They usually travel in packs. There’ll be more coming.”

  Sarah recoiled from his hand. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You just killed that guy!”

  “It wasn’t a guy; it was one of them. Where’ve you been for the past week?” He dropped his hand to his side.

  “I was sick…” Sarah’s voice trailed off as she stared at the corpse in front of her.

  He shook his head impatiently. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here before more show up.” A sound came to him and he peered down the street past Sarah. “Too late.” He looked back at her. “C’mon. We gotta go.”

  “The police will come,” she said, still looking at the drunk. “You’ll be OK. You were defending me. He was going to hurt me.”

  The man crouched down in front of her and she recoiled again. “Look, lady, no police are coming. No one’s coming but more of those things. So we gotta get out of here. Now.”

  Sarah finally looked at him. “No police?”

  He sighed. “No. Now let’s go.” He stood up in one fluid motion. He
held his hand out to her again. This time, she accepted and he pulled her to her feet.

  “My car’s that way.” He pointed back towards the pizza shop. They started down the street but he stopped, throwing an arm in front of Sarah to stop her as well.

  A large group of figures were a few blocks away, staggering and lurching, practically filling the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. “Shit,” he said.

  “What is this?” Sarah asked, staring at the bodies shambling closer.

  “Where’s your car?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  “I don’t have one. I walked.”

  “You walked?” His voice held a hint of surprise. “Where from?”

  “My apartment,” Sarah said. “It’s about 8 blocks that way.” She inclined her head back the way they had come.

  “Let’s go.” He turned and started jogging back, sidestepping the body on the ground. Sarah followed after a second, giving the body a wide berth as she jogged past.

  She caught up to him easily, but was beginning to flag just a couple blocks from her apartment. Sick for five days, no real food in that same amount of time, the shock of seeing a man killed in front of her. She slowed, then finally stopped about a block and a half away from her place. She bent over, hands on her knees, gasping for air.

  “Come on,” the stranger said. “We can’t be on the street when they come.”

  “I can’t,” she gasped. “Rest. Just a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute!” He whispered harshly. “They’re right behind us. We gotta get off the street.” He looked behind him; saw the group steadily inching closer. “What’s wrong with you? Let’s go.” He pulled on her arm.

  She moved to a standing position and pulled her arm from his grasp. “I haven’t eaten for five days, I just got over the flu, and I just saw a man killed in front of me so back the fuck off!” Her voice rose in volume until she was practically screaming.

  When the echo of her voice died, she heard an answering sound – a chorus of moans and groans. “What the hell was that?”

  “Them.” He looked down the street, then back at Sarah, who was staring at him in horror. He spoke, his voice soft and soothing. “Lady, I’m sorry you’re tired and hungry. But we need to get off the street. So take a deep breath and we’ll go in just a second, OK?”

  Sarah swallowed and nodded. “OK.” She took a deep breath. “OK. Let’s go.”

  They set off again at a jog, reaching her apartment building in less than a minute. Sarah unlocked the foyer and they quickly stepped in, the guy making sure the door closed behind them. They ran up the dimly lit staircase to the second floor, where her apartment was. While he watched the halls, she unlocked both locks and ushered him inside. Closing the door behind her, she threw both locks and put the security chain on for good measure.

  She turned from the door, watching him look around her small apartment. She noted the pile of mail on the table, the dirty clothes on the floor by the bathroom door, the dishes in the sink. “Sorry,” she said, making a beeline for the dirty clothes. “I wasn’t expecting to bring company home.” She gathered her sweats and towels and flung them in the hamper. “I’m Sarah, by the way. Sarah Louis.”

  “Ryan Cooke.”

  Sarah leaned against the tiny sliver of wall that separated her bedroom and the bathroom and crossed her arms. “So, Ryan Cooke. What the fuck is going on?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “They’re not people,” he said, looking down at the gore-soaked baseball bat he still carried. “At least, not anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He looked back up at her. “Something happened. Something got loose.” He sighed. “You don’t know any of this?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’ve been down with the flu. This is the first time I left the apartment in five days.”

  “Wow.” He cleared his throat. “That’s just, well, weird. It’s all new to you.”

  “Yeah, and I’d like to know what it is.”

  “Can I sit down? You should, too. It’s an unbelievable story.”

  “Sure.” She pushed herself off the wall. “Want something to drink?” Like this was a normal occurrence. Some guy kills another guy, escorts her home, sure, offer him a drink! She shook her head.

  “Whatever you have.” Ryan set the bat carefully on the throw rug in front of the door, then stepped into the small kitchen area. He sat at the table, watching Sarah as she pulled two cans of Pepsi from the fridge. Her hysterical episode of earlier had burned away, leaving a calm woman, a little on the short side, a little too thin, a little bit plain. She turned and handed him a Pepsi and he smiled his thanks. She smiled and the little bit plain face was transformed into something arresting and intriguing.

  Sarah sat at the table across from Ryan and popped the top on her can of Pepsi. She watched him down half the can, his longish brown hair flopping into his eyes, a spot of something – was that blood? – on his cheek. He looked vaguely familiar. “Do you come here often?” She replayed her words in her head and mentally cringed. “I mean, are you in this neighborhood a lot?”

  He smiled briefly. “Yeah. My brother, Mick, lives back by the pizza shop. I was heading there to see if he was all right when I saw you struggling with that – thing.”

  Sarah bit her lip. “You said something got loose. What does that mean?” She asked. “What happened?”

  Ryan took another drink of soda then pushed the can away. “About a week ago, there were reports of disturbances in a lot of the hospitals. People dying from simple shit, fights breaking out, people going nuts.”

  “I remember that,” Sarah said. “I was afraid to go to the ER when I got so sick. I just stayed home.”

  He looked into her green eyes. “You were smart. You’d probably be dead or one of those things.”

  “What are they?”

  “Us. Or they used to be.” He began to push the Pepsi can from hand to hand. He directed his next words to the can. “They’re dead people come back to life.”

  “What, like zombies?” Her voice was scornful, but she remembered the drunk. How he stumbled and staggered. How he tried to bite her. She saw him in her mind: the bloodied face, the milky eyes. The hole in his throat.

  The pop can stopped moving. Ryan lifted his head and glared at her, at the tone in her voice. “Yeah, like zombies,” he mimicked. “People started dying. Getting back up and biting other people.” He stopped and shook his head. “We thought it was bullshit. A joke or something. I mean, it looked just like the movies. But then some girl bit Jeff and we knew it was real.” His voice thickened and he looked down at his hands, imagining he still saw the blood there.

  “Who’s Jeff?” She asked softly.

  “My friend. We grew up together.” He picked up the can of soda and finished it, wishing it was something stronger.

  Sarah rushed to fill the silence. “Then what?”

  “We –uh—a bunch of us got together at my Cousin Nina’s place. We watched the local news until the stations went off the air.” He rubbed his forehead. “Channel 11 was still broadcasting yesterday, on and off.”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Bunch of bullshit,” Ryan said with a sneer. “One minute they say to stay inside, the next to head for the army base. They refuse to admit that it’s zombies out there, that it’s dead people coming to life and eating others.”

  Sarah had a hard time buying that, too, despite what she had witnessed. But really, was there another explanation? A guy doesn’t walk around with a gaping hole in his neck. A guy doesn’t try to bite another person without any reason or warning. She shuddered at the thought that she was that close to death.

  “You OK?” Ryan asked.

  She shook her head. “Good as I can be, I guess, to find out that something from a George Romero movie is walking around out there.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty messed up.” Ryan slid the empty can between his hands again.

  “So what now?” Sarah asked. “
What do we do now?”

  “You can come back to Nina’s with me. I just gotta check on Mick, get some supplies.” He pushed back from the table. “We started running out of food because we ate too much. We thought it would get better.”

  “So you went out alone to get food?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Got tired of waiting for them to decide who was going. Nina didn’t want Ben to go, not that he’d volunteer anyway.” At Sarah’s look, he continued. “He’s her boyfriend. And a douche bag. Jenny acted like she wanted to go, but I think she was just saying that to get Ben’s goat. No one else was stepping up, so I did. Figured I’d get Mick, get some food.”

  At that, Sarah’s stomach rumbled loudly. She smiled, embarrassed. “I –uh—haven’t really eaten in five days.” She stood up and went to the fridge. “I –uh—if you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you. But I have to eat something first.”

  “Sure.” Ryan didn’t think Nina would mind and he didn’t give a shit what anyone else thought. “What are you eating?’

  Sarah opened the fridge and peered inside. “I don’t know. Not much here. That’s why I went out for a pizza.” She reached inside and pulled out eggs and a block of cheddar. “Feel like an omelet?”

  ♦

  Omelets made and eaten, they sat at the kitchen table. “What should I bring with me?” Sarah asked.

  Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Who knows how long this will last or even if things will get back to normal. In the movies…” He trailed off once he realized what he was saying.

  Sarah knew, though. “But this isn’t a movie,” she said. “This is real life.” She got up from the table and headed to the bedroom. “I’ll pack a couple changes of clothes in a backpack.”

  “Do you mind if we take some food?”

  “Help yourself,” she called from the bedroom. “There’s not much there.” She pulled her backpack from the floor and opened it, dumping her books and notes on the bed. As she moved around the bed to her dresser, she turned on her laptop. Couldn’t hurt to check right? While the computer booted up, she pulled some clothes from the dresser – a couple tees, a sweatshirt, another pair of jeans. Listening for Ryan, she hit the track pad on her computer and brought up the internet. Her home screen blared “Epidemic of violence!! Stay in your homes!!” She didn’t even bother to read anymore. She closed the laptop and pulled socks and underwear from the drawer, stuffing them into the backpack.