Zombie Waltz (Book 1) Read online

  Zombie Waltz

  Lynn E. Main

  I

  Copyright c 2016 Lynn E. Main

  Cover art copyright c 2016 Sarah E. Mills (Demifou)

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual places, events, or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform

  Charleston, South Carolina

  ISBN-13:978-1534666634

  ISBN-10:153466663X

  Someone once told me to write about what I know…I have discovered that I know best how to bleed…

  Zombie Waltz

  Chapter 1: Blood Stained Glass Les

  A car horn blares, and wakes me with a jolt. My eyes scream from the burning light, and I squeeze them shut again. Trying not to think has the opposite effect.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be spending my nights destroying my life systematically. Consuming whatever I can get my hands on trying to forget her. Jill is gone and she is not coming back this time. She’ll never speak to me again. Not that she should. I was a dick. I wasn’t there for her. That kills me. I miss her and it makes everything hurt. I’m useless.

  They all said I would regret losing her. Well I do, and it was for nothing.

  There ’s a second beep. It’s annoying but I want to ignore it and go back to sleep. What am I supposed to do now? I could always go back to the ease and comfort of the Ramparts. But without Jill it’d be an empty castle.

  A third beep accompanies a crashing sound. Maybe the neighbors are having drum practice. The Ramparts…home…the idea of it is terrible. I would return an utter failure. Maybe there really is no going home, not for me anyway. Not now. Not like this.

  I’ m awake though not fully alert while all of this drifts through my mind, and there’s pain behind my eyes that makes me question the sanity in the amount of drinking I did last night. Another beep disturbs me from my thoughts and I groan. My eyes open again, only a slit and I stare at the red glow of my digital alarm clock radio.

  It sits, glaring at me, with the dull red hypnotized numbers: 2:15. Sounds coming from outside my house strike me as odd. There’s a terrible bloodcurdling scream. In this neighborhood there’s screaming all the time. Sometimes it’s just guys sitting around watching a football game or fighting over one. Sometimes its domestic violence but even that doesn’t sound like this scream.

  I roll my eyes as the car horn blares again. “That cannot be necessary!” I roar at my closed blinds.

  Beyond the window on the far wall above my dresser the driveway sits beside my house. In it, a green van probably idles, a large black woman seated behind the steering wheel, honking the horn at her husband. They live in the garage apartment behind this crappy house that isn’t much bigger than a garage itself. I’m more than a little annoyed.

  I sweat profusely in the night, or morning, or whatever. The slightly off-white cotton sheets are soaked where they hug my back and a thin layer of sweat covers my brow. It was probably the drinking, or it could just be nerves. I had crazy dreams too. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

  Struggling a little, I pull my arm out of my cocoon of sheets. The horn blasts again. I pull my pillow in front of my face and squeeze. Shouting into it, “Come on lady! Really? Get your lazy ass out of the van and go to the door!” I throw my pillow at the window. It bounces off my dresser and lands on the floor.

  The orange light of the afternoon sun penetrates that window all the more after my thrown pillow disturbs the blinds. It’s the type of light that never seems bright unless I’m trying to sleep the day away. My room’s saturated with that sickly tinted orange light.

  Cars are throwing long shadows across the wall as they rumble down 12th Street. I watch the shadows in a trance. Each one forms and grows across the wall in a wave, then shrinks and vanishes.

  I feel my loins tighten. The slow rotation of my ceiling fan, its blades covered in a thick heady blondish dust, creates just enough of a breeze to pull the suffocation out of the air. It’s hot and my head pounds, but the urge to relieve myself wins out. I say loudly, “Fine, I’m up!”

  Almost as if in reflex to my proclamation, I hear a crash. It sounds like a dog getting into a metal trash can only much louder. The thrashing continues for several seconds.

  A thump on the window freezes me in place. I watch the wall opposite grow dark. I have very little decoration in my room anymore, and that wall is completely bare. The shadow stretching across grows to be monstrous, in some obscene way very familiar, but totally out of place. I don’t breathe.

  Something bothers me about this shadow. The shadow sits. It spread across the wall and now there it sits. It doesn’t grow smaller like a wave and then disappear like the others. It just sits.

  Another noise resounds behind me. A loud scratching sound, as if fingernails are scraping across a blackboard. I start to turn my head. A horrible crash sends me sprawling from the bed, with my legs still tangled in the sheets, onto the floor.

  Glass, drywall, and God-knows-what-else spray my back. The pain of hundreds of stings is immediately infuriating and frightening in a way I can barely comprehend. I turn frantically, and a second explosion of glass showers my face. I scramble to get unwrapped from my tangled sheets.

  A third and even louder crash jars me. I stare up at my shattered window. Then, I see the strangest thing. A large fist bursts through. A wide shouldered stocky and fat man starts pulling himself through the shard covered hole. Ripping the skin on his arms in long jagged gashes across the broken glass and not even flinching.

  His head emerges from the hole and his eyes lock on mine. They’re strange eyes.

  His jaw is hanging agape; his face cut up badly. Blood is already dried there and there is more fresh red blood smeared all over the top. His lacerated arms pour thick streams of blood into pools on my bed as he scrambles furiously through the window, tearing the panes and nails away from the wall.

  He climbs inside in a matter of seconds. The sheer gross horror of the blood and hanging skin holds me in place petrified. What seems like some time later, I finally stand shaking my head in disbelief. I’m not even looking at him. I scan my arms and bare chest for bits of glass stuck there and wipe at them furiously. I only look up when the crashing and thrashing noises that have accompanied the deranged lunatic’s unfathomable entrance suddenly stop.

  He’s perched above my bed, and then he leaps.

  I scramble to get away, but I can’t.

  I’m s tunned, I guess, by what I’ve just seen. I’m down on the floor on my knees with my breath knocked out before I know what’s happened.

  He is on top of me grabbing and snapping his jaws, but he’s covered with a slick of blood.

  Squirming, I get away from him and scream, “Get off of me you FREAK!”

  I slip in the gore collecting on the wood floor and he seizes me again from behind, although he still can’t get a firm grip. I wrestle away beneath him, but he just leans closer to me. His jaw snaps inches from my nose, and then he knocks me over. His terrible weight forces me to the ground on my knees. I twist my body around to try to get behind him and away, but it is no good.

  He truly has me now.

  He clutches my right arm. His big meaty left hand wraps around my shoulder, squeezing with a death grip. I feel something wet and warm oozing down my back. His right hand encircles my arm at the elbow and he holds so tightly that I can’t move my arm.

  He opens his mouth wide, and without delaying a single moment, with his ruined lips pulled back in a hungry snarl, lunges for my bicep. He bites down hard on my flesh, sinking his teeth in all the way to the muscle.

  I don’t cry out at first, shock I guess. I don’t move at all until the pain rush
es into my head like fire chasing a trail of gasoline from my arm. I shriek. It is so high pitched and hysterically awkward I can’t believe it’s my own voice.

  I squirm, wiggle, scream, and cry. I piss my pants, the whole time trying to break free of him. I twist quickly, seem to catch him by surprise, and almost slip from his grip.

  He bites down even harder and I can feel my pulse against his teeth and see my blood spray from the wound. I see a momentary flash of red and cry out in a low throaty roar, “No!”

  I twist and thrash, grappling with him in the pool of blood on the floor. No matter what I try, I can’t get him to let go of my arm. I rotate and nearly pull my shoulder out of socket.

  With my finger and thumb of my left hand, I reach around his head and stab into his eye sockets. It’s a gross feeling pushing his eyeballs back into his skull. My stomach lurches as I feel the balls push aside and watch fresh blood pour out of the cavities.

  It pours all over his face and the back of my hand, but he will not relent. He doesn't even seem to notice. I scream at him, “What are you? Fucking crazy? Let me go you fucking rabid cannibal fuck!” But his grip doesn’t loosen.

  I push and push and PUSH my hand into his head. Pinching my finger and thumb toward each other until I can feel them touch in the warm gooey matter. At the same time, I beat on his body with every part of me that can still move. Suddenly, his grip releases. The pressure from his bite recedes.

  He falls away still and quiet. He seems peaceful, for a moment, even in such a horrible state. I collapse onto my back as he slides down my legs. The empty sockets of his eyes pour blood onto my chest.

  There is blood everywhere. So much blood; it covers both of us and the floor. Bits of broken glass spread on the floor swim in all the blood. It’s splashed up the walls and all over the bed where loose chunks of drywall and large shards of glass now lie.

  His mouth falls open, and a small piece of chewed flesh falls out of it.

  I think it might be my own flesh I see. I scream and wail in pandemonium as throbbing waves of pain wash over. I realize I’m in pretty bad shape. The waves keep time with my rapidly increasing heartbeat, starting in my arm and crashing violently into my brain.

  It hurts so bad that I sincerely just want to die.

  But there must be some fight left in me. I roar, “Get off of me you FAT FUCK!” and try to throw the bulbous corpse off my legs, despite the pain, so I can scurry away from it and curl into a ball. However, he’s far too slick in his coat of blood and way too heavy for me to lift. I watch a red spray of blood erupt like a fountain from my arm. I drop him and collapse on the floor.

  I feel pressure in my head. The room starts spinning. Everything goes black and everything’s peaceful. I’m dying probably, but I’m not in pain so it’s okay. I’m only tired now. Certain I just need to rest. It feels warm and safe as I drift. I fall into it, losing myself in it. I don’t know time or space or even myself, just this blackness.

  Faith

  The intersection of Tamiami Pkwy and MLK Drive is unusually empty for a Sunday afternoon. Especially in late September after the snowbirds arrive. It’s also unusually warm and unusually sunny and Faith yearns for the opportunity to relax at the park. She pulls her blue Malibu into the Shell station on her right.

  She looks at the gas gauge. The needle is balanced between the F and the E. Faith doesn’t really need the gas, but likes to keep her tank full just in case. There are only a few other cars in the parking lot and none at the gas pumps so she pulls around to number 2, closest to the store’s entrance.

  She looks through the rearview at Rose. The little girl ’s head is tilted forward and her long thick brown hair has fallen in front of her face while she bends over her little pink lunch pail.

  “I am going to run in and pay for some gas. Fill up, befor e we hit the park.” Faith says smiling through the mirror at her. Rose’s head rolls back and she giggles. The bright pink birthmark in the shape of a budding rose on her cheek stands out loud against her tanned face, her big brown eyes filled with laughter.

  Faith’s smile grows. “What?”

  The little girl laughs. She pulls a long thin chain connected to an oval silver locket out of her open lunch pail. She gathers the locket in her hands and opens it. “Look, Dr. Faith! You’re kissing Carl! EWWW!” Rose squeals with glee. Faith just shakes her head and giggles.

  “Do you want to wait in the car?” She asks but Rose is already bent over the lunchbox again laughing and making smacking sounds. Faith flips her blonde hair and rolls her eyes. She looks around the parking lot. A man with a silver motorcycle and matching hair and an old faded leather vest pulls up across the pump from her. She hesitates as he kills his engine, but then instead of dismounting the bike he reaches into his vest and pulls out a cell phone. She turns from him.

  There are three other cars in the parking lot, but none are in front of the doors. A cop car pulls up on the side of the building off of MLK. Faith feels reassured. She closes her door and walks casually across the parking lot.

  She enters the store and a gust of air-conditioning hits her, taking her breath slightly and sending chills down her arms and legs. It is 85 degrees outside so she chose a blue sundress and flip-flops. A great choice for the park but she feels near nude in this frigid air. There are three men perusing the aisles. An Indian man with a small white cap sits behind the cash register and two women and the police officer are in line.

  Faith steps behind the cop in his green uniform and quietly admires his belt and all of the little pouches and things in them like hand-cuffs, mace, an extendable club, a radio and extra magazine pouches for his side arm. The gun is black and looks enormous to Faith.

  The cop turns to looks at her and Faith smiles. He smiles back and his eyes quickly dart down her front. Then his smile grows. Faith turns and pretends to have taken interest in the magazines on the rack behind the register. The women walk out the door and the cop turns around and moves to the counter. He asks the clerk for three cans of chewing tobacco. Gross.

  She turns her head to look out the picture window beside the counter. Her little Malibu sits undisturbed at the pump. She can see the top of Rose’s head in the back seat. Then a woman darts past the glass. She’s there only a moment but Faith sees her face clearly. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is pulled back in a grimace of horror. Faith turns just in time to see a man lunge at the glass door and smash straight through without missing a step. She dives behind the cop. He turns and pulls his pistol as the man tackles him.

  Faith scrambles around in time to see another man and a woman come through the door. They both have head wounds. The man has an angry gash across his skull just above his ear and the woman’s cheek has been torn badly. A flap of skin hangs open revealing a row of white teeth. Both injuries are terrible and Faith’s first impulse is to try to help but the woman turns and looks at her. The look in her eye is not one of pain. She looks angry and insane, but something else; something much worse that Faith’s mind won’t wrap around. She lifts her arms and opens her mouth diving towards Faith.

  Faith only has time to lift up her arms to fend off the insane woman and close her eyes. She expects to be tackled at any moment. After too long she opens her eyes. To find that the Indian man dove over the counter, and with agility that surprises Faith landed on the woman and toppled her to the ground bouncing her head off the linoleum. “Miss! We must go!” He says reaching an open hand out to her.

  Faith needs out of this store right now. She doesn’t hesitate. She has to get back to Rose. She grabs his hand and he pulls her to her feet with a firm grip. The store is in chaos. A police cruiser rams into the side of the building. Rocking both Faith and the Indian man to their knees, they both instinctively cover their heads with their arms. There are screams. Faith looks around disoriented for a moment after the crash.

  The Indian man pulls on her ha nd. “There are more…there look!” He shouts at her, pointing with his free hand. Outside the store two men ar
e bent over one of the women that had been in line in front of her. She was the woman Faith saw right before the man burst through the glass door. She almost made it and that’s where they have her. Another man comes right over the top of the police car that is plowed through the storefront.

  The quiet parking lot has erupted with people. Faith pushes through the other door, steps past the woman, and the Indian man follows behind her. “We have to get to my car!” She motions toward the Malibu. There are several people around it. One is the police officer who crashed into the store. He has a pump shotgun in his hand with a pistol grip. He swings it at a man’s face and it connects, breaking his jaw.

  The officer spins screaming, “Get away from me all of you!” Another woman comes around the end of the Malibu just as Faith runs up. The woman grabs the cop by his shoulders -opening her jaws wide- and bites right into his scalp. Faith freezes watching the woman. She looks as if she had been a normal person in her brown business suit. Now like a wild animal she straddles the cop and topples him.

  The gun falls at Faith’s feet. She steps back and opens the passenger door on her Malibu. The Indian man reaches down and scoops up the shotgun then pushes Faith inside the car. She moves over to the driver’s seat glancing back to make sure Rose is okay.

  The back seat is empty.

  She puts her keys in the ignition before recognition settles, then freezes. She looks in the tilted rearview. Her heart lodges in her throat and she jumps between the seats and looks down expecting to see Rose’s brown hair covering her face, but she is not there. The sweet little girl is gone. Back door’s slightly ajar. The Indian man climbs into the passenger side. “Go! Go! …What are you waiting for? Go!” He says as he pulls the door closed but it rips right back open again.

  “I CAN’T! We have to find Rose!”

  He turns and looks into Faith’s eyes. His dark eyes grow wide with terror. Many arms reach in and pull him out by his shoulder and arm. Faith grabs his other arm and locks hands with him.

  “Don’t let them…” He tries but is ripped out of the car and fallen on by several people. Faith can’t tear her eyes away; despite the horror of what they are doing. They attack with their mouths; biting him. She only has a moment to wonder about this before another person strikes the windshield of the car.