Beyond the Barriers Read online

  Where were they coming from? The dead seemed content with the taste he got, and stumbled up the hill toward my car.

  I dragged the 20-gauge shotgun out from the back seat and dug around until I found a box of shells. One went in the breach, because it was all I would need.

  Cars stopped and pulled over to stare at the carnage. Two people down, one an attractive older woman near an expensive Swedish car. This was newsworthy stuff—the kind of thing you went home and talked about at the dinner table. “You won’t believe what I saw today, honey.”

  I pumped the shell into the chamber, stepped up to the small rise, and aimed down the barrel. Someone shouted at me not to do it. I opened my other eye for a moment to see that the cry had come from a van filled with commuters on their way home from work.

  I pulled the trigger, and the gun hammered against my shoulder. The zombie’s head disappeared … the left half at least. He took one more stumbling step, then fell, lifeless again.

  Welcome home, folks.

  I got back in my SUV like I was out for a Sunday drive, and calmly drove home without looking back once. The shakes started about a minute later.

  * * *

  I clicked on the radio as soon as I pulled away. They were going on about the disease or whatever it was. Lots of speculation, but no answers. “Fix the problem,” I wanted to yell at the radio. Who cares how it started? I wanted to know what was being done to combat it.

  It came on so fast. When the swine flu was being hyped as the next black plague, we were assured over and over again that the problem was being looked after with plenty of vaccines. Now no one wanted to talk about solutions. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe there was no other way except for the one I came up with that day—a full load of buckshot to the brainpan.

  My hand started to shake on the steering wheel as I drove. I felt it start as a tremble, and within a few seconds, it was a full shake. I clamped my other hand over it, but it was no use. I felt my lip tremble, and then I had to take some deep breaths.

  My temper always did get me in trouble.

  I had shot that guy in anger. I didn’t really think about the repercussions at the time; that I could be considered a cold-blooded murderer. I would have loved to have seen the case, though, hauled into court. Have the judge ask why I killed. What would happen when I countered with, “How do you kill the dead, exactly?”

  The vision of the man’s head disappearing in a puff of blood and gore played over and over like an old film stuck in the projector at school. Why wouldn’t it melt away?

  I pulled into my side street and slowed down in case kids were in the street. But there was no one there, and I got that eerie feeling of aloneness once again. I pulled into my driveway and noticed that my neighbor Hector Edwards was in his back yard. I could only make out the top of his head, so I waved a silent greeting and went inside without waiting for a response.

  The house comforted me after the afternoon I’d had. I didn’t want to go out again, so I hauled my goodies into the living room, depositing them on the couch. Then I clicked on the TV and switched it over to CNN. A group of men in white lab coats were debating the effects of the disease.

  “Because it isn’t possible, that’s why! Why are you so ready to jump to crazy conclusions like this? The dead? Really? It is not physiologically possible for the dead to reanimate in any shape or form. It is utterly preposterous!” The guy had a full beard, and his face was bright red.

  “Then how do you explain it? How do you explain the ones we have captured and brought in for testing? They move on their own like automatons, but they have no respiration, no brainwave activity, no pulse for God’s sake. How do you explain that?”

  “I would like to see that. I would very much like to see a dead man moving around. This is a hoax!”

  Then the scene cut away to an overhead view of New York City. There was no doubting that cityscape; it was like a fixture to the American public. A bird’s-eye view of that city was as familiar to people as the Golden Gate Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. The view shifted as the helicopter dropped a few feet, then adjusted as a shaking camera tried to focus on something down below. There was talking in the background, and it was pretty obvious the guys in the helicopter were thrown in without much prep time.

  Then a voice popped in.

  “Are we live? Live?” A man came into view who I had seen on the news many times. I couldn’t remember his name for the life of me. He had a blocky jaw, like an old-time movie star, and his pepper-gray hair reminded me of a politician’s.

  “… the city where the disease has run rampant. We are over Times Square now, and we are seeing some activity that is being called a riot. The police have been called in to handle the situation; we aren’t sure how many are available. The riots seem to have caught the authorities by surprise. NBC would like to warn viewers that what they are about to see could be graphic.”

  The camera shifted again, and then they went to an outside view that was crystal clear. They must have had another camera mounted to a strut to get such a good shot. Another helicopter shot past then slowed to a hover.

  The scene below was chaos, as hundreds of people ran in the street. Some moved slower than others, and if people stumbled, the pursuers fell on them like prey.

  “Oh my God.” It was the first time I had spoken since I got home, since I killed the man in the street. The undead man who had been like the attackers on the screen.

  Within minutes, the ‘riot’ had become a full-scale mob as people ran every which way. I watched the people attacked rise up and go at others as they tried to get past.

  A pair of ambulances pulled up slowly. Figures jumped out of both sides, and then some slithered out the back. They had bags in hand. Giant, black bags that reminded me of the bags they carry bodies to the morgue in.

  The paramedics were torn into on the spot, attacked and beaten down where they stood. A pair tried in vain to wrestle one of the slow ones into a bag. I was glad the camera was too high to allow viewers to hear the screams of pain.

  I sat in front of the TV for a long time. Once again, I thought of how Allison and I had watched the 9/11 attacks all day and most of the night. Somehow, this didn’t have the same impact, although it should have. An hour later, the street was covered with nothing but dead things, and I knew it was just a matter of time before it spread everywhere.

  I had to get out. I had been thinking of a place to hide, to wait out the end, and I had a good idea where I could go. The problem was that it didn’t belong to me. My buddy Ray had let me use his cabin in the woods up on Mount Arrow a few times, and I was pretty sure I could remember how to get there.

  I had gear, I had gas, and I had food. I could stay for a week or two, listen to the wind-up radio, and try to wait it out. I looked around my house at all the things I had accumulated over the years, all the things that Allison and I had added to it, and I knew there was no way to keep someone out once I left. I didn’t want to stay cooped up here, however, so I grabbed what valuables I had - that I wanted to come back for- and put them in big black bags. Portable hard drive and a smaller laptop. I planned to bring the larger one with me. I added some of my favorite CDs, some jewelry she had left, stuff I bought her. I pocketed her engagement ring, because it had cost me a small fortune. Then I wondered what I would do with the damn thing and tossed it in the bag.

  I put pictures in the bags, along with some canned goods that I didn’t want to have to try to carry. It was already going to be a long hike to his place, so I didn’t want to have to carry a hundred pounds with me. Then I opened the closet, moved all the crap aside, including my rarely used vacuum, and tugged open the entrance to the space under the house.

  I climbed inside and pushed the stuff to a back corner where the dirt met the concrete wall, and hoped it wasn’t too visible if someone else came along and looked. I was going to bolt up the house, but I had no illusions about how tenuous the hold on my property would become once I wasn’t here to defend
it with a gun, or even my fists.

  I was climbing back out, knocking dirt off my shoes, when a loud knock came from the front door. I popped up and looked at the couch where the guns sat. I almost went for them, but I didn’t think any crazies would be around this early. To the front of the house, I went, when my cell phone rang again. I popped it out of my pocket and looked at the display. Allison. Didn’t she have anyone else to bug? Like her new boyfriend?

  I pocketed the phone and stared out the peephole in the door. My neighbor Devon stood on the porch. He craned his neck around to peek in the window then looked up and down the street. His face was covered in sweat, and his eyes shifted rapidly as he tried to look everywhere at once. I opened the door, and he let out a sigh of relief.

  “Man, I thought you left or something. Except your car is here. Is everything okay? I mean, not that you need anyone checking up on you and all. Because of the war stuff. I bet you have a million weapons in there. Probably a good thing you didn’t start shooting.” He was babbling, and I felt like joining him. Devon and I had hung out a few times, shot the shit, talked about our wives, and downed a few six packs of beer. He was about as liberal as they come, but I liked him just the same. He had a quick wit and a fun way of looking at the world—kind of like a schizoid who was in control of his other personalities. He could flip from dead serious to making fun of the other neighbors in an angry German accent at the drop of a hat.

  His wife was pretty and genuinely nice. I remember the day Lisa stopped by after she found out Allison had left me. She said she was sorry and brought over a meatloaf. I was touched by her kindness, and shocked when she hugged me, walking off with a furtive look over her shoulder.

  “What do you know, Dev?”

  “I know the whole goddamn fucking place is going crazy. Did you hear there was an attack at Walmart and the new Safeway? The things came out of nowhere and started attacking people. Just biting them in public.”

  “Where did you hear that?” News sure was traveling fast in this tiny town today.

  “My wife’s friend owns a latte stand, and the customers were reporting what they saw when they ordered drinks. Isn’t that funny? Let me get a triple shot mocha. Hey, did you hear zombies were eating people at the store?”

  He laughed out loud, then looked down at the patio. His eyes went unfocused for a minute, and I thought I knew what he was thinking, because I had been thinking the same thing all day. What if this was really it? The end of everything? What I saw today, up close, as well as on CNN, had rattled me.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Hole up and see what happens. Maybe it won’t get this far and we’ll be safe.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been watching the news all day, and it is crazy in some of the cities. But we’re so far from all that, you know? I think we’ll be safe here. Just wait it out, wait for the government to call out the army or national guard. All you have to do to survive is not get bit, right?”

  “Look, Dev, I am out of here. I’m packing my shit and heading to the hills. If you have another place to go that’s far from civilization, I suggest you go there and stay put until the smoke clears.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. It can’t be.” He talked until he had convinced himself. I bet he practiced the speech in his head before he came over. I couldn’t do anything to convince him otherwise, and I didn’t want to take the time.

  “I have a place to hide up in the hills. Why don’t you and Lisa join me?” I cursed myself even as the words came out. I didn’t have enough supplies to feed three mouths, let alone one.

  He shook his head. A strong refusal backed up by fear in his eyes.

  I looked over and noticed that Edwards’s little import was running, and the door was cracked open. In my haste earlier to get the goods in my house and sorted, I didn’t notice my neighbor had left his car idling. In fact, when I looked at his place now, I realized that his front door was open a couple of inches. But I saw him in the back yard, so he had to be home. I had seen the top of his head and assumed he was standing back to look at his yard or something.

  Maybe he was just … then the noise came.

  I moved to the side of my patio, where the corner nearly butted up against his yard, and looked into the back of mine. Edwards had been working on his fence off and on for about three months now, and it was almost done, but the back near our green belt hadn’t even been started. I saw my neighbor come around the fence and walk toward me.

  “Hey man, everything all right?” I asked.

  He was Argentinian and had a slight accent, but just now, he didn’t answer. We were on friendly terms, but not as close as Devon and I were. Still, I considered him a friend—well, up until now. He didn’t look so good. He looked gray and tired. Devon stood on the doorstep and slipped his glasses off, as if he didn’t believe what he was seeing. He put them back on, and the gray man turned and stumbled toward us. His attention set on me, and he started moaning and snarling like a dog.

  “Oh shit, what do we do?” Devon’s voice bordered on hysteria. He looked around at the empty porch as if searching for a weapon, but there was not even a scrap of furniture on it. Then he glanced over the yard.

  I didn’t wait around to find a weapon. Edwards was moving slowly enough that I didn’t feel he represented much of a threat. Of course, I could have been fooling myself. After all, it had been a while since I was in the service, and all those fighting skills were a little rusty. I should have gone back and gotten the axe from my house, but I didn’t feel the same heat I did earlier when those monsters attacked the woman in the silver BMW. What I felt was oddly cool and collected, the same way I used to feel before we went into the action.

  “Hey, you all right?” I had to be sure before I did anything. I was suddenly light on my feet; the old moves came back like I had practiced them just yesterday. I shifted to the right, so one side of my body was presented, while my left was at an angle, so I made less of a target. I’ve heard it called drifting forward, only I was about to become a whirlwind.

  Edwards was covered in red, like he had spilled an entire bottle of wine down his shirt. He was missing one side of his neck, and the ear opposite hung by a flap of skin. He moaned at me like he was half asleep, and I saw a huge chunk of skin hanging out of his mouth. I wondered if he had bitten himself.

  Then his wife, Cindy, came out the open door and stumbled forward. Half of her face was torn off. The portly woman always had an easy laugh, and told me dirty jokes when Edwards wasn’t around. She wouldn’t be telling jokes now. Not by a long shot.

  “Devon, stay back,” I called, but didn’t look back for him, trusting he had the sense to stay in place.

  Edwards shambled toward me, blood dripped from the wound on his head. It splattered down his face and onto his shirt. His wife didn’t look much better; her wounds were also horrific. I had a vision of him coming home, her greeting him at the door. Maybe he was freshly bitten and it hadn’t kicked in yet. But he died there while she dabbed at the blood and exclaimed that he needed to go to the doctor. He came back as his undead self and attacked his wife of over two decades. Now I would have to contend with them, and I didn’t feel anything but shame.

  I lashed out with a side kick that swept my neighbor off his legs and onto his back. He was less than two feet away, and I just flowed into the move. Then I was past him, and I would have administered several punches to the face, but I was once again leery of the blood. What would happen if that stuff got in my mouth or into a wound? Would that be enough to kill and change me into one of them?

  Landing like that would have taken the breath away from a normal man and made him think twice about getting up, but old Edwards must have been feeling lucky, because he rolled over to get up again. I kicked him hard under the chin, like his head was a soccer ball. He flopped over and didn’t move for a moment.

  She was getting closer, and I didn
’t want to hurt her. I dashed behind her, snatched the back of her shirt, and dragged her toward their house. She went under protest, trying to spin and snap at me the entire time. I shoved her inside so that she landed face first on the floor, and I slammed the door shut. I doubted she was smart enough to figure out how to get out. She seemed to have the motor skills of a toddler.

  Edward was another problem altogether. He was getting back up again, and I didn’t think I could maneuver him inside the house while she was trying to get out.

  I walked up to his form as it came up on all fours, threw my leg up high in the air, and then came down with the back of my shoe to his neck in a downward axe kick. I felt something snap beneath the blow, and then he fell to the ground, lifeless and still.

  I panted for a moment, leaned over, and gasped for air. Then I turned from his body and threw up everything in my stomach.

  That was two. Two people dead at my hand, and the day wasn’t even over yet. Devon stood on the patio and watched me come up on shaky legs. His eyes met mine, and I could only read a sort of horror that made me want to turn away in shame. I felt terrible that he had to watch it, almost as much as I felt bad about killing the two that day.

  “That is why you need to get out of Dodge, my man,” I said and went inside to pack. “And my offer still stands. Just get Lisa, all the food in the house that is non-perishable, and meet me in front of your house in fifteen minutes.”

  “I just can’t leave it all behind. I need to think, to think and to process,” he whispered, almost to himself, then turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Three pairs of jeans, that’s all I allowed myself. I took down some trusty flannel shirts from a box in the closet and jammed those into the pack as well. Then I added socks, underwear, the basics for survival and keeping warm. I had a pair of thermal underwear as well, which I slipped into a side pouch.