3.2 As the World Dies Untold Tales Vol. 2 (3 page)

She killed the engine, grabbed her rifle and her backpack, and abandoned her mother’s car. The deputy shoved the passenger door open and she climbed in. The car reeked of sweet and blood. The young man was shaking and looked more like a scared boy than a seasoned lawman. He was covered in blood.

“
You okay?” she asked warily.

“
Not my blood,” he answered sadly.

“
I’m Katarina.”

“
Curtis,” he said, and shifted gears.

The car glided through town in the direction of the big hotel that loomed over Ashley Oaks. Empty store fronts, abandoned gas stations, and forlorn, empty lots were once the telltale signs of the dying town. But now it was truly dead.

Or was it?

Ahead, Katarina saw trucks filled with earth pulled up around the new construction site. A group of men were shoving heavy bags of cement and dirt under the vehicles and between the cabs and the trailers creating a barricade. A mangled wreck was near the new fortifications.

“
That’s it?” Katarina asked.

“
Yeah,” Curtis responded in a tired, frightened voice.

They parked on a side street and ran together to the blocked off area. As they scrambled over the back of a truck, the construction site came into focus. People were camped inside, clustered together. She could see some of her old customers among the survivors: Juan, Travis, Old Man Watson, Peggy the city secretary, Mayor Reyes, and others.

Katarina felt the world tilt and shift again as the world took on a new reality.

A shout behind her drew her attention. Turning, she saw some of the construction workers scrambling to evade one of the dead things. Raising her rifle, she felt a tear on her cheek as she did what she now knew she was very good at and would serve her well in this new world.

She killed.

The Unknowns’ Story

This untold tale is about the people who dwell in the background of the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy. Not everyone survived to make it to the fort, and not every survivor in Texas made it to Ashley Oaks. I have been dying for some time to tell some of those stories.

The inception of this particular story occurred when a small press asked me to be a part of a new flash fiction anthology. I wrote the first section of this story with that anthology in mind. Later, when the anthology was canceled, I decided to expand the story for my online fans now that I was free of the constraints of word limits.

The tale is rather disturbing as it deals with vengeance, jealousy, and madness in the claustrophobic confines of a survivor haven.

I am very happy to include A Terrible Moment in this collection

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A Terrible Moment

She wanted it to be over.

The constant moaning of the dead outside the warehouse was wearing away at her last nerve. Her hands trembled at her sides as she clenched them into tight fists. The cool air reeked of rotting citrus, but at least it kept the stench of the dead at bay.

Nearby, she could see her soon to be ex-husband, his trollop secretary, and the plant manager engaged in a heated discussion. They had invited her to join their planning session, but she had declined. She wanted nothing to do with them.

She was only here because of her children. The kids were with their lousy father when the dead had risen. In a panic, she had sped across town to this godforsaken orange juice factory, just to end up trapped with the man she loathed and his slut.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the kids playing with toys the whore had given them. The two boys happily chatted as they played, oblivious to everything around them. They had no idea that their father was a cheating bastard and that the woman they called Aunt Julie was a fucking bitch. They didn’t understand how much pain she was in and maybe they wouldn’t even care. They worshipped their father. That thought only fed her rage.

She looked at the glass venetian blinds covering the window next to her. She could barely make out the outline of the dead creatures gathered outside her hellish prison. Fortunately, the iron burglar bars over the windows kept the zombies out, but they also trapped her inside.

The stench of slowly decomposing citrus was so terrible she pulled the collar of her gray sweatshirt over her nose. It was stained and worn. But then again, so was she. After marrying, she had hacked off her long tawny tresses, tossed out the makeup, and settled into a comfortable life of being a mother and wife. She had done everything she could for the good-for-nothing and now he was divorcing her.

Scowling, she observed her husband as he spoke passionately to the other two adults. Some stupid plan about climbing onto the roof and lowering everyone down onto a truck with a rope was taking form. They were all idiots.

“
We can break the windshield, crawl in, and get it started. Yeah, that will be a little dangerous, but the truck is high enough off the ground that they won’t be able to reach us. They don’t climb. We’ve seen that,” her husband said.

She scoffed at his words. He always had to be in charge. What made him think he was the big hero now?

Annoyed, she took a step closer to the window. The blinds were stuck and not completely closed. A chewed-up face with one eye missing growled at her as it pressed against the bars.

The laughter of the kids as they played angered her. They believed their father would save them. They weren’t even paying attention to her. They didn’t care about her and her pain.

Rage burned in her soul.

They all thought they were so safe behind these bars. What was worse was that they all believed her stupid husband could actually save them from the hungry mouths of the walking dead. It disgusted her how her kids believed their daddy was so wonderful. She was the one who always took care of them. She was the one who gave them life.

Discreetly, she slipped her fingers over the edge of the blind slat, wagging them in the face of the zombie.

It snapped its jaws at her.

A dark and evil, yet wonderful idea unfurled in her mind. It pushed through her red hot anger and spread through her like cold water.

Glancing over her shoulder, she glowered at the happy little scene of her children playing in the shadow of their father. How easily they ignored her. How easily they pretended she didn’t matter. That she didn’t exist.

How dare they ignore her.

She returned her gaze to the snapping teeth, her fingers scant inches from their broken edges.

Yes, it could be over. A little bite and her troubles would be done. Just a little nip on the end of a finger. No one would notice until it was too late.

And then they would not be able to ignore her. They would all see that her stupid husband’s plan would fail.

They would all die.

She pushed her fingertips closer to the desperate mouth of the zombie.

Alan was tired. Tired to the very marrow of his bones. Every muscle in his body ached and his head was pounding. Yet, it didn’t matter. He had to stay alert. He had to keep going. He had to find a way to save the people who were depending on him. He had to save his kids.

The smell of rotting citrus burned his nostrils as he spoke with the others about a possible escape route. The decaying fruit kept at bay the reek of the dead outside the chained factory doors. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the smell of the shambling, ravenous dead or the slowly-decomposing oranges in the crates.

Nearby, his two boys were playing with truck models that Julie, his secretary, had given them. The small trucks sported the logos of the orange juice companies to which the factory had provided juice until the dead decided to get up and attack the living. The models had sat on shelf in his office for years, but now they were the only toys his children possessed. The twins always played well together and he could hear Parker explaining to Hunter that the binder clips from Julie’s desk were zombies and they had to run them over with the trucks and squish them. Meanwhile, Alice, his baby girl, was asleep on the sofa in his office. He could see her through the open doorway. Her little pink mouth was pursed in her sleep and one little hand was tucked up by her tawny curls.

Nearby, the wife he had been divorcing sulked in a dark corner of the big building. They had invited Debbie to join their planning session, but her response had been “I don’t want to be around your slut secretary.”

Julie had almost burst into tears, but he had pulled her away before his ex could unleash more venom.

Now, as they tried to plan a way to get out, he felt ill at ease. Something was amiss.

Rob, the big burly plant manager, scowled slightly. He rubbed his scruffy beard with one hand as he considered the plan. “So we climb down using ropes, huh? That may be tough on the kids and the women folk.”

“
They’ll have to go first. We’ll have to lower them,” Alan explained. “Then we’ll follow.”

“
I don’t know if I like the idea of standing on the back of a truck with the kids and...” Julie’s eyes flicked to the figure standing in the shadows near the windows. She lowered her voice. “She’s so mean and erratic.”

“
Do you think she’ll cooperate?” Rob didn’t look him in the eye.

Debbie was a difficult subject for Alan, and people tried to avoid speaking about her in a direct manner to him. It was almost as if they were afraid if they spoke of her, she would descend on them like a summoned demon. She was embarrassingly-bold with her nasty temper.

Alan pondered the question before shrugging his big shoulders. “I don’t know. But I don’t think she’ll hurt the kids.”

“
But what about Julie? She’s convinced you’re having an affair with her. She’s irrational about it,” Rob pointed out. “How many times did she drive down here to cause a scene?”

“
She even said that my baby isn’t my husband’s, but yours,” Julie whispered, tears threatening again.

Julie was a tiny thing, pretty as could be, and often too sweet for her own good. It made all the men at the factory want to protect her. Seeing her with tears in her eyes brought out the big brother in Alan. He put an arm around her and gave her a little squeeze.

“
Don’t you worry about your little one, Julie. Your mama and your husband are taking care of your baby. I know it. And don’t let Debbie get to you. She’s been accusing me of fooling around since the day we got married,” Alan said.

Julie stared up at him with her enormous brown eyes and sniffled loudly. “You think my baby and Tony are alive?”

Alan lied to keep her calm. “Yes, I do.”

“
You could at least keep your hands off of her in front of the kids!” Debbie’s venomous voice raked him like a claw.

Dropping his arm, Alan slowly turned to face the woman he had once loved. She was wearing her usual uniform of stained sweat pants, a faded t-shirt, battered loafers and a hoodie. He hadn’t realized until today how much he avoided looking at her directly, but he forced himself to study her face. Her blue eyes seemed too wide and gleeful above her pale, tight lips. Instead of the long tawny tresses that had fluttered around her shoulders during their courtship, her hair was cut very short. Nothing about her seemed feminine anymore. Nor was she particularly manly. In that moment, she reminded him of the mythological harpy. She was always so ready to pluck out his heart.

“
He was just comforting a friend,” Rob dared to say.

“
Really? Is that what we call slut whores now?” Debbie asked sharply. “Friends?”

“
Could you not speak like that in front of the children?” Alan asked in a soft voice, trying to calm her.

The boys were staring in their direction, both of them wide-eyed with their mouths slightly hanging open.

“
Why? So they won’t know what an asshole their father is? So they won’t know he’s going around and fucking his secretary? So they won’t know that their father is a fucking douchebag who cheats on his wife?”

“
How can you be so mean?” Julie exclaimed. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, her eyes wide. “How?”

Debbie smirked at Julie. “Mean? You call this mean after what you’ve done?”

“
Enough of this,” Alan said shortly. He was barely keeping his temper.

One of the main reasons he had been divorcing his wife was because on more than one occasion, she had driven him so far into a rage he had wanted to hurt her. It had become more difficult over time to endure her verbal abuse, but her physical attacks were the last straw. When she had knocked him out with a frying pan after accusing him of cheating on her with Julie, that was the last straw. He had woken up to the children crying over him, thinking he was dead as Debbie nonchalantly made dinner.

“
We’re getting out of here, Debbie. We are sorting out the details now, but we’re going to get out of here and find somewhere safe with supplies for the kids. Can you help us?” Alan looked at the disheveled woman beside him, willing her to be cooperative.

Her hands tucked into her hoodie, Debbie shrugged. “I need a nap.”

“
Fine,” Alan sighed.

“
Glad to get your permission,” Debbie snarled, then strode into the office. She picked up her baby girl, placed her on the floor with a pillow, and spread out on the sofa.