Barrett reached the door to Tamara’s room and looked in it. His face paled noticeably. Crap. He turned to look at me. I hoped he wouldn’t faint. That was about the last thing we needed. As far as I knew Barrett had never seen a dead body before (other than my mom). I should have warned him how bad she looked.
I closed the distance between us and put my hand on his arm. “Barrett, it’s okay. Just ignore her. They wouldn’t keep the shotgun in her room.” He didn’t answer me, just kept staring into the room. I finally turned and looked myself.
Fuck. The body was gone.
I reached into the room, all my nerves alive with fire, and grabbed the doorknob. I quickly pulled it shut, making sure not to slam it. I turned back to Fannie Mae. “Keep your eye on that door.” She nodded silently to me, wide eyed.
I was afraid that Barrett wouldn’t be able to go on and that I’d have to take the bat from him and grab the lead but he completely surprised me and asked me if I was ready and when I nodded we kept going. There were no bodies in there either.
“What’s the chance that someone came and took the bodies?” Barrett asked quietly.
“I’d have to think that the chances of that are very small,” I said. “What purpose would anyone have in doing that?”
“I didn’t think so.” He looked around the room. “I would think we’d have been attacked by now if they were still here. Why don’t you two look for the shotgun and I’ll stand guard?”
Fannie Mae and I stepped gingerly around the blood as we began to search the room from top to bottom looking for the damn shotgun. We found a couple boxes of shells fairly quickly in the closet but the shotgun was nowhere to be found. It was only when I bent to look under the bed that I saw the edge of the barrel peeking out between the mattress and box spring. I breathed a sigh of relief as I grabbed for it.
That was when the hand snaked out from under the bed and grabbed my ankle. Hard. I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.
It started to pull me under but I pulled back and I’m not real sure how the tug of war would have gone but that’s when Barrett and Fannie Mae came out from behind me and started pulling me. The strength in the hand wasn’t enough for all of us and we pulled its owner out to face the light. It was Tamara’s mother. Barrett cried out when he saw her and turned around looking for his baseball bat wherever he’d dropped it when he’d moved to help me.
He screamed like a little girl, too. At least I wasn’t the only one.
I turned my head to see what he’d screamed at and that was when I saw Tamara’s dad in the doorway. He just stood there not moving, looking at us. Thankfully he hadn’t moved in when we were distracted or he could have had us. I looked back down when I felt the grip on my foot release and I saw Tamara’s mom crawling out from under the bed.
I screamed his name, “Barrett!”
I faced me wildly. “Use the baseball bat! Try to clear us a path.”
He swung the bat at Tamara’s dad and managed a glancing blow on his shoulder. He rocked on his feet but it didn’t seem to affect him at all. Hopefully Barrett would remember to try for the head because I had enough trouble of my own getting to her feet before me. She looked just the same as she had a few hours ago when she’d been dead. Ripped apart. Naked. There was no gleam of recognition in her eyes – no sign of intelligence. There was nothing there and no one home.
I ran through about a thousand scenarios in my head in the three seconds it took her to reach me, but other than that I was completely frozen. If it wasn’t for Fannie Mae I’d be dead right now. Ish, that is. Dead-ish. Fannie Mae came out of nowhere behind me and shoved Tamara’s mom hard. Who apparently hadn’t found her zombie balance yet because she tumbled over easily back onto the bed. You could tell that her equilibrium change hadn’t even registered on her because she still kept reaching for me with that undeniable, implacable reach.
I still stood frozen.
Fannie Mae stepped forward and shoved her knife to the hilt in Mrs. Rogers’ eye. The questing hands immediately fell to the covers and whatever force was animating her left her body.
“Thank you, Fannie Mae,” I said breathlessly, finally able to move. “You saved my life.”
She was trying to tug on her knife, but it looked like it was stuck hard in the bone. She gave up with a cry of disgust as blood and other things started to weep out of the naked eye socket. She looked at me, “At least we know they can be killed.”
I sighed, “Yeah, and we know it’s infectious.”
We’d entirely forgotten about Barrett in our own struggle.
“A little help over here,” he cried out.
It looked like the bat was doing no good against Mr. Rogers. Either his skull was too thick or Barrett wasn’t strong enough because the blows just kept glancing off of him. Barrett pulled back for one more strike and that was when the zombie just reached out and took the bat from him. It looked at it curiously for a second and then fixed its gaze back on Barrett. It didn’t release its grip on the bat as it started to shuffle forward.
Barrett scuttled back the few feet to where Tamara and I stood. “Any ideas?”
I reached into the sports bag that I’d completely forgotten about when confronted with Mrs. Rogers’s naked form. The only thing we had left in it to protect ourselves with was the lighter and the lighter fluid. I scrambled to get the lighter fluid out and twist the top open. I squirted it on the slowly approaching form of Mr. Rogers from several feet away. Fortunately the contents were most definitely under pressure and I was able to soak him fairly well. He didn’t even register what I was doing.
I dropped the lighter fluid on the floor and reached into my pocket for the lighter. It was an old Zippo but thankfully it started on the first strike. I threw it on Mr. Rogers and sent up a quick prayer to whatever God there may be that it didn’t go out.
It didn’t. He lit up like a Christmas tree. But it didn’t stop him. He still moved forward like he didn’t feel a thing at all. He was limned in a halo of fire and now not only did we have a zombie between us and the door out of here, we also had a zombie that was on fire. Awesome.
The fire began to spread with every step that he took. I kicked the lighter fluid container across the room as I realized it would explode if the fire reached it.
Mr. Rogers began to move a little more slowly as the fire really began to catch hold in his flesh. I guess it took a bit for the fire to reach the brain. Smoke curled from him and began to circulate through the room. I could hear Barrett and Fannie Mae coughing behind me as Mr. Rogers continued his inexorable steps forward. His eyes were locked on mine; or mine were locked on his. I felt hypnotized.
Fannie Mae tugged on my arm. I didn’t respond and she almost ripped my arm from its socket. I tore my gaze away from Tamara’s dad and Fannie Mae pointed toward the window. She bent over suddenly as a rack of coughing came over her. I looked at the window, confused. Suddenly a wave of understanding washed over me and I found I could move.