The Jack Zombie Collection: Volume 1, page 11
“He’s right,” Abby says.
“Can it, whore,” Pat says. “Less talking, more moving.”
Ryan and I pass Abby and Kevin as we head back to the almost barren weight room. I catch eyes with her, see the fire in them. Kevin just looks defeated — it’s a terrible look on such a gladiator, but I guess he has every right to be.
The rack where the dumbbells used to be is empty. Large hunks of metal with three rows for weights from two pounds to a hundred pounds.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get this one.”
Ryan shakes his head. “Watch out, Jupiter. Let the real men handle this.”
I cock my head. Real men? I don’t remember seeing this asshole bashing in the zombies ten minutes ago. Whatever. I’ll let him do his thing. No way will he be able to move it by himself. It’s got to be about three hundred pounds of pure steel.
“Unlike you, I’ve lifted heavy shit before,” Ryan says. “I don’t just sit behind a desk all day and make up stupid stories.”
He sounds bitter, but it’s cool.
“Go right ahead,” I say with a smile.
He struggles at first, his pale face going beet red. To my surprise, he actually lifts one end of the rack up so it’s pointing straight up to the ceiling.
“Now what?” I ask, trying not to laugh. “You gonna roll it all the way to the steps.”
Ryan’s breathing heavily, half-hunched over, sweat standing out on his forehead. “Yeah,” he says. “Maybe I will. Get out of here and make yourself useful, Jupiter.”
He starts to push against the metal again. It easily towers over him by about five feet.
I cringe as it topples, expecting the noise to be like a lightning bolt at my feet, but it doesn’t topple over the way Ryan intends it to. It topples over on him.
I jump toward him as quick as I can. His arms catch the middle rack, but it’s too much force. This close, I can hear the bones grinding inside of him to keep him from being smashed. I have the top rack in hand, the metal edge slicing into my flesh, causing me to bite my tongue.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Ryan is saying.
This is much worse than my run in with the bench press. So much worse. I don’t give up. I give it all I’ve got. In one strong push, I give Ryan enough room to let go and dive out of the way. This means all the force of the rack he was holding up comes crashing into my palms, and it’s too much.
I grunt and scream.
Somewhere, dumbbells crash to the floor as Isaiah, the closest one, runs over to us.
“Go, Ryan!” I yell.
And he tries.
The weight is just too much. I let go before it takes me down with it.
The rack comes crashing down with all the force of an angry god. I think the floor will crack open and we’ll wind up falling through.
Then I hear Ryan scream out.
I’ve fallen away, landing on my ass, my head spinning from lack of oxygen in my struggle to hold the rack up, vision blurry.
But my vision isn’t blurry enough to miss what has happened to Ryan’s leg. The rack caught him in the middle of the shin. His khakis are torn open. White skin is smeared with red blood. His scream should be louder, but I think he’s just in too much shock.
Isaiah tries to lift the rack up, barely raising it a few inches off of Ryan’s leg. I scramble up to help. By this time, Kevin and Abby are helping, too. Miss Fox and Pat are nowhere to be seen, but I’m not looking for them.
With Kevin helping, we easily get the rack off of Ryan. Abby helps pull him out from under it.
“Fuck, fuck,” Ryan says. His hands are over his face, tears stream down his cheeks. “It’s broken, isn’t it?”
I look to the wound.
It’s worse than broken. It’s almost amputated. I can see the bone in the sea of broken flesh and blood. It’s not broken cleanly but rather splintered.
We need to get him to the hospital.
“Uh,” Abby says. She’s at a loss for words. We all are.
Ryan looks down at the wound, peeking through his splayed-out fingers on his face.
His eyes show white and he falls over, passed out.
I hate to admit it, but I feel bad for the kid. I should’ve helped, shouldn’t have let him try to do that on his own. Something bad was going to happen. It always seems to be that way.
Over the quiet shaky breathing, I hear footsteps. I turn to see Pat strolling through. No concern written on his face, only curiosity.
When he sees the blood dripping onto the rubber floor, Pat raises the gun.
“No!” I shout. I grab his forearm, and I think the act alone shocks him. He pulls free of my grip.
“What are you doing? Don’t you see?” Pat screams. “He’ll just weigh us down.”
I know I can’t reason with him. So I do something I never thought I’d do for an asshole like Ryan. I stand in front of him, put my body between the gun and the end of his life.
Kevin follows, then Abby, and then, reluctantly, Isaiah.
“You’ll have to kill us all if you’re gonna get to him, Pat,” Abby says.
I smile.
I don’t want to jump the gun, but it’s safe to call these people my friends, I think. Even if it’s the shortest friendship of all time. Zombie apocalypses have a way of doing that.
Pat lowers the gun, shakes his head. “You’re all crazy. You know that?” He sticks it in the back of his waistband. “Fine, do what you have to do, but leave me out of it. When I’m right, when this little bastard is the cause of your demise because you’re stuck dragging him around like a two-legged dog, I’ll be there to say I told you so. Now get that damn barricade built.”
He leaves the weight room. As I watch him go, I see Miss Fox looking on with a pained expression. Her whole world is crumbling.
“There’s a first aid kit in the cardio section,” Abby says after a moment of silence. “Nothing much. Band Aids, gauze, disinfectant. We can wrap up the wound, try to splint it. I don’t know.”
“Let’s get it,” I say. I look to Kevin and Isaiah. “You guys keep an eye on him?”
They both nod.
“Fuck that man’s barricade,” Isaiah says loud enough for Pat to hear.
Pat watches from near the drinking fountains at the top of the steps. The shadows from the moderately-high pile of gym equipment we’ve put together shroud his face, but they don’t hide the venom in his eyes.
21
“Shit,” Abby says.
She throws a bunch of balled up papers and other useless junk from an open drawer at a desk near the back of the cardio area.
It’s so desolate up here. From where I stand, I can barely see the group. Kevin looks huge even from here. He kneels near Ryan. Isaiah paces back and forth with his arms crossed. Miss Fox has her head in her hands. I reckon she’s crying but I can’t hear her sobs over the pounding from the first floor, from the snarls and clawing dead hands against the metal doors.
“Where is it? Where is it?” Abby is saying. She looks up at me with wet eyes. “He’s a dick, yeah, but we can’t just quit. We can’t just let him die. Like, not even try.”
“I know,” I say.
She slams the top drawer closed, then rips open the one underneath it. A handful of stopwatches bounce off the rubber floor. A box of blue Bic pens falls next.
“He needs medical attention,” I say. “Band-Aids and Neosporin aren’t going to save him.”
It’s sad, but it’s true.
Besides, there’s a bigger problem here.
“How? By killing all those things outside, driving right up to the hospital? Killing all those people I know, the ones who went to my school, the teachers, mailmen…my friends?”
“No,” I say. “We need to get rid of Pat.”
She stops, looks up at me with a frown on her face. “Like…kill him?”
I don’t answer immediately. I let the silence hang there for a moment. See, I don’t know if that’s what I mean when I say we need to get rid of Pat. He’s unstable, that much is true, not to mention that he’s a complete and total asshole. Now that Abby’s put words in my mouth, I think to myself that maybe it isn’t actually a bad idea. We could make it look like an accident, a suicide or something. Even jump him and throw him to the flesh eaters. You know, just in case the world is righted sooner than we think.
I realize I am angry, I am just out for blood so I don’t tell her any of this. Instead, I say, “Look what he did to Earl. That wasn’t human. That was something only a monster can do. Now he’s holding us hostage.”
She stands up straighter, still a head shorter than me, but looks me dead in the eyes. “He stepped up, that’s all he did. Pat isn’t a bad man. I’ve known him for almost three years. He’s here five days a week. It’s the predicament we’re in. It’s changing us. Besides, if we…do that to Pat, it makes us as bad as he is.
“Ryan can be saved. He’s not dead yet — yes!”
She smiles as she pulls out a blood-red first aid kit. It looks like it’s older than the both of us combined, but when she opens it up, the contents are new. Probably some yearly mandated law to keep it updated or something. There’s a handful of bandages in all different sizes, some aspirin, cloth tape, wet wipes, cortisone ointment, peroxide, gauze pads, tweezers, a thermometer, purple latex gloves, and a little booklet straight from the seventies. There’s also a flashlight and spare batteries. Where the heck was this thing when Freddy Huber decked me in the face?
“Come on,” Abby says.
A sliver of hope fills my chest. The first aid kit is more stocked than I’d imagined. If we could keep him alive for the night, I’m sure the help will come in the morning. But the problem is, what if someone else gets hurt or sick? It doesn’t matter, I guess, because I don’t plan on staying the night here. I plan on sleeping with Darlene, like I always do — after I save her.
Still, I keep my mouth shut as we approach the group again. Not much has changed except for Ryan is awake now. He looks delirious, near death.
Kevin stares at the floor, sitting cross-legged.
“We got the kit,” Abby says. “Miss Fox, come over and help us.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Pat says, walking over to us from his sentry post near the drinking fountains.
Ryan groans. He shakes his head back and forth. Sweat drips from his face. “No, no…” he says.
Miss Fox drops down to one knee and starts rummaging through the kit. She pulls the tiny bottle of peroxide out from beneath the bandages.
“Stop it,” Pat says to her.
“We ain’t killing him,” Isaiah says.
“It’s pointless!” Pat screeches. “Look at that leg.”
My hands clamp Ryan around the shoulders, pressing him up against the wall.
Pat stands over us, gun raised.
Downstairs, the sounds of the dead are amplified. A metal bar falls over, bounces.
“They’re in!” Isaiah says.
I get up to see for myself. Through the grates in the guardrail, I see the shadowy figures of people stumbling over the debris barricade. Another of Kevin’s makeshift barriers falls over, a group of snarling freaks with it. The weight was too much, and instead of trying to find a way out of here, we are now just sitting ducks. Thanks a lot, Pat. Your good measure has killed us all.
A man in a suit — or what was once a man — leads the way. One of his eyes is completely gouged out, a river of blood trickles from his ducts. A large chunk of ear is missing on his left side. His necktie is as ruined as his sunken-in face.
More follow his lead.
They can’t use the steps, no way. I think this because they couldn’t figure out how to open the front doors. They had just knocked against the glass until they accidentally triggered the handicap automatic door opener.
I look over to Ryan. He’s started screaming. His mouth is nothing but a black cave with white stalactites for teeth. Miss Fox pours the peroxide on the wound.
Pat has the gun out in front of him. His arm shakes — no, his whole body shakes. I think he might pull the trigger, I really do.
But Kevin shoots up from my side. He whizzes past me. Pat catches the big guy lumbering over out of the corner of his eye and lowers the weapon. All he can do is stare with wide eyes.
“I need to clean the wound, Ryan, honey,” Miss Fox is saying in a soothing voice. “It’ll be better once I clean it.”
Kevin drops down, puts two big mitts against Ryan to stop his bucking.
“Towel,” he says to Abby. “Give me a towel.” He then leans his forearm across Ryan’s chest like a safety bar on some demented rollercoaster. The towel turns into a ball in Kevin’s hand, then when Ryan opens his mouth to scream again, he shoves it in.
The screams are still loud but muted. I risk another glance over the guardrail. The creeps file in like ants heading to a picnic.
“Come on,” Isaiah says. He has a dumbbell in hand — twenty pounds — and he cocks it back behind his head and throws the thing like it only weighs five pounds.
The guy with the missing ear takes it full in the face. When it hits him, it doesn’t explode his skull into a million gushy pieces. It just stuns him, and he stops for a second. He even looks down at the shiny metal of the dumbbell.
“Need more weight than that,” I say.
Isaiah rolls his arm in a circle. “You try heaving that shit,” he says. “I’d like to keep my rotator cuffs intact.”
“Well, I’d like to keep my guts,” I say.
I pick up a five-pound plate, throw it like a Frisbee, aiming at the guy with the bitten ear. I miss terribly, and the plate goes flying into one of the doors that still has most of its glass.
The glass explodes in a burst of glittering shards. Hands and legs and dead faces pop through.
“Nice one, Jupiter,” Isaiah says. He has another dumbbell, and he waits until the things are almost at the first step where Earl’s body lays.
“Wait,” I say to Isaiah. “Don’t. You have to look away. Look away.”
“Huh?”
And just like I expected, the things don’t keep coming once they stumble upon Earl’s body. I think I even see one of them smile, but I know it’s just my imagination.
“Aw, hell no,” Isaiah says.
He throws the dumbbell anyway. He’s bent down picking another one up before the first one hits. “Stay away from him, you assholes,” he screams.
I grab his arm. “Stop, we might need those if they break through the barricade.”
“We have a gun!” Isaiah says. “Shoot them, Pat. Shoot them!”
“Shut the hell up,” Pat says.
I look at him and he doesn’t even notice what’s going on. He’s too invested in whatever Miss Fox is doing to Ryan’s leg wound.
Down at the bottom of the steps, Earl is nothing but a squished head and an open, torn-up body. The zombies are all on their knees, clawing at the flesh, lapping at the sea of blood. Their hands are rakes. They’re up to their elbows in organs and guts. A low rattling comes from the back of their throats as they open their mouths to dig in to what was once the old man.
Isaiah stands there with his mouth hung open, waiting for Pat to do something. When he doesn’t, Isaiah turns back to the pile of dumbbells and chucks them down the steps. He’s like a rapid-fire, machine gun. Blurs of gray. Shiny plates fill and leave his hands. Screw the rotator cuffs.
Most of the dead don’t notice when the dumbbells hit them, or when the plates bounce off of their skulls. They’re too invested in the dinner they’re smearing all over the steps.
The last thing Isaiah throws is a pink weight that weighs about three pounds. It barely makes it to the horde, bounces off a step then lands in the middle of Earl’s open stomach.
Three heads pop up to follow the trajectory of the weight. A woman with a face of mostly red snarls at me looking at them over the fence. Her teeth are gone. I can’t imagine she’d have much success in the feast going on down there, and maybe she’s smart enough to realize that, too. Because she stands up all slow and deliberate, fresh blood running off of her chin, and looks me right in the eyes.
Each step is laborious and pained, but she moves up the stairs without much difficulty. Her snarling grows louder, then she’s pushing up against the treadmills and ellipticals, making them creak.
I look to Pat, feeling a mixture of hate and anxiety. It would really be nice to have that gun in my hand right about now, but we’re trapped up here and all I have are a couple dumbbells too heavy for me to lift, a dude about to die, and stir-crazy partners.
Ryan’s towel falls out of his mouth, and the screams cut through the air.
“Shut him up!” Pat says.
Kevin tries to hold him as Abby fumbles with the towel. There’s a disgusting look on her face as she picks it up. It’s covered in blood and spit. Miss Fox wraps the leg tight, red already seeping through the gauze.
“Yo, Pat, a little help here,” I say.
He turns, mouth half-open and ready to make a snarky comment, but looks past me at the shambling woman. When I turn, I see more than the woman. Now a couple more have joined her. The people snacking on Earl don’t even look up. Innards stretch then snap between their teeth. Guts hang from the corner of their mouths.
The three coming up the step have found the fresh meat. Hands beat the plastic casing of the treadmill. They’re stronger than I originally thought because I’m leaning up against the other side of the treadmill and each time they hit it, I’m pushed a fraction of an inch forward.
Ryan’s screams are to the point of glass-shattering. Miss Fox fidgets. “Almost done,” she says. “Hold on, honey.”
“Kevin, help me!” I yell. “I can’t hold it by myself.”
Isaiah helps, too, but only by throwing things at the shambling corpses. The short distance must be easier on his arms because I hear bones shatter, then a body roll down the steps.
Kevin comes over, presses his big shoulder into the treadmills.
“We could really use that gun,” I say to Pat.
But he doesn’t answer. He just stares wide-eyed at the kid on the ground. The one who doesn’t look like much of a kid — or a human, for that matter — anymore. He looks like he is dying, and so will we if we don’t do anything.
