Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Read Online Free Page B

by the press of approaching bodies. I didn’t dare look back, just barreled through the next door and locked it behind me. As I whimpered there in the dark, the door beat hard against my shoulder, shaking the whole house: BAM! BAM! BAM!
    My crying was a high-pitched whistle from deep in my throat, broken up by violent hiccups. That door’s not going to hold, it’s not, it’s not . . .
    What was that smell ? I was in the last throes of animal desperation, but even that had to yield before the stench. The stench . It filled the dark room like a dense, gamy vapor, like cut bait left in a tackle box all summer. I couldn’t see anything, just a thread of light under the heavy blackout curtain, but I knew there was something rotten in there.
    I could hear the maniacs laying waste to the room next to mine, searching for a way through. It freed me to leave the door for a second and open the curtain a crack, just enough to admit a little light. I did this with trembling caution, not wanting anyone outside to notice and come crashing in. But there was no sign of them—the yard was empty. I turned and screamed.
    The room looked like a slaughterhouse. It had been a bedroom, with a futon on the floor, CD racks, and a high chest of drawers, but everything was spattered with black congealed blood, all the way up the walls. The center of the futon pad was a lavalike mass of gore, mixed with teeth and hair. Several blood-smeared yellow raincoats were draped on a chair alongside gloves, overshoes, and other protective gear. Wads of duct tape and cut plastic police restraints littered the floor. Remembering the tools on the dining table, I suddenly had a bizarre revelation: Where were these guys when I needed them? Instead of dropping dead from the horror, my brain seemed to rise to the unspeakable and take unexpected strength from this scene—not everybody was squeamish. I had the choice there and then to fall apart or live . . . and be this kind of person. Because the carnage before me was not the work of Agent X mental cases. It was the work of hard-hearted men.
    This was not a conscious thought process so much as an emotional rush that got me moving.
    I dragged the sodden, reeking futon over against the door and prepared to move the dresser in front of the window. Then I thought, Why? Barricading myself in this awful place wouldn’t save me for long—screw that. Instead, I tipped the dresser onto the mattress and went to unlatch the window. It slid open easily, presenting a clear field of flight. Then I frowned: I’d never outrun those things. Not even my own mother. Anxiously, I started searching for a weapon, a club, anything to hold them off until I could get back to our car . . . and maybe away.
    The maniacs were going crazy in the hall, having heard my yelp and the dresser falling over. Still looking for any kind of weapon, I opened the closet and leaned in, then reeled backward as if slapped. In the middle of a heap of women’s shoes stood a green plastic garbage can, filled nearly to the brim with purplish blue human remains. Amid the offal I could make out part of a jaw, ribs, hair, intestines. But that wasn’t what had made me jump.
    The remains were alive .
    Though every joint seemed to have been severed, the whole mass seethed like an octopus. It made wet, smacking sounds, and I had the insane impression that it was aware of me—that those veiny, glistening lumps were surging in my direction.
    The bedroom door was coming apart. Moving like a sleep-walker, I closed the closet, casually crawled out the window, and dropped gently to the ground. Fresh air! Nothing was weird at all out there—it looked exactly the same as when I’d first walked up. I knew I hadn’t been dreaming, but still felt self-conscious running for the road under that prosaic winter sky, as one who awakens kissing a pillow. I felt dirty.
    Going through the gate, I made the mistake of looking back and caught a glimpse of herky-jerky figures