“You’re gonna get there.” He said. “But you’ll have to do it without me.”

  Jason said. “Come with us, Colin. Please you got to come with us.”

  Colin nodded at Teresa, raised his hand and pounded his fist against his hot tender chest. Dominic returned the sentiment and shook his head.

  Pain sliced across his chest again; gooseflesh raised the hairs along his arms. He met Teresa’s gaze for one final time and nodded.

  She turned the key. The engine coughed to life.

  He spun around on his heels and hobbled across the shore toward the bottom of the hill, ignoring Jason’s cries. He didn’t know how much time he had left so he had to hurry back up to the café as fast as he could. He limped his way up the hill, his chest rising and falling with each thick and painful breath he took.

  A second bank of memories came flooding back to him in the same manner as they’d done back at the motel room five months ago.

  Alicia running to the window of her upstairs bedroom, tears streaming down her face as he stood outside of her parents two-story house holding a bouquet of flowers after he forgot it was her birthday and missed the special dinner her and her parents held at Texas Roadhouse and because she hadn’t called him in two days he’d figured that if he genuinely loved her he’d have to prove it.

  He reached the veranda, grabbed onto the railing and heaved himself up. He hitched a breath then suddenly wished that he hadn’t. He placed his left foot down, doubled over and gave another loud hacking cough.

  He hobbled over to the set of tinted brown doors, reared his left fist back and swung it in a whistling arc across his chest. The window buckled and shattered.

  The day they’d visited the resort cabin at Lake Michelle to see if it were the perfect wedding venue and they’d hurried out to see what all of the fuss was about and there she was standing on top of the very hill where he would surrender his heart to her and wrap her up in the folds of his loving soul. The mole didn’t mean anything at that time but when the heavyset mole-lipped man come around to join them there was no doubt that this was where they wanted this to happen where their bond would become stronger than anything known to man and a new chapter of their lives would begin.

  He stepped over, crunching bits of broken glass under his feet and sauntered back into the café where it all began, where he’d first decided to take part in this little venture. He limped across the lobby toward the kitchen when something appeared in the corner of his left eye.

  A group of distorted shadows shambled toward the front of the café. A loud chorus of low moans followed, droning in his ears like flies buzzing over a corpse. He hobbled across the dining room toward the kitchen, his body now a flaming paradise of pain that rung every drop of sweat out of him.

  He pushed through the batwing door and limped his way into the kitchen. He thought about propping the door against the wall but that would take the kind of strength he didn’t have anymore, the kind of strength that was leaking out of him with each and every cough. He hobbled across the kitchen floor, clamped onto the edge of the stove, stretched himself across the top of it and reached around toward the back.

  He grasped the ribbed metal length of pipe running from the back of the stove to the gas line on the wall. He knew this was going to hurt but there was no other recourse. If he didn’t take that hideous horde down when he had the chance, no one would.

  He nibbled on his bottom lip, tightened his hand around the pipe, jerked his arm back and tore it from the wall. A small vaporous cloud spewed out from the wall. He slipped his right hand into his change pocket, dug his first two fingers inside and found them on the second try. He hobbled across the kitchen, doubled over and coughed. He closed his eyes as a rich coppery liquid stung the back of his throat and danced across his tongue. He opened his eyes again, gazed down at a small puddle of blood spreading across the floor, leaned back and hobbled over to the walk-in freezer.

  He could smell that dead girl trapped inside and sighed. He thought that when you died, you could smell everything that died before you did. He didn’t know for sure but one thing he did know was going to die and for a good reason, too.

  He didn’t know if he would meet up with Alicia and he was okay with that. He didn’t deserve to spend the rest of eternity with her, didn’t deserve to be a part of her life any longer than he would have had there not been a zombie apocalypse but still an affair. He might’ve cured a lot of people in his life, but there was one person he would never cure: himself.

  He glanced across the kitchen and peered out through the square window in the batwing doors and grinned. A pair of dead redheads were staggering through the dining room wearing tight red leather skirts and brown leather boots; one of them sported a large bite mark on the meaty part of her right shoulder. The other had been stripped off all her skin and flesh along her right bicep, exposing a lump of flesh and veins.

  Behind them was an ensemble of heartless and skinless fiends: a marine with bedhead white hair wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and white boxers with little red hearts on them, two men in frayed jeans, muddy brown work boots and bright red work shirts amongst others. The hunger in their eyes were no different than the kind they brought with them when they had (or hadn’t) dined here before. The door swung open, filling the room with a cool silky breeze that caressed his bare arms; a tall dark-haired zombie sporting a severed arm stumbled into the kitchen, gnashing his teeth together.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” He said. “I’m sorry.”

  Tears leaking down his face, Colin grinned, closed his eyes, lifted the nickel-plated Zippo in his left hand and swiped his thumb across the wheel. The lighter winked as the zombie staggered toward him, its sunken gray skin pulled taut around tight cheekbones.

  “Son of a bitch.” He sighed and thumbed the wheel again.

  The flame caught.

  Outside, a loud tremor shook the ground and stirred the trees, spreading a fresh radar map of large lucid ripples across the surface of the lake. Jason hurried across the boat and, Rosie kicking her feet out from the cuffs of her sling, grasped the metallic railing with both hands.

  A tower of fire burst through the café’s ceiling, sending bits of sharp glass, large, jagged splinters and chunks of rebar flew across the air; the stilts under the veranda gave way and sent the mass of bodies tumbling down the hill, their limbs flailing out from their sides. Birds squawked in protest and erupted from nearby treetops. Fire-engulfed debris floated across the air and crashed into the forest, lighting a few overhanging branches along the way and crushing frail twigs and fallen leaves.

  The steeply-pitched roof collapsed, smashing the café’s walls like an empty juice box. It slid down the hill like a thin gray sled , spewing a tail of thick black smoke and bright red-orange flame out from behind it. A large strip of black ash streaked down the face of the hill as tiny bright-orange coals spun in the hot stuffy breeze.

  Dominic clutched the front of Jason’s shirt and knelt down beside of him. He wrapped his right arm around Jason’s waist and spun him around until their gazes met. He made sure not to suffocate Rosie, wiped his own tears away from his face and cupped his face in both hands.

  “He did the right thing.” Jason said. “Didn’t he?”

  Teresa nodded, tears cascading down her face. The boat had sped away from shore, its engine roaring at the once quiet blue sky. It cleaved a V-shaped trail of water, spreading frothy-white waves in its wake.

  He wanted to run toward the railing, run as fast as he could but he knew it wouldn’t make sense. He knew, deep down inside, that all things were meant to happen as they should and that once they’d reach Abilene it was for the better. He’d miss Stacey more but he would never forget that one complete stranger who made took all of the risks to save their lives.

  His left cheek pressed against Dominic’s right hip, Jason felt something tugging at his left hand and glanced down to see what it was. Rosie wrenched her tiny right hand around his thumb, peered up at him with her sky blue eyes and cast a toothy pink grin. He bowed his head, planted a gentle kiss upon the crown of her forehead and gazed off in the distance, his body flooded with the joy of a new life waiting ahead in a world that would never seem as empty and dead as the one they’d left behind.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Brian J. Smith has been featured in numerous anthologies, e-zines and magazines in both the mystery and horror genres. He is the author of Dark Avenues, The Tuckers, 1342 Lindley Road, Consuming Darkness, Abbie’s Wrath and Bad Allergies. He resides in southeastern Ohio where he doesn’t drink enough coffee, buys more books although he has too many and is an Affiliate member of The Horror Authors Guild.

 

 

  Brian Smith, Dead River

 

 

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