Lord Love a Zombie: Dead Inside: Welcome - Henry and Cynthia (Companion Piece)

The movies have it wrong, when the apocalypse hit, most of the dead are as smart and as fast as they had been when they were alive – some of them even more so. None of that matters to Henry Forester, his ‘put yourself in that person’s shoes’ attitude carries over and he just wants to help whomever is still alive.

His older cousin, Cynthia, on the other hand, never did ascribe to that way of thinking.

“Henry, this is real! We have to know what we’re dealing with before we go out there again! You can’t just keep running out in the open trying to help everybody like that!”

The guy peers cautiously through the flimsy drapes, the dead were still feasting on the poor soul up the street who had tried to follow them. When he fell for the fifth time and couldn’t run a straight line when he was on his feet, they knew he’d lied to them about being bitten. In any case, Henry didn’t blame the man for trying to hide his wounds. He probably would have done the same thing.

Zombies swarmed him like locust – it seems unless you changed immediately after being bitten, you were still up for grabs. This is way most infected choose head shots or decapitation to turning.

His looping, shrill screams will be the fodder for future nightmares.

“Nobody knows, Cyn! No one! Hell, the government doesn’t even know what’s going on and if they do, they ain’t sharing info with us! But we can’t stay here, the smell of his blood will just draw more over this way and it won’t be long before they start trying the houses. You’ve seen how they act.”

“You’re right, I know.” She notices that the dark stain on the seat of his pants has gotten larger. “Um, Henry…your pants.” Cynthia’s pointed gaze directs his own to his dilemma.

He twitches – careful not to move the curtain – but the tacky blood coats his skin even as the rough jeans are displaced so Henry adjusts his belt, cautiously plucks at the fabric sticking to the underside of his thighs with his left hand. In this new world, there’s no room for modesty. The woman continues, “...about what those men did to you yesterday–”

The wails have lessened outside their hideout.

Henry stiffens, peeks through the window. The man is quiet, his body jerks as the zombies gut it. Stomach roiling as he watches one of the dead shovel innards through his own half eaten mouth, he murmurs, “I don’t want to talk about it, Cyn. You killed them and it never happened. I’m fine.” Feeling slightly chastised and greatly saddened that her last relative had to learn about the evilness of the living while trying not to get eaten by the dead, she swallows; nods then heads in the direction of the next room of the unfamiliar house. What her cousin says next stops her short.

“We gotta try to get to Auntie.”

Scratch that. Her next to last relative.

Cynthia shoots down the notion. “She’s eighty three years old and lives alone in a house with a slide chain lock and a flimsy patio door, I doubt she’s still alive, Henry.”

“She could be! Come on, I know you never liked her–”

The ‘Are you kidding me?’ stare she levels his way suggests he’d better correct himself. “...or her you but Aunt Henrietta is the only family we have left…even before the zombies hit. What if it were you, Cyn?” He begs. “What if you were all alone, never married with no children, wouldn’t you want someone to come looking for you? Just to make sure? Wouldn’t you?”

Henry’s eyes mist up. “We’re all she has left, Cyn.”

“What if we find her and she’s immobile or worst yet, bitten? Then what, Henry?”

Looking out the window – some of the dead have left what remains of the unlucky man and are now huddled together in the middle of the street – he hesitates slightly before answering. “Then I’ll take care of her.”

Cynthia huffs, not believing him for a second.

She scowls at him not saying a word and for a long moment Henry believes his case lost but then her head does that weird nod-tilt thingy which always means she’s given in...albeit reluctantly.

Henry smiles, runs the back of a hand over his eyes, truly more than grateful because as far back as he can remember, even he knows their aunt never gave a shit about her only niece. Cynthia sighs, put off because after all these years she still can’t control that particular tell. “All right. All right. Give me a minute to pee, and then we’ll go. You stay on monitor duty and I’ll take your place so you can go when I get back. We’ll leave as soon as there’s an opening.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He grins, offers her an enthusiastic thumbs up, gets an eye roll teamed with an affectionate “Idiot” in return. Back as lookout, he’s all business.

The place is not that big even though it’s a ranch-style home. Cynthia roams quietly door to door, gun at the ready as she cracks then fully opens each one in turn. In one closet off the dining room is a pair of dirty, blood-stained, bloomer-like panties – something an older woman would wear. The young woman stares dispassionately down at them for a bit, hopes their owner made it to safety and if not, is permanently dead.

It doesn’t take much longer to find the bathroom, the overwhelming stale air combined with the odor of feces, piss and something metallic providing her nose unfailing directions the closer she got to it.

What Cynthia doesn’t expect to find is it currently in use.

No sooner than the girl cautiously opens the door than an older woman jumps up from the toilet to swing a plunger at her head, missing her by a mile giving Cynthia enough time to wrench it out of the woman’s limp, trembling grip.

“GET OUT! THIS IS OUR PLACE!”

“Shhhh, you wanna get us all eaten? Those things are right outside, they’ll hear you,” hushes Cynthia, angrily. And as if to prove her point one of the undead raises its head, sniffs the air; then returns to its meal.

Unbeknownst to them all, more dead are shambling through yards and around corners to join the others.

Keeping the lady in her peripherals, Cynthia gives the rank smelling room a hasty once over. Lying on a pile of dirty sheets in front of the sink cabinet is an unclothed newborn – its umbilical cord still attached. Beneath the rusty claw foot tub sprawls an unmoving girl, not much younger than her own twenty five years, an obscene amount of blood dried tacky between her thighs saturates the bottom of her shredded dress.

“She’s dead?” Cynthia asks, slipping deeper into the room to toe at the still body.

These days trust doesn’t exist.

The stranger, somewhat calmer, swallows then nods. “Yeah. That’s my daughter, Rori, she gave birth to my granddaughter two days ago. I had to kill her and cut the baby out because she was screaming so loud.” If Cynthia wasn’t a part of this ongoing nightmare of somewhat intelligent zombies walking the earth feeding on the living, if she hadn’t seen with her own eyes the atrocities her fellow man were willing to commit upon one another in the name of survival, she’d be horrified at what this lady has done to her own child.

Still, Cynthia scowls at the woman with a measure of undisguised disgust at her arrogance. She feels the need to bring her down a peg or two.

“This is sloppy work. With all this blood, it’s a wonder they didn’t try to break the door down the moment you finished.”

Offended, the woman stomps back over to the toilet, hikes up her dress and flops on the seat as if it were a throne. Straining, her face contorts until several plops hit the funky water. She releases an ‘ah’ before standing once more.

“My name’s Praline but all my friends call me, Prai…and like I said before,” she points at the blue-, red- and yellow-bruised infant, “that there’s my granddaughter.”

“Stillborn?” Praline shakes her head. “Nah, she came through.” Cynthia can’t resist a tiny smile. “What’s her name?”

“I didn’t name her, yet. I figured what’s the use? She’s sickly.”

The sound of hurrying footsteps has both females turning toward the door. “Cyn, what’s taking so long? We gotta–” Henry voice falters as Prai hunkers down to pounce.

“Don’t!” Cynthia hisses, flinging a hand out to halt her. “That’s my cousin, Henry, he’s not gonna hurt you.” Henry glances offhandedly at the woman before addressing his relative again.

“We gotta go, Cyn. Something’s got them riled up and they’ve started going into houses further up across the street. They dragged a little kid out and ripped his arms off.” Henry gazes at the woman, including her in the conversation. “We gotta go right now!” He whips his head around. “Is there a back door to this place?”

That got the woman’s attention. “Yeah but we padlocked it and boarded it up on the outside.”

Henry does a slow blink, dumbfounded. “Why in the world would you–”

“Not now, Henry.” She addresses the woman. “Is there any other way out?”

“We put a hole in the side of the house then boarded it up real good on the inside before we closed ourselves in here.” Henry gives his cousin a ‘You have got to be kidding me look’ similar to the one she gave him earlier. It’s a well-used familial quirk.

“Who’s we?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Cynthia goes to grab up the baby but is pushed away by Prai, who growls, “She’s mine.” The grandmother haphazardly scoops up the baby clutching her clumsily to her chest.

THUMP! BANG! THUMP!

The zombies hit against the front entrance. The clank of the cheap lock breaking and the slam of the cheaper, manufactured door puts them inside the home.

Prai swiftly leads them through to the back of the house as the dead follow the stench of the blood, it doesn’t take long before they find and tear into the fresh body left behind.

Light filters in around the packed towels and pieces of cardboard duct-taped into place over the gap in the small utility room. Upon seeing the mess, Henry silently declares the woman mentally ill if she assumed for even one second she would have been safe in this place for another ten minutes with the amount of zombies out on the street.

Prying the mess away quickly and quietly is harder than the cousins think, especially dealing with an agitated baby.

“Prai,” Cynthia whispers desperately, “let me have her, I can calm her down.”

The woman squeezes the tot hard to her chest; the baby wheezes then lets out a loud, quivering howl. In a matter of seconds, lurching footsteps descend toward their direction.

“Oh God,” whimpers Henry, working faster. He rips a hole through the barricade just as the dead fill the narrow doorway. Bringing up the rear, Cynthia’s shoe barely clears through the hole as the first zombie breaks in the thin door, scrabbles to latch on to her kicking foot.

Once outdoors, walking cadavers inch slowly around the side of the house, boxing the humans against a chain link fence running the perimeter of the medium-size backyard.

Even more pour out from the hole in the wall.

“Shit,” yells Cynthia as she and Henry mutually blow off the heads of the closest zombies as they close in.

Prai stands stoic. “Stay behind me, I know what to do.” She holds the crying baby by one leg and tosses her granddaughter, like a horseshoe, up and over toward the middle of the fray of undead. One of them greedily snatches her out of midair. The zombies momentarily forget about the other living.

The infant’s cries shift into horrific, high-pitched shrieks which slowly render down to wretched painful sobs then stop completely – to be replaced by the sickening sound of wet ripping and loud chewing.

“What the hell?!”

Cynthia unloads a bullet into the grandmother’s thigh and shoulder before Henry has finished his question. The last shot interrupts the dead. They glance around finally zeroing in on their next meal. The cousins climb the fence to the grunts and groans of the zombies as they advance, appraising their soon-to-be main course and hit the ground running as a struggling Prai is pulled – her fingers tore and bloody from clawing at the metal wire – howling, toward a host of decaying, eager mouths.

Both wish they could stay and revel in the murderer’s death.

*****

Down the street from the tiny house in the early evening, Henry and his cousin hesitate. It had taken days to get here on foot dodging the walking dead, hiding, occasionally scavenging abandoned homes for food and water – once even for a shower and a change of clothes due to the near suffocating heat. Apparently, the zombies were now scouting in pairs or groups, no longer randomly eating humans but securing them, like prisoners, in houses for whatever reason.

They were almost caught when Henry saw a police car slowly creeping along the street. If it wasn’t for Cynthia tugging him back when he tensed to run toward it, they would have been eaten (or taken) by the zombie in uniform behind the wheel.

“What the hell is going on here? They’re dead, how can they be this smart?”

“I don’t know but we’ve got to keep moving.”

After everything they’ve been through, Henry tells her, their next rescue has to count – Henrietta is family and you don’t turn your back on family.

Cynthia eyes her cousin taking note of his hollow-like stare and pale skin. He wears his worry like a beacon but their aunt is a tough old lady, she’d ran an illegal numbers game when she was in her twenties and nowadays feeds gang members right at her dining room table. She’s sure her wizened elder could take out a zombie or two with her cast iron skillet on her worst day.

“Cyn, promise me if you turn, you’ll bite me too. I don’t want to be alone.” Henry’s voice quivers.

She glances away while nodding, unable to look him in the eyes for fear of the lie he would see there. “I promise.”

Tipping across the faded wood porch, her hand makes it to the door knob first.

They enter grinning at each other, relieved they didn’t have to draw attention to themselves trying to break in to the place in the fading light of day. A bit of the tension subsides but all the fear remains. Once their eyes adjust, their hope decreases with each step. Overturned furniture, the sound of running water from deeper in the home, blood on the walls and no Henrietta is what they stumble upon.

“Auntie.” Henry calls.

“Aunt Henrietta.”

No sign of their matriarch.

“Maybe she’s at a neighbor’s house. You know? Because she’s old. Her neighbors know she’s old, I’m sure someone looked in on her when stuff started going to hell.”

Cynthia hums, amazed that he can still have so much faith in his fellow man fresh off of being gang raped.

The cousins slowly make their way to the back of the house, one keeping their backs covered at all times. They find Henrietta crouching naked by the kitchen table in the process of digging into the leg of her next door neighbor even older than she. By the hole in the woman’s temple and the small gun lying by the refrigerator, it appears the woman may have committed suicide before their relative dug in.

Thank God.

Henry’s dry retching catches their aunt’s attention. The spinster lurches to her feet quicker than she could have if she was still alive.

“Children.” She sways, tilts to the left, saggy breasts jostling, favoring the chunk bitten out of her side as she turns to face the two. A ripped, half-lipped grin nearly has Cynthia gagging. “Did you think I’d forgotten my babies?” Henrietta hisses through her destroyed mouth. Her voice sounds as old and weak as when she was alive and breathing. “I was just about to be on my way to see you two, thanks for making it easy for an old woman.” She tromps closer to her nephew. “Nah, I know I taught you better than this, Henry. Come’mon and give your auntie some sugah, nah. My favorite lil’ boy.”

She leans unevenly toward Henry, foul mouth open and seeking, black tongue poking lewdly through shattered teeth, missing his cheek by mere inches. Slamming the butt of the gun on her shoulder blades as she topples forward does little to add to her momentum, instead of face planting, the zombie’s body whirls and is back in his face in seconds.

Henry stumbles backward, deeper into the kitchen, holds a forearm against her throat as she struggles, snaps and slobbers, pushes him back against the wall – yellowish, chipped teeth close in on their mark.

“CYNTHIA! GET HER OFF ME!”

Speechless and shaky, she rushes in, raises her weapon and stops in her tracks. It changes things when faced with actually having to pull the trigger on your own blood.

That’s probably why there’re so many zombies all over the world now. If people could just–

Henry spies the halted motion, takes fleeting notice of her glassy-eyed stare. “Shoot her, Cyn!”

Henrietta’s teeth just gaze his skin.

Ping!

The cadaver falls to her knees, the left side of her face splayed wide open. Henrietta eyeballs her namesake in slight confusion before growling and clutching at his pants leg to haul herself back up, detached skin flapping with every movement. A thin, steel pole slams against the side of her cranium out of nowhere, stunning the woman, taking her fully to the floor.

A second later, the undead Auntie rolls to her right side, set to scrabble to her feet only to be kicked onto her back by a sneaker, a boot joins it to grind mercilessly on her chest as the pole rams flush through her left eye and out the back of her skull several inches into the cracked, dirty tile – pinning the zombie’s head to the floor permanently.

“AUNTIE!”

Cynthia stands in shock as the second to last member of her family dies a final, horrible death in front of her eyes. Henry, on-the-other-hand, whips out his gun and points it at the dark haired killer, following his every movement as the man grunts, putting his full weight on the rod to shove it down another inch.

“Drop it or you can join her.” The man’s companion is fast, having left the corpse to stand behind Henry, knife pressed tight under his Adam’s apple before his arm is fully extended. Henry’s wrist shakes, his trigger finger itches. “Go ahead, shoot him but trust me, you’ll be zombie food before I make it to the end of the block.”

“You killed my aunt.” Cynthia hovers over Henrietta’s contorted body like she’s going to rise up again.

The man releases his grip on the metal, leans down to retrieve the neighbor’s discarded gun, gives it a once over as he straightens then stuffs it into his back pocket. He makes eye contact as he tells her he’s sorry. “It was either her or us. If she had realized she was out numbered, she would have started screaming. They call out to each other for help now.”

“I– I didn’t know that,” she informs him, still frazzled.

“Who’re you?!” Henry snarls as he lowers then puts his weapon away, heart-hurt and seething over his loss but still alert enough to shift his butt away from the stranger’s front.

The older looking of the two men ogles Henry’s head hard at the movement. Aware of the kid’s unease but not until he’s fairly sure the kid won’t relapse, he withdraws his knife, puts a bit of space between their parts. No nonsense and straight to the point, he asks, “Did she bite you? Have either of you two been bitten at any time?”

“No, we haven’t been bitten, have you?” Henry bites back. Eyes narrowed, his hand arches to remove the gun from his waistband once more.

The man sighs. “I’d hate to have to kill you if you’re not a zombie but I will if I have to. Don’t make me, kid.” He meets Henry’s hateful glower with an unperturbed glance of his own. The truth must show in his eyes for Henry drops his hand but doesn’t break his stare.

“Thank you.” Cynthia interrupts their ocular showdown. “I’m Cynthia Forester and that’s my cousin, Henry.”

The older man offers her a slight smile as he sheaths his blade, introduces them. “I’m Connor, he’s Marshall. We saw you two come in here with six zombies on the side of the house hot on your tails. We took them out; followed you in.” In an authoritative tone, he gives them the quick-n-dirty crib notes on post-apocalyptic survival.

Henry is neither amused at, thankful for, nor receptive to the mini-lecture.

He switches his glare to her. “What the hell are you thanking them and telling them our names for like we owe them something? We were handling it.”

Connor laughs, softly. “Yeah it seemed that way to me. Look, we’re just a couple of people trying to stay alive like you and if we’re gonna do that, we have to work together and keep moving.”

“Move to where?” Henry demands. Those things are all over the place out there, they’re all over the world! They drive and patrol and take prisoners...where are we supposed to go, Connor?”

Blam!

Somewhere close by, a shot rings out. All but Connor crouch down, he pulls a chain shutting off the exposed, overhead florescent beam, then joins them pulling out a pen. “Word is there are Human Survivor Camps in some places.” He twists the hooded part of the instrument to release a weak beam. “We don’t know if it’s true but we’re gonna try to make it to the closest one to find out.”

“And where’s that?” Cynthia enters the conversation.

Connor replies, “Tennessee.” The hopeful look on Cynthia’s face disappears. “We’re in Texas. How are we supposed to get to Tennessee from here with those things running around everywhere?”

“By doing whatever we have to do. First thing we’re gonna do is set this place to blow after we leave.”

Henry objects, harsh and loud. “NO! This is our aunt’s house!”

“Shhh!” Marshall reminds him. He pushes Connor’s hand to float the thin beam over the impaled body as a zombie shuffles pass in the dark outside the kitchen window, whispers, “She’s dead, dude, she doesn’t need it anymore. Are you two in or not?”

Cynthia and Henry trade glances – his full of fear, pain, anger and mistrust and hers mostly neutral – both silently agreeing that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better so, the more the safer. Resigned, they pick themselves up and dust themselves off. After using Connor’s light to retrieve flashlights in various shapes and lengths along with different sized batteries for all from the kitchen junk drawer – thank God their aunt was a hoarder in denial – Henry grudging asks what else they can do to help.

“Find some WD-40 or whatever type flammable oil you can and some dry rags. Bring them to me when you do,” Connor instructs them. They set off, lights on and guns in hand – just in case.

In the kitchen, back doorknob rattles – first gently then with brutal intent. Connor stands behind the door, hunting knife at the ready. Once the lone zombie gets in, it dies by way of a sharp thrust through the right eye down to its brain. Wiping the blade on the cleanest part of what’s left of the apparently freshly turned zombie’s shirt, he drags the corpse all the way in, dumps it on top of Henrietta. Trying and failing to secure the busted lock, he opts instead for Marshall to help him slide the Formica table against the broken lock once he gets back with the supplies.

A sham of a barricade but Connor doesn’t plan for them to be here much longer, anyway.

“Okay, drench the rags and put them in as many different rooms as you can. I’ll take care of the kitchen.” Out of hearing range of the men, Henry tears into Cynthia. “So you’re on their side? We didn’t need their help – or wouldn’t have if you hadn’t froze up! And what was that all about anyway? I thought you hated Aunt Henrietta.”

Cynthia seems to deflate under the onslaught of insults. “I know...and I do. I mean I did. I mean...I don’t know. It’s just, she was family, you know? All the family we had left in the world and now she’s gone. It...” She tosses a wet rag onto a sewing basket heaped high with yarn nestled between a straight back chair and an end table. “I don’t know.”

Henry opens his mouth, instead of soothing her concern, he further chastises his cousin. “You’re an idiot! You don’t even know those men. What if they try and rape you? Huh? They fought off a bunch of zombies to get in here, there’s no telling how many humans and zombies they’ve killed just to stay alive. I bet it’s more than we have! How am I supposed to stop them if they want you, Cyn?”

Henry’s crying now and she can’t stand it…all that pent up internal pain spewing forth so Cynthia reaches out to hug him. “They’re dead, Henry. I killed them, they can’t hurt you anymore.” For a minute he allows the comfort until the sound of a child screaming breaks them apart. He brusquely pushes her hands off, swipes at his red, watery eyes. “Just remember, they can’t be trusted, you understand?”

Feeling lost and helpless but wanting to hold on to her truly last relative at all costs, Cynthia nods. They distribute the rest of the oily rags in silence.

Back in the kitchen the whole room smells of gas. Zombies are at the front door and don’t hesitate to make it known they want in. “Kill the flashlights, go out the back,” hisses Connor. Marshall leads once the coast is clear, followed by Cynthia then Henry. They foot it to a fairly new car in the driveway. “Where does that go?” Marshall points through the windshield down the illuminated alley their aunt’s car is in parked after they pile in.

“It connects with the next street over,” Cynthia volunteers.

He pulls a set of keys from his pocket. “Were did you find those?” She asks. Marshall grins. “In her nightstand.”

“Freak.” Henry mutters. The other man rolls his eyes. “Welp, let’s hope it starts.”

It purrs to life like a kitten – a kitten loud enough to catch the attention of two zombies lurching around the front yard.

Connor barrels through the house door, spotlighted by the porch light clear to the open car door, a fast zombie almost within grabbing distance. “Move away!” The second he does, Cynthia shoots it from the lowered passenger side window – over its right eye. It tips over, bashing its head wide open when it lands on a catty-cornered brick sticking out of the dirt. The other two running dead pick up speed.

“Go! Go! Go!” The older man yells as he ducks onto the seat, slams the door shut. Marshall steps on the gas, going from zero to hella fast just in time to miss being hit by chunks of flying wood when the house explodes.

The burning zombies dropping like flies around the house’s perimeter...not so lucky.

All except a sullen Henry and an introspective Cynthia hoot and holler in celebration as they make their way toward the unknown.