Mark Justice - The Green Dawn

“What kind of gate?” Jubal said.

Renee coughed up blood, runny with pus. Fiona wiped Renee’s lip with a tissue. The coughing grew worse, becoming a hack that Jubal thought would never stop. But?nally it did.

“Renee?” Jubal said.

“I don’t know what kind of gate, but it sure wasn’t made of white pickets.” She laughed weakly at her own joke, then coughed some more. The woman breathed shallowly, her eyes?uttering.

“I…in the control room when…it happened.”

Renee swallowed repeatedly. Discolored drool ran from her lip. A boil on her neck burst, the liquid running onto a bath towel that Fiona had placed beneath the woman’s head.

“Explosion. Yellow…smoke. Or mist.”

Jubal and Fiona waited expectantly.

“Screams. Terrible screams,” Renee said, gulping her words. She continued, her voice growing fainter as she spoke. “I ran to my car. I ran faster than I’ve ever run in my life. There were more explosions, terrible ones, but I got out of there. Then…”

“Yes?” Jubal said, pitying the poor wreck, no longer aware of the worsening smell of decay and sickness.

“The rest is…hazy. My car broke down, so I hitchhiked anywhere to get away. Got sick. So sick. So…”

Renee’s eyes closed. Her breath hitched in her throat.

“The dead army,” Jubal said. “Tell us about the dead army.”

Her eyes opened to yellow-red slits.

“Your dreams…are real.”

Jubal turned to Fiona. “What does that mean? My dreams are real?”

“Just what she said, Jubal. She thinks there’s an army tromping around somewhere. An army of…the dead.”

“What?”

Fiona nodded, her arms crossed, looking very serious.

A burst of laughter erupted from Jubal. The laughter continued for some time until he noticed the tears on Fiona’s face.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his arms around his?ancee and patting her back. “I just?nd it hard to believe; I mean, c’mon. Zombies? Maybe ‘dead army’ just means the US Army is out rounding up the dead from this epidemic.”

Fiona’s head shook on Jubal’s shoulder. “You heard her. She had the same dream that I had. And that you had; I know you had it-I saw it in your eyes when she mentioned it. Something weird is de?nitely going on, and I’m so scared, Jubal.”

Jubal held her tighter and let her cry into his shirt. He happened to glance over her shoulder at Renee.

“Oh, shit.”

Fiona pulled away. “What?”

Jubal went to the woman on the couch and stared into her face.

“Renee’s dead.”

“How do you know for sure? Feel her pulse.”

“Hell, no. I ain’t touching her. But I know dead when I see it, and she’s dead.”

“What’ll we do, Jubal? What is going on?”

“Let’s go to the kitchen. You can get some coffee brewing, and we’ll think this thing through.”

They both shambled into the kitchen like lost souls. Jubal was beginning to feel numb from too little sleep and too much drama. He felt as if the world around him had become surreal, as if he were walking through some strange nightmare version of Serenity.

I hope I’m not having a nervous breakdown. Not now, when everyone needs me.

Then he thought of his dad, and Damon. They would never panic in a situation like this. At least he liked to think they wouldn’t. But he doubted if they’d ever had to deal with an emergency of this magnitude.

Jubal pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and slumped into it. He watched Fiona go to the counter upon which sat the coffee maker. As she swung a cabinet door open for the can of coffee, her hair swung aside for a moment and Jubal glimpsed a lump on her neck.

“So, what are we going to do with Renee, Jubal?”

The sight of the blister or boil on Fiona’s neck had stricken Jubal silent. He couldn’t tell her about his plan to burn Renee’s body somewhere in the surrounding desert.

“Did you hear something in the other room just now?” Fiona said.

He had heard something…

There was a moaning sound, then Renee Spencer lurched into the room, arms outstretched, heading straight for Fiona. She made a whining sound as if she were in pain…or hungry.

Fiona screamed and sidestepped out of Renee’s path.

But she was dead. I could have sworn…

Renee swung around toward Fiona. She made an angry sound from the back of her throat. Jubal could see her eyes now. There was no light there; there was nothing. Yet this dead woman was in Fiona’s kitchen, attacking her.

Jubal leapt out of his chair and punched Renee in the stomach. The undead woman let out a surprised grunt and tumbled backwards onto the tile?oor.

Oh my god. She looks dead. She smells dead. She looks dead. She smells- Renee was on her feet again and Fiona was still screaming in the corner of the kitchen. Jubal grabbed Fiona’s sleeve and yanked her toward the doorway.

As Fiona was pulled across the room, Renee clawed at her but missed.

Renee emitted a hunger-fueled wailing that chilled Jubal to the bone.

He yanked his Glock and shot the undead woman in the stomach.

Then Jubal and Fiona?ed across the living room and out the front door, slamming it closed behind them.

Jubal opened the passenger door of the cruiser and pushed Fiona into the car. Then he ran around to his side as Fiona swung her door closed. Jubal got in and switched on the radio.

Fiona was whimpering like a baby.

“Sh, baby, shh,” Jubal said as he tried to raise the state police. But all he got was static and hum.

“Shit!”

Jubal started the cruiser.

Fiona screamed. Jubal turned his head and, through Fiona’s window, saw Renee lurching down the front walk, her shirt spattered with blood. She reached out toward the cruiser with outstretched arms and groping?ngers, her jaw working up and down.

“Quiet, baby. We’re getting out of here.”

The cruiser tore off down the street, leaving the hungry zombie behind.

Fiona would not stop screaming. He’d seen hysterical people slapped in movies, but couldn’t bring himself to hurt Fiona-ever. Even if it was for her own good.

Halfway to the sheriff’s house, Fiona’s screams died down to sobs.

“Don’t worry, baby. Don’t worry…”

“What…what happened back there?” Fiona said, sliding across the seat until she was right up against him. “You said she was dead. You said you were sure she was dead just by looking at her.”

Those dead yellow and red eyes. That blank stare. And the smell…

“She was dead, baby. I’m not going to lie to you. She was dead, and she was walking.”

“Nooooooooooo.” Fiona moaned the word.

“I shot her right in the stomach at point blank range, and she was up and at ’em-at you — in no time at all. And I saw her eyes, Fiona. I saw her dead, staring eyes right above her hungry, gaping mouth.” Jubal knew he shouldn’t be talking like this but couldn’t stop himself; he was babbling like a lunatic.

Fiona grew silent. And then Jubal knew; she had seen the woman’s dead eyes, too.

As they neared Damon’s house, Fiona said, “What about my neighbors? What about poor old Mrs. Sanchez and the Alberts?”

“We can’t worry about them right now. This is too much for me to handle alone. I need to talk to Damon. I need to know what he thinks of the situation. He’ll know what to do.”

“But isn’t he sick, too?”

“Yeah…” Jubal wasn’t thinking straight and he knew it. Which only angered him.

He realized he was chewing on the inside of his lower lip, something he hadn’t done since he was a child. It had always been a reaction to stress and he had torn up his lip pretty badly on occasion, causing his mother to coat the wounds with a foul tasting antibiotic paste. Back then the tribulations he dealt with included math class and getting the crap beat out of him by Tommy Brainard. Today was a mite tougher. He spat out the window, tasting the coppery tang of the blood.