Tim Meyer - Less Than Human

Ben decided not to put the car in reverse. Alternatively, he circled the lot, honking his horn, warning Josh to hurry up. They had overstayed their welcome.

“Don’t!” Josh said, but it was too late. Emily had opened the door, letting Jessica in. The recently-reanimated corpse lunged forward, mouth open, disease-coated saliva dangling from her blood-muddied lips. Emily screamed as Jessica tackled her, sending them both sprawling to the ground. Josh and Victoria rushed to Emily’s side, but Jessica was quicker. Snarling bestially, she mounted Emily, bearing her tiny, yet incredibly dangerous teeth.

Shoulder first, Josh rushed forward, colliding with the infected girl scout. He dislodged her from her prey, and Jessica fell to the floor. While the dead girl scout struggled to regain her footing, Victoria escorted her daughter away from the immediate danger.

Josh hopped to his feet and saw Jessica had already risen to her own. The little bitch growled, crouching like a sumo wrestler waiting for the round to start. Josh backed away cautiously. Jessica followed him like a cat waiting for the precise moment to pounce.

“Still want to stick around?” Josh asked.

Their silence answered for them.

Before Jessica had the chance to fling herself at Josh, a deafening boom made their hearts dive unexpectedly. Jessica’s head suddenly exploded into a million pieces, sending bits of brain matter airborne in a spray of red mist, splattering the oak paneling behind her. Her head had popped like an overfilled water balloon. Gore slowly ran down the walls.

Ranger Steve held his shotgun, tendrils of smoke wafting from the end of the barrel. He shivered as if he had wandered into the winter weather, wet and unclothed. “Oh, God,” he muttered, then scurried behind the receptionist’s desk, reaching the wastebasket in time.

The gurgling sounds of Ranger Steve vomiting was interrupted by the shrill shriek of a girl scout who had nearly been eaten by her friend.

Josh glanced at Emily. She pointed toward the sliding-glass door, mouth agape, unblinking. He turned to see what had caused her outburst.

“Ho. Lee. Shit,” Josh said.

At least thirty zombies were rapidly approaching the open doorway. Evidence that they had already eaten was painted around their mouths, yet their stomachs still growled in harmony.

“Come on!” Ben shouted. He continued circling the parking lot, wasting the gasoline he had just pilfered from people he would never come to know. He had a trail of dead folks in tow, their numbers growing with each lap. At least twenty of them followed Ben lazily, swaying drunkenly and gnashing their teeth together. Some of them approached head on. Ben avoided them by swerving around them. He knew he couldn’t keep it up for long. Only a matter of time before a runner, or a really motivated zombie came to the front of the pack. The boy he thought about crushing was no longer a threat; he had broken his ankle during the fall, only able to crawl.

The internal clock in Ben’s head rapidly approached zero.

The honking continued.

“Who the hell is that?” Victoria asked, yelling over the groaning horde, as they pounded on the glass door.

Josh had been lucky enough to shut it before the pack of killing machines reached the doorway. He knew it would only buy them a few minutes. Had there been a runner in the pack, he probably wouldn’t have made it in time. Josh watched with fascination as they hammered the door with their bloody fists, leaving red smears on the glass.

“Remember that friend I was telling you about?” Josh asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s him. And I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”

As if on cue, the glass shattered. The dead stumbled inside, bumping into each other, jockeying for the lead. Many of them tripped over themselves, falling to the ground. The zombies able to keep their balance trampled their counterparts, heading toward their food source.

The group appeared in the recreation center’s entrance. Ben spotted them immediately. He saw Josh with other people—other living people—and instantly became excited with the prospect of other survivors. Josh led them while a legion of zombies hurdled after them. The zombies clumsily followed, many of them falling to the ground while the more aggressive creatures stepped on them without care.

Ben saw some of his followers abandon their efforts, seeking the easier meal. The park ranger raised his shotgun and blew the head off of an approaching zombie. Ben watched its head disappear, bits of brain-meat raining on the wooden steps. He pumped and aimed, taking out the next contender in similar fashion.

“Into the car! Hurry!” Josh commanded.

Ben stretched across the seat, popping the lock on the passenger’s door. It’s gonna be a tight fit, Ben thought to himself, adding up the bodies that were going to squeeze into his four-door sedan.

As soon as Ben completed that thought, he watched the older woman trip on a loose deck board. She fell hard on the ground. This would have been painful to watch under ordinary circumstances, but the dozens of hungry dead folk ready to pounce on her made his adrenaline kick harder. The others didn’t hear her cries for help over the crowd of dead cannibals. Their animalistic groans reminded Ben of wind swooshing through an open field.

Ben rolled his window down, yelled something along the lines of, “Hey!” and pointed behind the survivors. Only Victoria understood what Ben was implying. She turned, seeing Ruth struggle to her feet. It was too late. The dead swarmed her. They grabbed her, pinned her down, and clawed at her flesh with dark, dirty, and—in most cases— already-bloodied fingernails. They tore her open like a Christmas present. The old woman tried to scream but her throat filled up with blood. No one would have heard her over the raucous noise of the zombie drove anyway.

“No!” Victoria screamed. She began to double-back, but the zombies had shredded through most of the old woman’s muscle, reaching her bones. What was left was no longer recognizable, a life-size lump of bloody sinew. Her head had detached during the carnage, rolled across the deck like a weakly thrown bowling ball. Victoria’s mouth dropped, color fleeing from her face.

The zombies continued their slaughter, uncaring.

“Shoot the fucker!” Josh yelled. He grabbed Victoria, turning her away from the clutches of a nearby walker. She had been so lost in the living nightmare that she hadn’t seen it coming, nor did she hear her daughters’ warning.

Ranger Steve stepped forward, lining the end of his shotgun with the head of the closest zombie. The groaning corpse had a flap of Ruth’s skin dangling from its mouth like a long string of spaghetti. One pull on the trigger and the zombie’s head disappeared, leaving behind a misty crimson cloud.

Emily slid into the back of Ben’s car. Glancing out of her window and seeing more than six ravenous expressions eagerly wanting in, she shrieked. They pawed the window like cats playing with bits of string. If the glass wasn’t between them, Emily knew she would’ve been torn to shreds much like the old lady.

Brittany came next, sitting in the middle. Quickly, she shielded Emily’s eyes, waiting to find out what had happened to their mother. Seeing their only parent become part the dead horde’s feast was the last thing Emily needed. “Don’t look, sweet pea.”

“Don’t call me sweet pea, ” she snapped, hating the name her sister called her throughout her childhood. “Is Mom okay?”

Brittany didn’t answer. Instead, she glanced back to see what was taking so long.

Suddenly, Josh corralled Victoria into the back seat, slamming the door behind her. He heard the women rejoice, saw them embrace each other before turning his attention to his next dilemma—how Ranger Steve and he were going to share the last remaining seat in Ben’s Sonata.