down his cheeks as the first emaciated hand of the dead reached out for his mother’s body.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Don’t watch,” Kyle said as he sat up. Watching one’s mother being eaten alive was something no one should ever have to watch. Kyle grabbed Victor by his ankle and dragged him away from the ledge. Victor squirmed like a fish out of water to continue looking over the ledge. “Stop!” Kyle pulled the boy by the shoulders and brought him to his feet. “Look at me.”
Victor was non-responsive. He was in shock. Earlier that day he found his mother, the woman who gave him life, the woman who nursed him to health when he was ill. He found her alive and well, but now, she was gone and dead, eaten by the very creatures that she had done such a good job of avoiding.
“Victor, snap out of it,” Kyle continued as he shook the boy.
Slowly, the noise from the dead devouring his mother found his ears. Rage filled his body as he tugged Kyle by his shirt and pushed him backward. The boy was filled with so much adrenalin that he was able to knock Kyle off his feet. Kyle hit the ground and did nothing to soften his fall. He stared up at Victor, who was towering over him.
“I couldn’t reach her,” he said.
Victor didn’t say a word. He glared at Kyle like a crazed animal about to pounce on its prey. And as quickly as the rage came, it left him. Victor’s face crumpled as water filled his eyes. He began to weep, putting his hands over his face and sat on the roof. Kyle stood slowly, the gravel from the roof sticking to the palm of his hand.
Kyle knew what Victor was going through. He himself had had to witness the murder of his son, but he hadn’t broken down like Victor. Kyle sat next to Victor and began to cry. He cried for Eddie and for Mary. It was his fault that they were both dead and now he was guilty for taking another life. This life didn’t mean anything to him, but it did mean a lot to the person who meant a lot to him.
Four hours passed and the sun had just begun to make its slow journey over the horizon. Kyle’s eyes opened. He was sitting upright against the insolated air conditioning unit, Victor sitting next to him, asleep. The events that had taken place a few hours earlier caused disorientation in his mind. He couldn’t remember how he and Victor had made the journey to where they were now.
He stood, trying desperately not to wake Victor. The boy’s eyes were closed, but every few seconds Victor would sniffle in his sleep as if he were still crying. Kyle peered over the edge to see the remaining few Existing Dead still lingering around Morgan’s corpse. A few of them were crouched over her body, their tongues extended and licking the blood off the concrete.
The pistol he’d use last night remained on the same spot were he’d left it. There were three spare rounds roaming around in his pocket. He quickly loaded them into the pistol’s magazine and holstered it on his belt.
Most of the Existing Dead that were invading the streets below had moved on now that the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. The creatures were getting more and more fascinating to Kyle. He wished he could study them. They seemed to continue to change every time he had some form of contact with them.
His truck remained parked in the middle of the street, with a few of the dead remaining around it. They were two storey-high, and finding a way down was going to be hell without being able to go back into the house or having a ladder. He remembered that Morgan had talked with a man the day before and that he’d said he was coming to pick them up that morning. All they needed to do was to wait for him.
Victor coughed three times before his bloodshot eyes opened.
Kyle stared at Victor while the boy blinked several times. “It’s morning.”
“Is my mom really dead?”
Kyle nodded.
Sorrow fell upon the boy’s face, but no tears built up in his eyes. “Okay,” he said, then took in one deep breath. “What do we do now? California?”
“Yeah, but first we need to check out this Embassy.”
“How are we going to get there? Do you have a plan?”
“For right now we sit here and wait. Your mom talked to someone last night and they should be getting here soon. They’re going to take us to The Embassy.”
“Okay,” was all Victor could muster.
“After we figure out more about what’s going on and if there’s any hope for us to stay alive, we go to California.”
“Okay.”
Kyle gazed back out onto the streets. His eyes followed one of the Existing Dead as it slowly began to walk toward his truck. She stared at the truck, confused, as if she were trying to study it, almost as if she’d noticed that the truck hadn’t been there before. She continued shambling up the road, glancing back at the truck. Kyle couldn’t form words to go with what he was witnessing. It was as though the Existing Dead were showing some form of intelligence.
More of them began to separate from the front lawn and driveway. They scattered like cockroaches as soon as the light from the sun began to shine down on them. Twilight was over and for whatever reason, the Existing Dead didn’t like sunlight, even though Kyle had seen some of them roam around during the day.
There were a few Existing Dead that remained in one spot, even though sunlight was hitting them. They didn’t seem to care.
Kyle gave out a quick whistle. The dead followed the noise and noticed Kyle on the roof, but made no noise. They didn’t moan or get excited by his presence; they just stared and looked away.
A few hours passed, and there was still no sign of anyone. The temperature in the area had grown by thirty degrees since dawn had broken. There was relatively no shade on the roof, and with no shade or drinking water, dehydration would fast approach.
The dead that remained in the area didn’t move at all. They just stood in one spot, until three silhouettes began to approach them.
“Look,” Kyle said, pointing at the three advancing figures.
Victor stood and walked to the edge of the roof, near Kyle.
The Existing Dead on the driveway began to walk toward the figures. One of them was shirtless, which was something that was pretty common. That got Kyle’s brain working. Why were they going after these figures and not getting excited at seeing him on the roof? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they knew that Kyle was unreachable, so they shouldn’t even try. But with these new figures, they have a chance of reaching them. “Holy shit,” Kyle muttered.
“What?” Victor said.
“They’re getting smarter.”
Victor didn’t respond. Something inside of him died alongside his mother. He was not the same boy Kyle picked up at the gas station. That boy had been so full of faith and hope, but now Victor seemed to just be existing, as if he were now one of the living dead below.
“Hey!” Kyle yelled, waving his arms up in the air. “Up here.”
He noticed one of the figures poke another one and point up in their direction.
“Wait der!” one of them yelled back in a heavy Hispanic accent.
“We can’t go anywhere!” Kyle replied.
The three figures were quickly closing the gap between the two Existing Dead heading their way. Kyle was curious on how they dealt with the dead now that headshots did nothing more than stop the dead for a matter of minutes.
One of the three figures, a man from what Kyle could now make out, dropped to one knee and took aim with a long rifle. As soon as the man dropped to one knee, another figure fell to a knee, this one a woman. She was very noticeable as her long red hair was tied back into a ponytail. They were all wearing the same black uniform, one that resembled that of the Navy Seals.
As the Existing Dead grew closer, the man fired. The loud boom echoed through the space between the homes. The round hit through the head of one of the dead, spewing the ground behind it with bits of meat and
