That was when the hand snaked out from under the bed and grabbed my ankle. Hard. I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.
It started to pull me under but I pulled back and I’m not real sure how the tug of war would have gone but that’s when Barrett and Fannie Mae came out from behind me and started pulling me. The strength in the hand wasn’t enough for all of us and we pulled its owner out to face the light. It was Tamara’s mother. Barrett cried out when he saw her and turned around looking for his baseball bat wherever he’d dropped it when he’d moved to help me.
He screamed like a little girl, too. At least I wasn’t the only one.
I turned my head to see what he’d screamed at and that was when I saw Tamara’s dad in the doorway. He just stood there not moving, looking at us. Thankfully he hadn’t moved in when we were distracted or he could have had us. I looked back down when I felt the grip on my foot release and I saw Tamara’s mom crawling out from under the bed.
I screamed his name, “Barrett!”
I faced me wildly. “Use the baseball bat! Try to clear us a path.”
He swung the bat at Tamara’s dad and managed a glancing blow on his shoulder. He rocked on his feet but it didn’t seem to affect him at all. Hopefully Barrett would remember to try for the head because I had enough trouble of my own getting to her feet before me. She looked just the same as she had a few hours ago when she’d been dead. Ripped apart. Naked. There was no gleam of recognition in her eyes – no sign of intelligence. There was nothing there and no one home.
I ran through about a thousand scenarios in my head in the three seconds it took her to reach me, but other than that I was completely frozen. If it wasn’t for Fannie Mae I’d be dead right now. Ish, that is. Dead-ish. Fannie Mae came out of nowhere behind me and shoved Tamara’s mom hard. Who apparently hadn’t found her zombie balance yet because she tumbled over easily back onto the bed. You could tell that her equilibrium change hadn’t even registered on her because she still kept reaching for me with that undeniable, implacable reach.
I still stood frozen.
Fannie Mae stepped forward and shoved her knife to the hilt in Mrs. Rogers’ eye. The questing hands immediately fell to the covers and whatever force was animating her left her body.
“Thank you, Fannie Mae,” I said breathlessly, finally able to move. “You saved my life.”
She was trying to tug on her knife, but it looked like it was stuck hard in the bone. She gave up with a cry of disgust as blood and other things started to weep out of the naked eye socket. She looked at me, “At least we know they can be killed.”
I sighed, “Yeah, and we know it’s infectious.”
We’d entirely forgotten about Barrett in our own struggle.
“A little help over here,” he cried out.
It looked like the bat was doing no good against Mr. Rogers. Either his skull was too thick or Barrett wasn’t strong enough because the blows just kept glancing off of him. Barrett pulled back for one more strike and that was when the zombie just reached out and took the bat from him. It looked at it curiously for a second and then fixed its gaze back on Barrett. It didn’t release its grip on the bat as it started to shuffle forward.
Barrett scuttled back the few feet to where Tamara and I stood. “Any ideas?”
I reached into the sports bag that I’d completely forgotten about when confronted with Mrs. Rogers’s naked form. The only thing we had left in it to protect ourselves with was the lighter and the lighter fluid. I scrambled to get the lighter fluid out and twist the top open. I squirted it on the slowly approaching form of Mr. Rogers from several feet away. Fortunately the contents were most definitely under pressure and I was able to soak him fairly well. He didn’t even register what I was doing.
I dropped the lighter fluid on the floor and reached into my pocket for the lighter. It was an old Zippo but thankfully it started on the first strike. I threw it on Mr. Rogers and sent up a quick prayer to whatever God there may be that it didn’t go out.
It didn’t. He lit up like a Christmas tree. But it didn’t stop him. He still moved forward like he didn’t feel a thing at all. He was limned in a halo of fire and now not only did we have a zombie between us and the door out of here, we also had a zombie that was on fire. Awesome.
The fire began to spread with every step that he took. I kicked the lighter fluid container across the room as I realized it would explode if the fire reached it.
Mr. Rogers began to move a little more slowly as the fire really began to catch hold in his flesh. I guess it took a bit for the fire to reach the brain. Smoke curled from him and began to circulate through the room. I could hear Barrett and Fannie Mae coughing behind me as Mr. Rogers continued his inexorable steps forward. His eyes were locked on mine; or mine were locked on his. I felt hypnotized.
Fannie Mae tugged on my arm. I didn’t respond and she almost ripped my arm from its socket. I tore my gaze away from Tamara’s dad and Fannie Mae pointed toward the window. She bent over suddenly as a rack of coughing came over her. I looked at the window, confused. Suddenly a wave of understanding washed over me and I found I could move.
“Barrett,” I yelled. “The window! It’s broken. Get her out of here.”
He nodded and waved at me as he bodily picked Fannie Mae up and headed toward the window. I could feel a wash of heat at my back. I turned around and saw Mr. Rogers at my back not two feet behind me. His eyes and hair were on fire. The smell of charred flesh was overwhelming. He reached out to me with the hand that was holding the bat. Miraculously, it was almost untouched by the flames. I grabbed it from his hand. He released it easily.
I almost just pulled back and swung and then realized that was just as likely to cause him to fall on me as anything else. I gripped the handle with both my hands as hard as I could and straightened it out in front of me like I was holding a lance and shoved it forward with every ounce of strength I had. It wasn’t a good angle for me and I could feel my wrists protesting as the fat end of the bat made contact with his chest. I dug in with my feet and pushed even harder. He stumbled back a couple of steps but he obviously had better balance than his zombie wife had. He pushed forward against the bat, straining to reach me with his hands.
The heat was beginning to get to me. I could feel the burning in my lungs and the skin on my hands and face
