And Hell Followed: A Horror Novel Read online

  Knowing this, Daddy paced us slow and careful, hoping to get a good day’s walking in before I needed to rest.

  His plan worked, and we reached two towns over before finding an abandoned neighborhood. The house we bunked in was filled with bodies, and the area had obviously been cleaned out by someone months ago. Shutting the doors to the gross rooms, we created a makeshift bed in a den. We even got lucky and found a dozen cans of Spaghetti-O’s. I ate three that night and four for breakfast.

  I was on my last can when we heard movement outside the house, and a partially eaten face appeared at the kitchen window. Freezing in our spots, Daddy and I waited while the face stared with his good eye.

  Tilting his head, the zombie wasn’t sure if we were human. Moaning, he waited for us to react in a way which answered the question, but we just stared blankly from the kitchen floor.

  The zombie decided we weren’t food, but he didn’t leave the yard. He wandered around, occasionally peeking in windows. We hid from him afterward, but I could hear him scraping the siding on the house as he shuffled past. Around midnight, I also heard him catch and eat a mouse.

  Daddy decided we should stay another night. The kitchen was full of canned goods and soda bottles. Whoever originally lived there stocked up before hell crashed through the front door which now sat open.

  The hardest part of following Daddy’s system was leaving doors open or unlocked. The natural inclination was to put as much security between you and whatever wanted to eat you. Whenever anyone asked why locking doors was a mistake, Daddy told a story about a zombie he named Tyrell.

  Daddy insisted Tyrell looked good for his status as a zombie. He even walked with a bit of a swagger. For three days, Daddy, Paul, and Nick were trapped in an apartment building in a small city. For those three days, they watched Tyrell walk to a convenience store at the corner of two once busy streets.

  Having probably visited the 7-11 a thousand times in his young life, Tyrell kept visiting as a zombie. Every few hours, he returned to the store, walked around inside, then left. Night and day, Tyrell had a schedule to keep.

  On the third day, Daddy noticed scavengers. The four males moved quickly down the street and into the store without gaining the attention of the city full of zombies. The group was smart, quiet, and fast. Maybe hoping to get a few hours of rest, they locked the convenience store door.

  Tyrell returned like clockwork and found the door locked. His schedule changed, the zombie grew agitated. Maybe he just didn’t like the change, or maybe he understood what it meant. Either way, he moaned and banged on the door.

  The scavengers panicked at all the noise and then opened the door, shot Tyrell, and ran. The men made it several blocks before the zombies drawn by the noise caught up with them.

  Daddy said he heard them screaming. Said he heard one of them screaming for hours, trapped, injured, and alone. Daddy shuddered when he told me how the man’s panicked cries allowed Paul, Nick, and him to sneak away.

  We didn’t lock the doors anymore.

  Back in the den, Daddy and I played Uno. I ate a lot of soup and a large bag of stale Doritos. Playing those games and pigging out made me reach for my fantasies again. Life could be good once we found the others. Everything would work out. Falling asleep to such happy thoughts, I imagined my mom alive somewhere imagining me alive.

  Half a face zombie was still in the yard when we left the next morning. Our backpacks a little heavier with the supplies we’d scavenged, we hurried past him on his bad side. He did eventually see us and made a noise which sounded like, “D’oh.” I laughed into my jacket sleeve, and Daddy gave me a grin.

  The chill in the air felt good at first. With my heavy jacket and hat, plus the backpack, I was overheated. Soon, though, we were shivering as a cold snap rolled through the Midwest. Daddy kept asking me if I wanted to stop and I kept telling him no. While I was cold and my back hurt, I imagined reuniting with Leo. I also pictured Daddy and Paul making up by acting like nothing ever happened. I hoped for lots of hugs and the sham sense of security. The longer we walked every day, the sooner we would arrive at site four.

  On day five, it snowed for hours. Daddy and I were cold, but safe in a nice bungalow once belonging to a couple of artists we found in the basement. Daddy took care of them then brought up more blankets.

  While I found a book to read, Daddy found some magazines. We played more Uno and ate old Halloween candy from a bucket on the counter.

  “I wonder what Leo’s doing right now?” Daddy said as we cuddled together, keeping warm in the corner of the living room. “He’s going to flip when he sees you alive.”

  Smiling, I patted Daddy’s cheek. He had shaved earlier, using frigid water and supplies left over from the artist in the basement. I hadn’t seen him look so handsome in awhile.

  “He thinks he didn’t save me,” I whispered. “He’s too hard on himself.”

  “He just wants to be the hero. It’s important for him to believe there’s good in the world.”

  Looking at Daddy smiling at me like he was, I knew there was good in the world. While I sometimes got mad my mom didn’t come with the group, I understood why she stayed. Yet there were many days when I didn’t think about her at all.

  This new life felt like forever, as if school and friends and cheerleading were a fantasy I’d dreamt up. Sometimes, my mom felt like this way too, and I couldn’t believe she ever existed. That night with Daddy was one of those times as if it had always been only him and me.

  The storm passed, and the snow melted from the warmer air. I wanted to start walking again, but Daddy said all the sludge on the ground was dangerous to travel in. He said it was noisy too. Those were both good points, but Daddy was just hiding me from the world.

  Like the last house, this one was comfortable. When we stayed at a place like this, we could pretend we were safe. Site four was like this house too, except it also had more supplies, an area Daddy knew well, and our friends.

  The next day, I got up before Daddy and packed and ate as much as I could without dipping into our supplies. As long as I kept from going too long without food, the hunger wasn’t so bad. It was always nagging at me, though.

  Daddy relented to my insistence that we start walking. Yet two hours into the day’s trek, we were stuck in a ditch as scavengers from an enclave stormed through the area.

  They arrived in their big trucks and sometimes even tanks. They had helicopters which attracted zombies. They had lots of guns, and they used them too much. Scavengers always riled up the zombies. Once the scavengers left with their big guns and trucks and helicopters, the zombies remained riled up.

  Hordes of zombies were drawn toward the noise while we moved away from it. For hours, Daddy and I played peek-a-boo with zombies in a field. We crawled low, stopped frequently, and then hurried in different directions. A few times, we just huddled together as dozens of zombies walked by.

  Daddy held me so tightly when those zombies passed us, and I felt how fast his heart was beating. We stayed so quiet and so still. One time a zombie bumped into us, looked down, and then returned to following the horde. We got lucky a lot whenever the scavengers came through.

  Unfortunately, the scavengers didn’t come, take their loot, and leave. Having already stripped bare the nearby stores, they were forced to stay longer, looking for supplies in the houses. All the noise meant thousands of zombies hurried to where the little bungalow was located. We had made it out just in time.

  Night arrived, and we slept outside. Daddy was nervous, not only because we were outside and the riled-up zombies were still coming. He was nervous because we were way off target from our normal traveling paths. We were south of where we usually stayed, and I remembered what Grant said about the south.

  Daddy and I slept in shifts that night. Sitting against the side of a house with zombies shuffling around inside, I slept okay. When the moon was high in the sky, Daddy woke me so he could doze for a few hours before dawn came.

  I th
ought about Kayla for those few hours. I remembered the first time I saw the bitchy blonde head cheerleader. She scared the crap out of me, and I knew she would hate me. I was new to the area, having moved to Pheasant Hills to live with Daddy. My mom stayed in Chicago for her job and her newest boyfriend, a cute paramedic named Perry.

  I always liked Pheasant Hills and spent a lot of time visiting over the years. When Mom offered to let me live with Daddy, I was excited to move. Yet the first time I saw Kayla, I hated everything about myself in comparison. Months later when I told Kayla about this, she laughed so hard she snorted.

  Kayla was too special to die like she did, and I often felt guilty for surviving when she didn’t. Not because I sucked, but because she was so amazing. Before the plague, I had dumb kid dreams. I wanted to grow up and marry Leo and be a teacher.

  If the zombies never happened, Kayla would have been studying neuroscience at the University of Chicago by now. In this new uglier world, she would have been so smart about surviving too. She would have figured things out like Daddy did. Instead, she was torn apart in front of her house by a bunch of zombie kids.

  My heart hurt thinking about her dying while yelling for me to run. She had smiled at me too. Smiled like it was all going to work out, even though she was limping from a leg wound and one of those freaks was tearing off her arm.

  Kayla was so brave, and I missed her. I should have cried thinking about her being so amazing to the very end. I didn’t cry, though. Kayla wouldn’t have cried while sitting in the dark with zombies wandering nearby. She would have been smart, so I was smart too. I just pushed all those tears back inside me and watched for danger.

  Next to me, Daddy awoke startled. His eyes were wide as he stared at me for a long time. Touching my face tentatively, he exhaled softly with relief.

  This was real, and I had come back to him. Everything was going to be okay. I saw in his eyes how he was reassuring himself as he sat up straighter. When I grinned at him, he gave me a great smile in return.

  We were on the road before the sun broke in the sky. Zombies were still moving north toward the scavengers. For most of the night, I heard the people from the enclaves making a huge amount of noise. It was like they weren’t scared of the zombies at all.

  I’d never seen this part of the world before. While it didn’t look so different from the part I had seen, I was nervous. Daddy kept smiling at me as we walked, so I knew he was nervous too.

  The uncharted territory was where survivors went to die. At least this was what Nick always said. Paul believed the survivors didn’t return because they found a better place than the one they left behind.

  Paul always talked about leaving our slice of territory between the enclaves. He grew up in Minnesota but spent a lot of time in the South during his military life. Paul was just sure moving north or south was better. Yet Paul heard Grant’s warnings.

  Daddy and I were in the south now. Not much farther south than normal, but I kept thinking about Grant. He was right about how people could survive the infection. He somehow knew things, and maybe that’s why he seemed crazy. Maybe knowing the answers made the world uglier and stole its joy.

  Farmland was an oasis and a deathtrap. Site four was in farmland, and we usually enjoyed our time there. Staying too long led to complacency which led to death. Every time the group stayed in a place for more than a month or two, someone got killed. Daddy and the guys decided we would just keep moving. Until I got bit, the system worked.

  We walked for the entire day, leaving me dragging by the time the sun began to set. I wanted to rest and pig out on some of my canned goodies that weighed so much but tasted so good. Instead, Daddy kept walking.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” he whispered when I got up the nerve to whine about needing to rest.

  Daddy wasn’t psychic, but he had always had a way of sensing bad juju. Growing up with his superstitious grandmother next door, Daddy really believed in following his gut. Grandma Audrey told him God talked to people through their guts. She said to always listen to it, but to ignore what your heart told you. The devil talked to people through their brains and hearts.

  I always laughed when Daddy told me this and not just because he did a really funny impression of Grandma Audrey. It always seemed weird how God only used one part of our bodies to talk to us, but the devil got two. Seemed rigged in the devil’s favor.

  This time, Daddy’s gut was right, and I soon felt it too. The growing night was too quiet. No birds, no animals, and no zombies were lurking. We kept walking, and even though I was ready to drop, I wished we could walk faster.

  Daddy eventually accepted how we needed to rest. By the time he found a dark farmhouse, I was nearly panting from exhaustion. I was also so hungry I drooled whenever I thought of food.

  “I want you to wait here,” Daddy said as we stood in a barn he had searched twice. “Just eat beef jerky while I go check out the house.”

  “Can’t I go with you?”

  “Sami, it’s late, and you’re exhausted, and I should have stopped earlier. Even if we bunked outside, I should have found a place. If I take you in there and something’s inside, I’m not sure you can think on your feet.”

  Looking around the barn, I smelled something bad and wondered about the horses once filling this place.

  “Be careful,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Daddy smiled, but he was tense in a way I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I hugged him as tightly as I could without hurting him. The night was so quiet, and I felt like I would never see him again. I was making myself paranoid which was dangerous, but I didn’t want to let him go.

  Watching Daddy move toward the house, I kept thinking I heard a noise behind me. I felt like someone was watching me too, but I saw no one. I considered sitting in a corner, but the image of zombies attacking while I was stuck in the corner kept me where I was.

  Chewing slowly on beef jerky, I felt my stomach growl unsatisfied. I forced myself to stop picturing zombies jumping out at me or sneaking up on me, or Daddy getting attacked. Instead, I pictured myself inside the farmhouse, cuddled under a blanket while Daddy and I ate food and whispered to each other.

  My gut never warned me the day Mustache attacked, yet it warned me right then. Knowing it wasn’t my imagination, I spun around. Something was behind me, but it was too late.

  The man pointed the gun and then pressed his finger to his lips. Nodding, I just stared at him. The tiniest part of me was relieved to find a living person. The tiny part of me lost its sense of relief when I noticed three men appear from the other end of the barn.

  The men were so quiet that I never heard them approaching. I should have heard a footstep in the overgrown yard or fields. However, they walked right up behind me without me hearing a thing.

  “What are you doing out here?” the first man whispered.

  “I was looking for a place to rest.”

  “Why are you watching the house? Are you going inside or just waiting for someone?”

  I figured it was a trick question. Did he know Daddy was inside and hoped to trip me up? Or did he not know and hoped I got scared and told him the truth?

  “I was thinking about going in, but houses can be dangerous.”

  The man nodded. I couldn’t see his eyes in the darkness, so I didn’t know if he believed me. Feeling movement at my back, I heard nothing. When I turned, more men were heading toward the house.

  Like when the zombie with half a face stared in the window, I didn’t react to this new development. Daddy trained me to be quiet and calm. Staring at the man, I kept to my training.

  “Are you checking the house to see if it’s safe?” I asked. “I’d like to sleep in a house if I could.”

  The man stared at me, and I stared back at him. He was waiting for me to blink and I was waiting for him to do the same. Neither of us gave anything away.

  I wasn’t sure how much time passed before men came up behind me.
There were maybe ten of them now, and I didn’t think about what this meant for me. I just stayed calm. A girl traveling by herself in this world would have to be quiet and calm. She had no one to protect her, so she wouldn’t cry or freak out in this situation. I told myself to think like someone alone, instead of someone worried about her daddy.

  “House is empty,” said one of the men.

  The man in front of me nodded then stepped closer. “What’s your name?”

  “Samantha.”

  “I’m Derek. I run a small enclave nearby. We have running water, electricity, and food. You can come back with us if you’d like.”

  Derek’s voice was so gentle, passive even as if he didn’t care about my answer. He was around Daddy’s age, but not as handsome. He had a fatherly expression on his face like he was doing me a favor and I had a choice.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” I asked like a girl in my position might.

  “We humans need to stick together,” Derek said.

  The man right behind me snickered, and Derek flashed him a nasty look.

  “I’d like to be safe,” I said to Derek who nodded.

  Walking with the men away from the barn, I wondered where Daddy was hiding. I also wondered how long it would be before I saw him again. I never considered an outcome where we wouldn’t be reunited. When facing the frightening unknown, sometimes fantasies come in handy.

  Chapter Three

  Derek hadn’t lied about the enclave. Surrounded by a barbed wire fence, it looked secure, plus there were plenty of people moving around. There was also hot water and electricity like Derek promised. I hoped there’d be food too.

  Walking for ten minutes before reaching the enclave, I didn’t notice a sign on the gate as entered. Most of the enclaves I’d seen had signs to tell people the name. It made people feel like civilization still existed. Cities had signs. Towns had signs. People liked signs, but this place had none.

  Derek asked me to shower and change into clothes left for me. He said afterward I could join him in the red tent and eat dinner. While I was so hungry that I would have skipped the shower; he insisted I clean up first.