Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel by Richard M. Cochran

below, the scene is shocking. Bodies line
the fence for as far as she can see. A mass has gathered, bending and bowing
the fence as they rattle away at the links with snarling faces and snapping
teeth. With her eyes wide from disbelief, April wakes Johnny.
    “What?” he asks in a daze.
“What’s wrong?”
    “There are hundreds of them out
there,” she whispers.
    “Hundreds of what?” he asks in
confusion.
    “The dead, Johnny,” she says in
a low voice. “They’re everywhere.”
    “How?” He stretches.
    “I don’t know how,” she says.
“But there breaking the fence.”
    Johnny yawns and tries to shake
off the sleep when he hears the moans. There are so many varying pitches that
they blend into a singular loping sound, deep enough to feel within the pit of
his stomach. “What the fuck?” he asks, still unbelieving.
    He stumbles to the window and
looks out past the trees. A dark mass has emerged from nowhere in a few short
hours. The dead writhe over one another like ants swarming. Their bodies blend
into one another in the darkness, giving shape to the loping chant Johnny had
heard when he first awoke.
    “Holy shit,” he says, questioning
his eyes. He rubs the sleep away and looks again. “Where the fuck did they all
come from?”
    “I don’t know, but we have to
get out of here,” she replies anxiously.
    “Yeah… yeah, I think you’re
right,” he says with a nervous rattle in his voice. “Grab whatever you can
carry,” he adds as he retrieves the pistol from the nightstand.
    Within a few minutes, April has
found a pack in the bedroom closet and takes it into the kitchen. She stuffs
cans of food into the pack haphazardly as Johnny does the same with a small gym
bag that he’s found by the front door.
    “Don’t pack too much,” Johnny
comments, “just enough to get us to the beach.”
    April gives him a quick nod as
she cinches the top shut and slings it over her shoulder, causing the cans to
clank against her back. She waits for him to grab a few water bottles from the
refrigerator and watches him pack them away into his own bag.
    “Alright, let’s go,” Johnny
whispers as he heads off through the front door.
    Windowless, the hallway to the
apartment is blinding. Faint shimmers glisten off of chrome knobs as Johnny
peers out along the dark corridor, listening for any signs of movement up
ahead. He can feel his heart beating in his chest and tries to calm himself,
almost believing that he can hear the organ drumming out against his ribs.
    Along a narrow length of stairs,
Johnny guides the way down to the next floor as he points out through the
darkness with his pistol. Even in the confines of the apartment building, they
can hear the muted snarls and groans from outside as if the dead were beckoning
them closer.
    “When we’re out of the building,
run,” Johnny whispers, hushing his voice for fear of being heard by the dead.
“Don’t look back and don’t stop. Keep going until I tell you we’re clear. Got
it?”
    “Got it,” she says.
    Johnny can see the whites of her
eyes as his own adjust to the darkness. Terror streaks across her face as she
tries to make out his movements. Her body shakes through the expression of fear
and she follows as closely as she can.
    On the bottom floor, Johnny
keeps his back pressed tightly to the wall when he notices the main door. He
places his hand on her chest and motions for her to stay where she is as he
tiptoes forward. Through the crisscross pattern of wire in the glass, he can
see movement. A black, oozing mass appears beyond the front gates, shrouded in shadows
that blanket them from the branches of a tree.
    “Oh no,” he exhales.
    Through the wrought iron gate,
Johnny can see the details of the mass. Hundreds of bodies lace their arms
through the gate, clawing at the air as if they were trying to bridge the gap
between life and death. Blood stained faces peer through the bars, snarling
mouths agape press tightly in between the iron,