The Unforgotten by R.M. DuChene

“Mommy…When’s it going to be my turn?” Timmy Newland whined.

The Newlands had been standing in line to see Santa for the better part of an hour and had barely reached the half-way mark. Timmy tried to be patient. He tried to be the best behaving boy in the world, hoping that Santa would decide that he was good enough to give him his most favorite thing in the whole world for Christmas…a bike.

Santa brought Timmy a bike last Christmas, but it had training wheels and Timmy’s dad accidently ran it over when Timmy left it in the drive-way. Richard Newland told his son that he wouldn’t get another one, but Timmy knew the rules. He knew that Santa was bigger than his dad in the grand scheme of things and if Santa brought him a bike, his dad wouldn’t take it away.

“I really have to go…,” Timmy said, looking up at his mom with pleading eyes.

Martha Newland looked down at her son, saw him bouncing up and down and crossing his legs. She knew that there was very little time before an accident happened. She asked her husband to hold their place in line while she took Timmy to the bathroom. The bathroom wasn’t far, only a few feet away, but Timmy was only six, and six year olds don’t just run off to the restroom by themselves, not at a crowded mall during the holidays, not ever, in Martha’s mind. She Took a giant step over the Golden rope and held it high for Timmy to pass under it, and then led him to the restroom. When Timmy finished doing his business, his mother was still in the same spot, leaning against the wall outside.

When they joined Timmy’s dad back in line, Timmy was delighted to see that the line had begun moving faster. His dad said that a few people who were in front of them lost their patience and left. That was alright with Timmy; he was that much closer to his prize. When Timmy’s turn came about a half hour later, his excitement almost carried him past the rather tall elf, who snatched his collar and pulled him back.

“Santa’ll be right back, kid,” the elf said. “Even Saint Nick has to tinkle, ya know?”

Timmy watched in torturous disappointment as Santa lifted his heavy frame out of his red and gold chair, stumbled, and then turned the boy’s expression to horror by falling down, face first, onto the small stage.

“Santa!”

The elf wasn’t fast enough. Timmy burst under the rope and ran to where Santa was laying. The small boy hugged Santa from behind, smashing his tear filled face into the Jolly old elf’s long, musky hair.

“Please don’t die, Santa,” he said as he rocked the man’s head in his arms. “Please don’t die, Santa.”

Timmy couldn’t feel the skinny elf trying to pull him away, he couldn’t hear his parents calling to him from the roped off barrier that now separated them from their son. Timmy barely heard anything at all except for his own ear-piercing scream when Santa grabbed hold his arm and bit into his wrist.

***

“Hurry, Richard!” Martha Newland screamed at her husband from the backseat of their SUV as he sped toward the freeway onramp. She cradled Timmy in her arms, her hands cupped over her young son’s wrist, putting pressure on the wound.

“It won’t do us any good,” Richard Newland said. “The traffic’s all backed up!”

When Santa attacked Timmy the Newland’s rushed to their son’s aid. Richard wrestled with Santa, who had a death grip on Timmy’s wrist, until two uniformed security officers arrived. The officers helped free Timmy and his parents rushed him from the mall, without looking back to see what was going on with Santa and the security officers.

It didn’t take long for the Newlands to realize that what was going on in the mall was happening all over. When they left the mall, people were running through the parking lot like it was the end of the world; most with zombies hot on their trail. Richard Newland thought of them as zombies anyway, even though they weren’t gross looking like they are in the movies. Perhaps, he thought, this was only the beginning; the gross stuff would come later, as their bodies began to decay. Or, maybe they’re not zombies at all, but just people that have gone crazy for some reason. He pushed the thoughts from his mind. It didn’t matter at that moment. What mattered was getting Timmy to the hospital; fast.

The hospital was even more insane than the mall. The parking lot was completely crowded. Most people just said, “Screw it” and left their cars right where they were, travelling the rest of the way on foot. The Newlands did the same. Martha led the way as Richard carried Timmy through the seemingly endless maze of abandoned cars and fallen bodies. They went around the side of the building, to the ambulance entrance and were relieved to see that the large crowd of people, who were clogging up the front entrance, didn’t find that location yet. Two men rushed outside and told them that they would have to go around to the front of the hospital like everyone else, but when they saw the look of terror on Martha’s face and the small, blood stained boy in her arms, they ran back inside and came out with a gurney and a nurse.

Timmy had lost a lot of blood, so the doctors gave him a pint of O-positive and sewed up his wrist. They explained to the Newlands that even though the hospital policy was to keep any patients who receive blood for forty-eight hours for observation, they simply didn’t have the room available. The Newlands left a couple of hours after arriving with their sewn up son, a bottle of pills, and a doctor’s business card. The business card was a joke, of course. The phones would go out that very night and never come back on.

***

When the Newlands returned home, they put Timmy to bed and began to fortify the house with everything they could find. Richard made a few trips to the shed and returned with numerous sheets of ply-wood that he’d bought for one of the many projects that he didn’t get around to starting. He piled the wood onto the living room carpet and then proceeded to board up the windows on the inside of the house. When he completed the down-stairs, he pulled a couple of sheets upstairs to board up those windows, but then he decided against it and returned downstairs; leaving the boards stacked at the top of the stairs. Who knows, he thought, I may have to seal off the upstairs from the downstairs at some point.

When Timmy woke up the next morning, his eyes were stuck shut. He tried with all of his might to open them, but the lids wouldn’t come apart. Martha heard him crying and ran to his room. After seeing her son’s eyes, she wet a wash cloth and began to remove the mucus that had seeped out and dried, gluing his eyes together; when he was able to open his eyes at last, it was his mother’s turn to cry out.

Richard ran to his wife’s aid and froze in the doorway of his son’s room. Even from a good distance, he could see that Timmy’s eyes had turned blood-red. He pulled his son from the bed and ran a bath for him. As he pulled off Timmy’s clothes, Richard was dismayed to see bluish blotches, covering sections of the boy’s front and back sides.

“He’s sick,” Martha said when she saw the bruises.

“No,” Richard said, “he’s not sick; he’s turning…turning into one of those things.”

Martha looked at her husband in horror. Her eyes asked how he could dare say such a thing, but deep inside, she knew that he was right; they’re boy was going to become a zombie.

They kept Timmy in the tub until the water turned room temperature and then pulled him out, put fresh pajamas on him, and put him back to bed. Martha popped the top off of the medicine that the hospital gave them and was about to shake a couple of pills in her hand, but then caught herself; it wouldn’t do any good. Once Timmy was snug in bed, Richard excused himself and left the room, saying that he had to double check the barriers on the windows. Martha knew that her husband was going to do no such thing. He needs to cry, she thought; he needs to cry and doesn’t want to do it in front of Timmy. In her heart, she commended her husband for that, but she also begrudged him for having the option. Martha wiped away of her own tears, picked up a book off of her son’s night stand, and began to read to him. He listened for a few minutes and then drifted off to sleep.

When Timmy woke up the next time, he was in his father’s arms. Richard held his son close as he navigated his way down the wide staircase and then laid his son on the couch, in front of the Christmas tree. Timmy looked at the tree and smiled. He wasn’t smiling at the tree, but at the brand new bicycle set just in front of it. It was just the one he wanted, the one with the brass horn. He forced himself into a sitting position while his dad wheeled the bicycle to the couch. Timmy brushed his fingers along the red, smooth, surface of the frame and smiled again.

“He brought it early,” he said. “Maybe he felt bad for biting me.”

The Newlands exchanged grim glances and then regained their cheery composure.

“You wanna go out and ride it?” Richard asked.

Timmy’s face lit up, almost as much as when he first saw the bike. He looked to his mother.

“Can I mom?”

***

Timmy’s feet barely reached the pedals when his dad set him on the bicycle. It didn’t really matter, since he wouldn’t have had the strength to ride the bike on his own. He let out whoops of joy as his dad pushed him around the cement slab that covered half of the back yard. Every couple of yards, Timmy would shoot a quick glance at his mom, who was leaning against the frame of the back door. He took his hands off of the handle-bars and held them up.

“Look mom,” he said, “no hands!”

Samantha smiled and clapped her hands. She did her best to try and look happy, but inside, she was being torn to pieces.

“That’s so good, baby,” she said, clapping her hands. “You’re doing so good!”

“Can I try and do it on my own?” He asked his dad.

Richard shook his head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea kiddo. You’re not quite well enough yet.”

“Please….,” Timmy whined; “just for a little bit?”

Richard glanced at Martha, who was still leaning against the door-frame and raised his eyebrows; she nodded back.

“Okay,” he said, returning his attention to his son, “just for a few feet.”

Richard pushed Timmy a few more feet and then let go, allowing his son to take over. Timmy stretched his legs down and began to pedal the bike on his own, the tips of his toes barely reaching.

“I’m doing it!” Timmy yelled. “Look mom; I’m doing…”

The bicycle fell sideways before the boy could finish. He didn’t lose his balance, he lost his consciousness. Richard ran to his son, pulled the bike off of him, and cradled his head in his arms.

“Timmy…,” he said, shaking his son. “Timmy, talk to me…”

Martha couldn’t see Timmy through her husband’s back, but it looked as though Richard was talking to the boy; then, Richard began to shake Timmy harder and yelling for him to wake up. Martha’s breath caught in her throat and she ran to her crying husband and her dead son.

***

The phones went out when the power did. The Newlands disconnected the land-line many months before, since they both had cell phones, and their cells went dead a few days back. They couldn’t call anyone for help, didn’t know if anyone could help. After debating for hours as to whether they should take Timmy’s body to the hospital or bury him themselves, they decided on that latter. Timmy was their son, their responsibility.

For days, they waited for the police or the National Guard to show up, to offer some kind of assistance, but nobody ever came. Richard pulled out his portable radio every night and searched the stations for anything…but there was only white noise. If the end of the world had come, it had happened in the blink of an eye, rather than a slow, drawn out struggle.

Martha stayed inside the house as Richard dug a plot in the backyard for their son. There was no ceremony, no last words from the boy’s parents. When Richard believed that the hole was deep enough, he retrieved his Timmy’s body from the house, placed it in the plot, and then began to shovel the dirt back in, beginning at the boy’s feet and working his way up to the boy’s sheet covered head. Once the hole was fully filled, he returned the shovel to the shed, grabbed Timmy’s new bike by the handlebars, and wheeled it back into the house, placing right back in the same spot by the tree where his son fist saw it.

“At least he got to ride it,” Martha said. She’d come into the living room after Richard sat down and took a seat next to him on the couch. The tree wasn’t lit, but she thought that it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen, especially with the bicycle propped in front of it.

“We at least gave him that,” Richard said and then began to unleash a torrent of sobs. He grabbed his wife and buried his head into her breast, letting out sorrowful moans of pain and anguish. Martha held her pain inside. She’d had a good cry when Richard was burying their son and now it was his turn. She had to be strong for him, at least for a while.

A sound from the front porch interrupted their misery. Richard jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door. The windows were boarded up, so he locked the chain in place at the top of the door and opened it, just enough to look out. Martha had swept the porch that morning and forgot to put the broom away. Richard saw it, lying down on the porch, a zombie-thing lying beside it. The zombie-thing had tripped over the broom and they both went down.

“What is it,” Martha asked. She stood up and walked toward her husband; “is it him…”

Richard held out his palm to his wife, signaling for her to stop.

“Get my gun.”

He didn’t have to explain to Martha what he wanted the gun for, she knew. It was one of them; one of those…things. She turned to rush up the stairs, but he husband’s voice stopped her again.

“Holy shit…”

***

The smell of living blood could be sense from a mile away. The flock turned from the main road, and began to shuffle down the long, dirt driveway. As they turned a wide corner, they saw the large, white house, and something else, a flash of movement as the front door closed. There was living in the house, they knew it, sensed it, hungered for it. There was no leader of the pack; it shared a collective mind, a set of primal instincts that guided their movements. Conscience thought was something of the past; it didn’t apply to them.

The mob exited the driveway and quickly filled in the large clearing, surrounding the house. They didn’t understand human technology anymore, didn’t remember how to use a door knob, but retained the knowledge of what a door was. They crowded around the front and back doors and began to scratch and bang their hands against them. A few gathered at the boarded up windows, smashed through the glass on the outside, but only managed to cut their hands and arms to ribbons. If another scent of life caught their attention, the mob would forget about the house and move on, hoping for easier prey, but until then, they would continue to try and breach the house.

Inside the house, Richard and Martha scrambled to keep their safe haven intact. Martha ran to the top of the stairs and pulled out the hammer and nails, ready to seal off the top of the house. Richard periodically checked the front and back doors, making sure that they weren’t being breached. He could hear them banging and scratching, but the doors held in place. Richard relaxed a little when he realized that the creatures didn’t have the strength to break down the doors. He thought of joining Martha upstairs, but decided against it; that was one time when making a wrong decision would be the difference between life and death.

In the distance, a woman’s scream could barely be heard over the sound of the zombie-things’ trying to enter the house. Richard’s first thought was of Martha, but that thought quickly fled from him. Martha was upstairs. The screams came from somewhere else; somewhere not too far, but not very close either. The banging and scratching sounds stopped.

On the porch, the mob heard the sound of a woman screaming and froze in place. They knew which direction the scream came from and turned to face that way. As a single unit, they began to walk off of the porch, lured by the promise of an easy meal.

***

There was a bright flash of light, and then a plunge into darkness again. The flash came again and displayed a vivid picture; a downward view of a pair of shiny, new handlebars. The third flash was a memory of Richard Newland’s face smiling down, saying something that Timmy couldn’t hear. There was another brief plunge into darkness and then another memory; a brand new bike, sitting in front of a decorated tree. Timmy wanted that bike; he hungered for it. The image snapped away and he was left in darkness again, but that time, the darkness was different, it was a physical blackness, full of pressure and moisture. Timmy felt like he was being smothered; completely surrounded on all sides by cold, wet darkness. He had to escape.

He began to wiggle around, slowly at first and then with more conviction. After fighting for a moment, he managed to free one of his hands from the sheet that was wrapped around him. He pushed his hand up through the blackness and felt the soil give way around it. When his hand punched through the top layer of dirt, Timmy knew that he had found freedom; he freed his other hand and pushed it up to meet the light with the other one.

The mob was shuffling across the clearing toward a pathway that cut through a cluster of trees. The first few members stepped onto the path, but were told to turn back. There was no voice calling out to them, no grunts or banging; just a thought. They turned and headed back into the clearing, following the rest of the mob who had begun to surround a small patch of dirt in the backyard of the house.

When both of Timmy’s hands were free from the earth, he used them to pull his body out of the grave. It was a slow process; each thrust of his arms earning him a mere inch or two. When he finally freed his torso, the process was much quicker. He leaned back and pushed his legs free, sliding along the dirt floor of the backyard on his rear.

He didn’t seem to notice the cluster of zombies that surrounded him after he freed himself from his earthen prison. The only thought that Timmy had was of a bicycle, beautiful and shiny, sitting beneath a tree. He knew where the tree was, he hungered for his bicycle… he began to walk toward the house.

The cluster of zombies followed Timmy up to the back porch. He wasn’t their new leader; zombies didn’t have leaders; they just knew that there was something inside the house that the boy wanted very badly, so they wanted it badly. Adding the boys limited memories to their collective consciousness, they began to receive images of his father, his mother, and the bicycle that he desired more than anything in the world. The zombies kept their distance as Timmy re-doubled their efforts – banging and scratching on the back door. An imaged flashed through Timmy’s mind – not of his parents or a bike that time, but of a rock, a very special rock. One of the larger zombies broke from the cluster and stepped up onto the porch. Next to the back door, there was a large, polished rock. The zombie flipped the rock over, uncovering a brass key. He leaned over and picked up the key and handed it to the newest member of their group. Timmy took the key, issued a low grunt to the other zombie and unlocked the door.

***

Richard didn’t have time to run when the door opened. He’d been about to start a fire in the fireplace one second and was surrounded by zombies the next. Martha heard his scream and ran half way down the stairs. It didn’t take long for her to figure out that Richard was gone. Having no time to mourn, self-preservation kicked in and she fled back upstairs. When she reached the top of the stairs, she grabbed the extra plywood and fumbled to get it into position so that she could nail it to the wall; she never got to drive in the first nail. The zombies reached the top of the stairs and pushed against the plywood, knocking Martha backwards. She slammed against the hallway wall and fought to keep the large piece of plywood between her and the zombies. The zombies couldn’t break through the wood, but they didn’t have to. Martha screamed in pain as a set of teeth dug into her hand. She dropped the wood and was immediately tackled by the hoard. They bit into her, tearing away at her flesh. Hands dug into her torso, beginning to rip her apart, releasing her entrails. Martha managed to dig her husband’s pistol out from her jacket pocket, put the barrel to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

The sound of the gunshot shook the very foundation of the house. The zombies kept pouring in; promised a meal in both, the downstairs and upstairs areas. Timmy didn’t partake in the feast of his parents; he had designs of another prize. When he opened the back door, the rest of the mob knocked him to the side and rushed through the house. He struggled to get through, but his small size made it impossible for him to push the others out of his way. Once the zombies were busy with their meal, Timmy found that it was much easier to navigate his way into the living room. He squeezed his way between a couple of zombies who were lumbering in the kitchen doorway and saw his bike, still leaning on its kick-stand in front of the tree. It called to him; he went to it.

***

James and Audrey Borba had been living in their SUV since the apocalypse began. They would travel from city to city, looking for food and gas, but the majority of the towns was deserted and void of resources. The Borba’s’ didn’t lack for food or comfort, but they were always on the lookout for more. The last small town they had gone through, they’d hit the jackpot. The residents were evacuated before the citizens had a chance to clear the grocery shelves, empty the gas stations, or loot the whole town, picking clean anything of value. They were able to stock up on groceries, fill up their gas tank, and even fill a few gas cans for a refill down the line.

The last living people they’d run into told them about a place on the coast where all of the living were migrating. The word was that they had power, food and enough supplies to last a couple generations. James was allured by the prospect of survival, while Audrey was excited because she heard that the President of the former United States was there. In any case, the decision to travel to the coast was unanimous.

As the Honda Pilot cruised along the back roads that led to the interstate, it began to slow down.

“That’s the biggest herd I’ve seen so far,” James said.

He slowed the SUV to a stop and looked out at the horizon through the windshield. The view of the road in the distance was blocked by an enormous group of zombies.

“Are you going to drive through them?” Audrey asked. She grabbed a hold of James’s arm. He could feel her shaking.

“Naw,” he said, “They’re mostly in the middle of the road. I’ll hit the shoulder and try to go around them.”

He hit the gas and closed the distance to the mob. Before the SUV reached the zombies, James pulled to the side and drove around the group. There were a couple of stragglers on the shoulder and they bounced off the front of the SUV, leaving little damage. In seconds, the SUV bounced back onto the road, just on the other side of the zombies and sped off, down the road.

“You see that?” Audrey asked. She was looking through the rearview mirror. “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen!”

James slowed down the SUV and looked into the rearview mirror. In the center of the road, following behind the massive group of zombies, was what looked like a small boy, riding a bicycle.

THE END