[Anh Ngữ] Married with Zombie - Jesse Petersen (English)

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN
Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 21

Do special things for each other. Antibiotics are the gift that keeps giving.
The grocery store just across the way from Bingo’s had a pharmacy, so we drove over what would have once been a main thoroughfare you never would have dared to cross without a light. But I can tell you what: There was going to be no splitting up this time as we entered the building.

It wasn’t one of the big chain stores with their nice aisles and fancy name brand products. It had an old, “neighborhood store” feel to it that was kind of nice.

Unfortunately, it also meant it had been pretty well cleaned out when the infection started to break. The aisles were strewn with leftover food that had been cleared from the shelves in the melee of three days before. But I wasn’t as worried about food, honestly. We had more pressing matters to deal with.

“There’s the pharmacy,” I said as I motioned toward the back of the store. Dave pushed a cart again as we made our way toward the glass-encased area in the back.

At first I felt pretty good about where we were. It was quiet, the lights and refrigerators were still running, and aside from the messy state of the food aisles, there wasn’t much sign of infestation.

That was, at least, until the swinging doors in the back opened and from them fell a group of five zombies. Three of them were dressed in store uniforms and two had clearly once been customers. One was a middle-aged woman with curlers still in her hair; another was dressed up like she’d been on her way to or home from an office job, probably in some kind of management position if her tailored appearance (aside from the greyness and blood and sludge drooling, of course) was any indication.

“Man,” I whined as I hopped behind the pharmacy counter and drew out a shotgun. “We just can’t catch a break.”

I fired the first shot as they started to move toward us and dropped Middle Management Zombie. The spray of the pellets caught Curler Zombie, too, and she flinched as her arm flopped from the impact. Dave braced himself on the end cap of a shelf and fired two shots in rapid succession, making quick work of the Curler Zombie I had winged and one of the store workers. I finished off the other two and reloaded before I turned into the back of the pharmacy.

“I’ll just be a minute,” I promised and hoped I’d be right.

There were short aisles behind the glass with drugs that seemed to be organized by what they treated so I started from the front and moved back.

I was disappointed that most of the painkillers had already been wiped out when the looting started a couple of days before. I guess the druggies and the people who were afraid of facing what was happening had taken advantage. But there were still some anti-inflammatories left behind so I grabbed those while Dave cleared out the supply of Tylenol on the other side of the glass. It would be better than nothing in a pinch.

I turned down the final aisle and came to a sudden stop. There on the floor were two bodies that I approached with caution. I nudged the first one with my foot, but it didn’t move. It was actually a dead person, not a zombie.

I tilted my head to look closer. She was a woman, probably about my age, with a white lab coat and her hair pulled back in a bun. Her nametag said ANGELICA. She almost looked like she was just taking a rest, except that all around her mouth was a foamy substance and clutched in her hand was a big bottle of the powerful painkiller Oxycontin.

She must have been trapped back here when the zombies came in. Behind the glass she would have been able to see everything play out. And I guess she’d figured it was better not to let it happen to her.

With a sigh, I moved to the next body. But as I neared it, it jolted and I braced myself for a zombie encounter as it flipped over to face me. This one was the male pharmacist, probably a good twenty years older than the other girl. He had thinning grey hair that matched his skin and a friendly face, even though it was now twisted with a desire to crush me and eat my bones.

I drew back with a gasp I couldn’t have kept to myself no matter how much you paid me. While the younger woman had taken her own life, it seemed like this man had decided to fight. And he’d lost because he was missing his legs. He scooted toward me on his belly, hissing and biting the air as he dragged himself through the pool of his own blood and tissue.

My empty stomach turned. I hoped he had already been a zombie when he sustained those injuries. The infected didn’t seem to feel pain the way we did. It obviously irritated them when they were hurt, but they could soldier on without an arm or a leg.

“Sorry, buddy,” I murmured as I swung my shotgun butt and smashed the side of his head in. He sighed, almost in relief, as his red pupils faded to lifeless black.

“What’s up back there?” Dave asked and I realized I’d been standing out of his line of sight for a long time.

I grabbed a few more items, including some instant ice packs, and came out to where he could see me.

“Nothing,” I said as I vaulted over the counter. I kept trying to put the image of the legless creature out of my mind. “Just taking care of an issue and I figured it didn’t require wasting shells.”

“Okay,” Dave responded slowly, watching me closely as he took the armfuls of items I’d picked up and put them into the cart.

“Is that it?” I asked with false brightness as I looked around us.

He nodded. “I grabbed more nonperishables from the aisles close by. There’s not much left here, I don’t think, but if you want to we could look for more.”

I stared at our cart, half full of items. I didn’t want to stay here. I didn’t want to have to keep finding zombies and bodies and fight. I was tired and I just wanted it all to stop. Of course, I knew it wasn’t possible, but I shook my head like maybe it could be if we just left the store.

“If we make it to Longview tonight we can figure out the supply situation there,” I said. “Knowing your sister, she has a bunker filled with homemade preserves that we can survive in for years.”

Dave smiled. “See, she could come in handy.”

I laughed softly. “At last. And even if we don’t get there tonight, we’ll have to stop somewhere anyway. Maybe we’ll find someplace that hasn’t been touched by…”

I trailed off and waved my hand at the carnage all around us.

He didn’t answer, not that I blamed him. At this point, and after everything we’d seen and heard and done, I think we were pretty well aware that this terror had spread like crazy and there wasn’t much of a safe place anymore, especially in the Western part of the United States. But I think we were still reluctant to say it out loud. Like it would jinx us or something if we admitted it.

“Then let’s get back on the highway,” he said, but his voice had the same ring of false cheer that mine had had earlier.

I led the way with him pushing the cart behind me. Just as we reached the front registers, another one of the infected popped up from behind the bigger “guest services” desk at the front. Without missing a beat, David shot him and he fell back down as if he’d never even existed.

Out in the parking lot, we loaded up the car as fast as we could, rearranging things so that we could get to them without being forced to stop.

As I pulled out, Dave put an ice pack on his leg and downed four Tylenol and a couple of the anti-inflammatories, then he handed me the carton of orange juice he’d found in a front cooler on our way out of the store.

While we maneuvered through the streets toward the highway with the GPS jabbering in our ears about which turn to take, we had a breakfast of stale muffins, juice, and ultra-fizzy Diet Coke (hey, I need my morning caffeine).

And as we rolled back up onto the congested road, I don’t know what he was thinking, but the mantra that kept running through my head was, “Here we go again.”

Nơi tổng hợp, chia sẻ và giải đáp thắc mắc về Thành ngữ tiếng Anh
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8099/
Trợ giúp dịch thuật (tiếng Anh)
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8020/​

 

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN
Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 22

Men are from Mars.… Zombies are from Hell.
About fifteen miles past Sea-Tac airport the highway slowly… and rather eerily cleared up. It was as if this was as far as anyone had managed to make it and now we were pioneers on the next leg of our journey.

As we stopped having to weave within traffic, I glanced at Dave. His mouth was a thin line that expressed his worry as well as my own thoughts did.

“We’re close to Tacoma,” he murmured.

I nodded. “There should still be tons of traffic.”

Honestly, the roads around here were pretty much bad until you got past Olympia and entered into full-blown rolling hills of bucolic farm country.

He reached out and turned on the old car’s radio. I should also mention it had an eight track. Yes, that’s how awesome our car was. But the radio was currently on FM stations and Dave turned the dial back and forth, looking for any kind of signal. Nothingness greeted us.

My heart was pounding. This was the first time our attempts at finding a station had failed. Did that mean they were all gone?

“Try AM,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

Without a word, he pressed the button that switched the feed and started rolling through AM stations.

Empty air and static were all we found. He wound the dial all the way to the bottom, then back to the top.

“Wait,” I cried, “Was that a voice?”

He turned back just a little and sure enough, faint and clouded by static, was the voice of a young woman.

“The government might try to shut us up, but they can’t shut us down,” she said, her voice shaky and exhausted. “We will talk about the spread of the infection. We will tell you what we’re seeing whether they like it or not.”

I stiffened. “Did she just say the government was trying to shut her up?”

I guess I was still pretty innocent at that point. I figured that the government, our government, would be trying to figure out a way to share information, to save people who were left, not hush this disaster up.

“I’d guess it’s a way to quell panic,” Dave offered as he jacked the volume up so we could hear better over the bad reception.

“Here in…”

Her voice cut out so I couldn’t hear where she was broadcasting from. It couldn’t be far, though, the signal wasn’t strong enough.

“… there are far more infected now than survivors. We have seen government tanks rolling through the streets. They’ve knocked down buildings without even checking for survivors inside. They have bombed city blocks and shot people who tried to flag them down for help.”

My hand came up to cover my mouth, so it was good we were on open road now.

“Christ,” I breathed.

“They’re shutting down the power in…”

Again her voice crackled and I was frustrated in my attempts to figure out where she was.

“… and we’re now running on a generator until it runs out of power… or they find us. The zombies or the soldiers. Please, spread the word. Don’t listen to the reports that the outbreak is over and being contained. It isn’t. And if you’re hearing this from outside Portland… please find a way to tell others. Before it’s too late.”

The voice died and Dave began to roll the dial frantically as he tried to find her again, but she was gone.

“Portland,” I breathed. “Portland? She had to be in Oregon.”

He nodded as he snapped the radio off with a sigh of frustration. “She has to be. It’s the only Portland close enough to have a signal. With a big enough transistor and enough power, she could reach us. Especially with all the other station chatter gone.”

He rested his head back on the seat and his fists clenched at his sides. Tears stung my eyes and I had to focus to stay on the road. For the first time since all this began, I was really ready to lose it.

Longview was just at the Washington/Oregon border. About an hour north of Portland.

I sucked in a breath. “But if it’s in Portland… if it’s so bad in Portland that they’re fire bombing the city, that means it’s spread past Longview.”

He nodded.

“It wouldn’t skip a town, David,” I sobbed. “Lisa was right. There isn’t a Longview left.”

“Pull over,” he said softly.

“I can’t, I have to —”

He touched my arm, his fingers gentle and soothing. “Pull over.”

Slowly, I made it to the side of the road, putting the passenger wheels right on the shoulder, not that there was anyone else out there to hit me. Apparently the world that we knew of was officially gone.

I rested my head on the steering wheel and sobbed. Dave slid across the seat and put his arm around me. We sat like that for probably twenty minutes as I tried to pull it together without much success. But finally I guess I ran out of tears.

I sat up, wiping my nose on the bottom of my formerly clean t-shirt. “Okay, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, pushing some hair off my face. “If anyone deserves a breakdown it’s us.”

“But we didn’t break down,” I hiccupped. “I did.”

“Well, I owe you one, then,” he said as he slid back into place. We sat in silence for a while longer as I hiccupped out the last of my sobs and he was lost in thought.

Finally, he said, “Look, maybe we shouldn’t go to Longview after all.”

I jerked in my seat to face him. “What?”

He shrugged. “We know this infection or outbreak or whatever you want to call it has gone south, at least to Portland, maybe beyond. But we don’t know for sure about east. Maybe even north toward Canada.”

“So you think they stopped it at the border?” I asked incredulously.

He looked at me. “They won’t even let us bring fireworks across. They’re tough.”

I stared at him for a long moment and then I couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of the border patrol asking a zombie what his purpose was in going to Canada today.

Before I could answer, though, a handful of zombies started out of the wooded area on the side of the highway. I looked at them, lurching and sprewing. They had ruined our lives, they had killed our friends.

And in that moment, I didn’t feel sorry for them anymore. I hated them.

I gunned the car as I threw it in gear and roared toward them.

“Fuck you, fuckers!” I screamed as I slammed into the first one.

He cartwheeled pretty comically over the car’s wide hood, his jaws snapping at us even as he flipped upside down. The car thumped as I hit the second one, pulling her under my wheels with a thud and then a second thud when my back tires ran over her.

“What are you doing?” Dave asked as he scrambled for his seatbelt and held on to the door for dear life.

“Remember Dr. Kelly’s scream therapy?” I asked.

“Yelling out our anger and purging it? You thought that was bullshit!” Dave protested.

“It was!” I agreed. “But Kill Therapy isn’t. Tell those zombies what you think!”

He stared at me and then his gaze shifted to the male zombie in the jeans and t-shirt who was hurtling toward us up the side of the highway.

“Go to hell, you jackoff!” he said.

“No, yell it!” I said as we slammed into him. He landed up on our hood, his face smooshed against the glass like a kid on a shop window.

“Fuck YOU!” Dave bellowed before he reached over to my side and turned on the windshield wipers. They smacked the zombie’s face and he growled before I spun the wheel and sent him flying off the hood to land on his head in the ditch.

With all the zombies taken care of, I stopped the car again and faced Dave. “We aren’t going east and we aren’t going north. We’re going to Longview to find your sister. I may hate that bitch, but if she isn’t a zombie then she belongs with us. No man… er, woman left behind, you got that, soldier?”

Dave stared at me. “Okay. Okay! So let’s go to Longview.”

“Let’s go to mother-fucking Longview.”

Nơi tổng hợp, chia sẻ và giải đáp thắc mắc về Thành ngữ tiếng Anh
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8099/
Trợ giúp dịch thuật (tiếng Anh)
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8020/​

 

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN​

Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 23

Pick the right time to broach a delicate subject. Sometimes the hillbilly will give you the answers in his own time.
The moment we pulled off the highway toward Longview four excruciating hours later, it was obvious that the place was a ghost town. The steel and chemical plants, which normally sent steam and smoke billowing up into smelly plumes across the sky, were both eerily silent and still. We turned at the bottom of the off ramp and headed toward the main street of town.

Longview was a classic small Washington state town. Surrounded by wonderful outdoor beauty, the thirty-five thousand residents mostly made their livings at the factories or in the service of those who did. Economic times had been tough in the last few years, but the town had pulled together. They took care of their own.

They had a traditional main street with little shops and restaurants, which was one of the only reasons I actually liked coming here when David dragged me down to visit his sister. There was always something new to see or some new craftsperson to speak to in those stores.

Not that we had a choice but to come here. Gina refused to come to Seattle. She said she was “afraid” of the traffic and of being raped. No amount of discussion on the matter would change her mind. When she pictured the city… any city, she seemed to picture bumper-to-bumper traffic and rape… quite possibly together.

Not that it mattered now, I guess. I mean, if the girl on the pirated radio station was right and they were fire-bombing Portland to end the plague, then they were probably doing the same behind us in Seattle.

“Wow,” Dave breathed, dragging me from my thoughts as I looked down Main Street.

The charming shops I’d liked so much had obviously seen some action from the infected… or looters… or both. Almost every window was shattered, some of the shards remaining in the windows as a bloody testament to a zombie war it didn’t seem like we could win.

We drove along the streets. A burned-out husk of a classic car was parked half on the sidewalk, still smoldering.

“I wonder if that means it was fair time?” David asked.

Every year in early August, the town had a big fair. Normally we came down for it, but this year with the problems in our marriage and our financial difficulties, I hadn’t kept track of when the big event was. But the classic car was a good indication. They always did a parade, followed by a classic car show to kick off the event.

“There are the signs,” I said, motioning to the big Cowlitz County Fair signs that pointed toward the Expo Center. “Want to check it out?”

Dave didn’t answer, he was too busy looking at the bodies that were strewn across the sidewalk in the distance. I’m sure he was thinking about his sister, Gina. She never missed a parade, so she would have been here when all hell broke loose.

I was thinking about her, too, but in a way I wanted to put off looking for her. The longer we waited, the longer it was going to be before we found out she was a zombie or dead. Seeing the upheaval around us, I feared those were her only two options.

I followed the signs to the big, open area near the Expo Center. We were still a short distance away when I saw the Ferris Wheel all set up and ready for kids.

It was running.

“What the hell?” I said, looking up at the slowly spinning wheel. It was an eerie sight with the rest of the town all but deserted.

Dave swallowed. “It must have been running when the town was attacked.”

“Do you think there are people up there?” I whispered.

“Ones who were stuck on the ride, you mean?” Dave asked, his eyes getting wide. “I hadn’t thought about it, but maybe we should check.”

I nodded as I pulled the car to a stop in the middle of the street. I grabbed a tire iron from the back, he took the baseball bat and we each had a shotgun as we got out of the car. I locked it behind us and Dave laughed.

“Worried about the hoodlums, eh?” he asked.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, nothing good ever happens at a zombie carnival. Recent zombie movies have taught us that.”

“So true,” he said with a laugh. “And I guess my sister would approve of your prudence anyway.”

His smile fell at that.

There wasn’t any opportunity for comfort, though. He limped off ahead of me. I watched him as I trailed behind him. He was moving better now that he was regularly taking some over-the-counter painkillers and the prescription anti-inflammatories. I just hoped once we got to Gina’s, we’d be able to better brace his leg up and get him whole again.

We passed through the fair gate and the empty ticket booth beside it. There was blood streaked on the brightly painted wood and sludge that had dried to a sticky, disgusting black.

“Activity,” I said, not explaining myself further. I didn’t have to. By this time, Dave just glanced at the evidence and grunted an acknowledgment by lifting his gun a little higher.

The happy, comforting smells of batter and hot dogs and cotton candy still wafted through the air, although they were mingled with the scent of smoke and blood now. It was an incongruous combination that was somehow becoming commonplace. Heaven with Hell. Life with death.

We headed through the different stalls that had been set up for food and crafts on the way toward the ride area. In the distance I heard the growling and moaning of zombies, but I didn’t see any… yet.

The carnival area had the usual array of silly games for kids, complete with cheaply made, huge stuffed animals made by the labor of little children in far away factories, no doubt. I wondered if the outbreak would spread to them in time. Or if it already had.

I was so lost in my musings that I didn’t see the zombie until he stood up at the “Balloon Pop” booth and started staggering over the low counter toward me. He was dressed in some hokey carnival caller outfit, complete with red striped shirt and a hat with a name tag pinned to it. HANK.

“You going to get that?” Dave asked from my left, his tone calm and bored. One zombie wasn’t worth getting worked up about anymore, I guess.

I nodded as I raised my shotgun and was about to fire off a kill shot when an arrow whizzed past and hit Zombie Hank square in the forehead. The redness went out of his eyes immediately and he fell forward, landing right on his face in the dirt.

I spun around and so did Dave. A man in a dingy white tank top and jean shorts with cowboy boots came running up out of the mass of booths.

“Woohoo!” he shouted as he spit a disgusting plug of tobacco right at my feet. “Did you see that shot, girlie?”

“Sure did, much obliged,” I managed to say as I stared. Yup, this was straight out of a zombie movie now. Hillbilly saves couple. But would it turn into Deliverance?

Dave limped forward with a look of relief and shock on his face. “Conrad?”

I blinked as I put a name to the familiar and yet wacky face before us.

Conrad Hanvers was Gina’s neighbor up the road. He looked to be about fifty, but Gina said that was just from some hard living and that he was closer to thirty-five.

He was a nice guy when you looked past the crazy blond mullet, the farmer’s tan, and the tobacco chawing. He had once helped us change a tire when we got a flat up here years ago and always came over to shovel Gina’s drive when it snowed in the winter.

“Why if it ain’t Davy Boy and Miss Sarah,” Conrad said with a laugh. “Did you all come down here for the fair?”

I stared at him for almost a full minute before I looked at Dave. I hoped he would come up with something to say because I was speechless at this point.

“Uh,” he started with an awkward shuffle of his feet. “No, Conrad, we didn’t. We got chased out of Seattle by the, uh… well, the…”

He motioned to the zombie Conrad had just hit between the eyes. Conrad looked down at the dead man with a whistle.

“So the television was right, eh? So the whole world’s gone to hell in a handbasket after all.”

“I’m afraid so,” I said, finally finding my voice somehow. “The whole city was overrun in a matter of about twenty-four hours. By the time we got out, I doubt there were many survivors left.”

Conrad blinked. “Well, I’ll be suckered. Those city slickers didn’t put up much of a fight, did they?”

I shrugged, a little annoyed by the implication that we hadn’t even bothered to try up north. I mean, this was a zombie invasion, something out of movies and nightmares. This wasn’t something you just knew what to do when faced with it.

“I can see it made it down here, as well,” Dave said, his voice tense enough that I could tell he was as irritated by the implication as I was.

Conrad looked around with a deep sigh. “Yes, yes. It all started about a day and a half ago. Some crazy mowed right through the fair day parade up Main Street in one of them classic cars. We thought he was a drunk, but when he got out, he started trying to eat people. It was the darndest thing. Aw, it took folks a while to sort it all out, but now we’re getting the hang of it.”

“The hang of it,” David repeated blankly.

Conrad nodded. “Yup. We plug those poor bastards in the brains and take them to the burning pile over yonder.”

He motioned off beyond the fairgrounds. In the distance I saw a faint line of black smoke curling up into the sky. I shivered at the thought that it was a big crematory.

“We even got patrols running twenty-four-seven now,” Conrad finished with a shrug. “So I think we’ll be okay.”

After the last few days, I wasn’t so sure about that, but at present I was just too exhausted to argue the point.

“We saw the Ferris Wheel running, that’s why we came in here,” I said, motioning toward the slowly turning ride in the distance. “No one is trapped on it, are they?”

Conrad looked over his shoulder toward the ride, but then he seemed to get distracted by something else he saw.

“Aw, no.” He shrugged and then leaned his head to the side. “Hang on, darlin’.”

He pulled an arrow from the Wal-Mart brand arrow holster attached to his hip. He set it into the bow and fired off a shot. In the distance I heard a thump and then a sickly groan before silence again.

“Hot damn, I’m on a roll!” Conrad said as he turned back. “Now what were we talking about?”

I looked at Dave. How could this guy be so… jubilant? His town was being overrun by monsters!

“Um, the rides,” I said. “If there were people trapped on the rides.”

Conrad pulled a can of chaw from his back pocket. “That’s right. No worries, we got all the living people off. Some of the sick ones were still riding last I checked.”

I looked up. Now that we were closer I could see there were people on the spinning chairs, lurching softly as the ride turned. I wondered what, if anything, the zombies thought of that.

“So how many did you lose?” I asked. “Before you ‘got it under control’?”

Conrad shut his eyes, like he was doing complicated math in his head. “Well, all told I guess about seven or eight thousand.”

I staggered back. “That’s a quarter of the town.”

He nodded and the joviality he had been expressing faded somewhat. He might talk a good game, but the horror of losing friends and neighbors wasn’t lost on him.

“But now that we know what to do, I doubt that number will go up much,” he said softly, almost like he was trying to convince himself.

Dave sidled closer, his face pale. “What about Gina, Conrad? Did you lose Gina?”

The other man turned on him. “Aw, hell, Gina. I should have told you right from the start. I swear sometimes I don’t have the sense of a goat!”

“What about Gina?” Dave pressed, his teeth clenched.

“She’s okay,” Conrad hurried to say. “She was at the parade and nearly got herself killed by the first wave of those crazy bastards. But I helped her get to her truck and back toward home. I checked on her just this morning and she’s just fine. Waiting it out just like everybody else.”

Dave wobbled just a little and I caught his arm to steady him. “Thank God,” he muttered.

“You all going to go down and see her?” Conrad asked.

I nodded, my own relief welling up in me. No, I wasn’t Gina’s biggest fan, but I didn’t want the woman dead… or undead by any means! Especially since I knew how much Dave cared about her.

“Yeah, we’re going that way now,” Dave said, motioning me to leave the fair and head for the car.

“I’ll come and check on you all later,” Conrad said with a lopsided grin.

We waved goodbye and headed back out to the car. As we got in, Dave flopped his head back on the seat and sighed. “I can’t believe they lost so much of the town.”

I nodded, trying not to think of all those men and women and children who we had seen at the fair over the years. It was too awful to think about the infected flooding into the parade and attacking them, turning them against their own families and friends within moments.

I shivered as I pushed the thought from my head. I smiled at him.

“The good news is that Gina is okay. So what do you say we head on out her way and show her that her baby brother is alive and well.”

Nơi tổng hợp, chia sẻ và giải đáp thắc mắc về Thành ngữ tiếng Anh
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8099/
Trợ giúp dịch thuật (tiếng Anh)
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8020/​

 

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN
Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 24

Cultivate a good relationship with your spouse’s family. You never know when you might need shelter from a zombie storm.
Gina lived out in a little three-bedroom rambler just outside of town which was situated on about three acres of pristine land that she rented out to farmers for their crops.

She had gotten it in a divorce settlement with her high school boyfriend-turned-husband a few years back, along with pretty much everything else the poor guy ever had. I think he’d had to move back in with his parents by the time she was through with him. I’d always felt bad for him, really.

I guess I was the only one.

By the time we reached the house, the afternoon was getting long and the sun was starting to set. As we got out, I looked around for any signs of the infected, but in this secluded place there weren’t any, or they were just too hidden to see. The house was intact with no broken windows or obvious blood or sludge on the grass, walls or door.

“Looks okay,” Dave said with a relieved sigh, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders. I guessed it wouldn’t until we’d seen Gina for ourselves.

I nodded as we went up to the door. I knocked and then stepped back. It was a good thing I did because the inside door flew open and the quiet afternoon was shattered by the explosive shot of a shotgun. The glass storm door shattered and Dave and I dove for cover in opposite directions to avoid the spray of pellets.

“Shit, Gina!” Dave bellowed as he rolled behind a planter on the messy porch. “It’s us. Christ!”

Slowly a dark head came into view in the broken door. Gina stood there, gun in hand, and she looked at us like she didn’t even recognize us.

“David?” she finally whispered.

“It’s us.” He nodded from behind the plant. “Put the gun down, Gina.”

She lowered the shotgun and pushed the storm door open. Glass tinkled onto the porch as she did so.

“Is that really you?” she asked as she came out into the sunlight.

He got up slowly and so did I behind her. It took him longer because of his injury and his limp was more pronounced again as he moved toward her. Fuck, I hoped he hadn’t hurt his leg any more than it already was.

“It’s really us,” he said as he put his arms around her.

She held him tight for a minute and my throat thickened at their reunion. All my bad thoughts about Gina faded.

Until she backed up and talked. “You’re too skinny. Doesn’t she feed you?”

I cleared my throat and arched a brow as the two turned toward me. Gina’s face fell before she pulled it together. I guess she must have hoped that Dave had finally had enough of me and abandoned me to the attacking horde.

“She feeds him three times a day at least,” I said, forcing a smile. “And he’s actually capable of feeding himself, too. Hi, Gina.”

My sister-in-law smiled, but like me I could see it wasn’t any more real than my own. Yeah, we’d never really seen eye to eye.

“Sarah,” she said, stepping toward me for a brief hug that barely involved any pressure at all. “I’m so glad you’re both here.”

I looked at the destroyed glass door. “Me too.”

She shrugged at my expression. “What else could I do? I didn’t recognize the car and I didn’t see you guys on the porch.”

I waited for her to apologize for almost putting a spray of pellets in my body, not to mention her baby brother’s, but she didn’t. Instead she turned toward the house and motioned us in behind her.

“Come inside.”

We entered the house and I stared around in surprise. Unlike me, Gina is totally a Martha Stewart. She’s tidy, she makes things from scratch for holiday gifts that always turn out perfectly and even more to decorate her house. Her place, although small, is a bit of a showplace. The one time she came to our apartment, she sniffed when she saw it.

Sniffed. Is it any wonder I hated the bitch?

So I was pretty fucking shocked to find that her home was basically a wreck. Clothing was piled up all over, her little knickknacks were spread out on the floor. It almost looked like there had been zombie activity here, except that there wasn’t any telltale blood or sludge.

Gina shut the door and bolted three deadlocks in rapid succession. When she turned to us she had her “happy hostess” face on.

“Can I get you anything to drink or eat?”

I looked around again. “Gina, is everything okay? You didn’t have anyone get in here, did you?”

Her gaze swung on me, sharp and focused and angry. “What are you talking about?”

I gave Dave a helpless look. Couldn’t he see how bizarre this situation was? Our eyes met and I prepared for him to give me a shrug and leave me to fight this battle on my own. In the past, when it came to his family, that was what he had done.

Not this time. To my relief, he came forward and grasped his sister’s shoulders gently. “I think Sarah is just worried because your house is usually so tidy. Are you feeling all right, Gina?”

She blinked at him. “Of course. You just caught me during a chore day. If I’d known you were coming, I would have been ready. These pop-in visits are never as organized as the planned ones. You really should have called.”

“The phones are down,” I said softly and briefly wondered if she had Internet so I could try to reach my family again. I’d have to ask later.

She ignored me as she pulled from Dave’s arms and went into the kitchen. “Now let me get you something.”

While Gina bustled in the kitchen, I motioned Dave to me. We sat down on the couch together and I whispered, “This is crazy, right? She nearly killed us by shooting out the door without even looking and now she’s acting like we put her out by popping in for a ‘visit’.”

He nodded. “It is weird, even for Gina.”

I drew back in surprise. Dave had never even implied that his sister was… weird. And God help me when I did.

“Do you think she’s in shock?” I asked. “She was at the parade when the zombie outbreak began in Longview. Conrad even said she was attacked. I assume she saw some shit go down and she’s been alone ever since.”

“Maybe we can snap her out of it.” Dave said, then smiled up at her as Gina came back into the room carrying some sandwiches and diet Cokes. Even though I was worried, I couldn’t help but dig in. Since the night before we left Seattle and had a frozen pizza, this was the closest thing to a real meal we’d had.

Gina watched me shovel my food down with another of her hated sniffs and then turned her attention to Dave.

“So how are you?”

He shot me a side glance. “Well, actually Gina, I’m hurt.”

He set his plate aside and gingerly rolled up his pant leg. I leaned in closer to see his injury even as I guzzled my drink. Although the bruises from his fall were really ugly and the thing looked like it hurt like a son of a bitch, the swelling had thankfully gone down, lending credence to our thought about a bone bruise.

“What happened?” Gina squealed as she dropped down on the floor to get a better look.

“So much.” He stared at her evenly. “During the attack, we had to run away from some bad people, Gina. And I got hurt during our escape.”

“Bad people?” His sister glared at me like I was the “bad people” he was referring to and then looked back at him. “I have told you again and again that the city is no place for a decent person to live. But no, Sarah has to insist on staying there for her ‘career’.”

I gritted my teeth because none of that was remotely true. Seriously, she couldn’t have gotten it more wrong. Oh man, did I want to say something. In the past, I would have. But I kept thinking of something Dr. Kelly had said during our therapy about respecting family boundaries.

Dave tilted his head. “Gina, this isn’t about the crime level in Seattle. And it isn’t about Sarah. You have to know that, don’t you?”

“I’ll get you an ice pack,” Gina snapped as she got up and huffed off to the kitchen. When she slammed the fridge door, both Dave and I flinched.

She came back and handed the ice pack to him. He rested it on the injury with a sigh of relief and leaned closer to her. Since she didn’t seem to be responding to what he’d said earlier, Dave tried something else.

“We saw Conrad, Gina. He told us you were at the parade when it was attacked.”

There was a long moment’s hesitation and Gina stared at Dave without blinking. Finally she whispered, “Hoodlums. Probably from Portland.”

I wrinkled my brow at her utter disregard of what was happening around her. She had told herself this elaborate fairy tale and now she believed it.

“You’re right that they probably came from Portland,” I said slowly. “But Gina, you had to see that they weren’t just some hoodlums come here to cause trouble. They bit people, right? They ate people. And then those people turned into things just like the other monsters.”

Her gaze moved to me and narrowed. “You and your foolish thoughts, Sarah. Seriously, you’re describing something out of a horror movie. I know the radio and television ramble on… but-but they’ve got it wrong. This is just some roving gang meant to scare us, meant to —”

Dave slammed his palm against the coffee table and both Gina and I jumped. I’ve known my husband a long time and I’ve never seen him do something like that. Nor had I ever heard the take-charge tone he took next.

“Gina, snap the fuck out of it. This isn’t a game, this isn’t a gang and it isn’t some whacked out crime spree you’ve got in your head from watching too much CSI and Murder, She Wrote reruns.”

He made a grab for her hands and she gasped as he took them.

“There has been an outbreak of some kind of infection,” he said slowly, like he was trying to explain this to someone too young or confused to understand. “When an infected person bites another, it turns them into a monster. A zombie, for lack of a better term. You have to accept that.”

“David —” She pulled her hands away and started to clear the plates, but he shoved them away and grabbed her again, yanking her down on the chair.

“God damn it, Gina. Tell me you understand what I’m saying. It could mean the difference between life and death.”

She stared at him and her eyes started to fill with tears. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. For years I’d been telling Dave he needed to stop being the youngest kid in his family and start acting like an adult when he was around them. We fought about that almost every time we visited Gina or his parents.

And now he was doing it. He wasn’t Gina’s baby brother or the golden youngest child of his family at that moment. He was a man taking charge in a bad situation.

Is it wrong that I kind of wanted to send Gina to the store and jump his bones? Yes?

Well, what can you do?

Gina’s face crumpled. “I saw them do things…” she started, her hands beginning to shake. “People I knew, people who have been my neighbors… parents of the kids I teach at the school… David, they changed and started trying to kill people. If Conrad hadn’t grabbed me —”

She broke off and David put his arms around her as she pretty much collapsed, sobbing into his shoulder as he smoothed her hair gently.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

He looked at me over the top of her head. We both knew it might not be okay. In fact, after everything we’d all been through, I think we’d guarantee it in some way. Nothing would be the same, that was for sure.

But Gina needed to hear it. And I think David needed to say it.

She pulled back and he patted her hand gently. “I’ll get you some tea, okay?”

I tensed as he got to his feet and moved toward the kitchen, his walk stiff and slow. Shit, he was going to leave me alone with her. She looked at me as she sank back into the chair and I tried to smile.

“I can imagine it’s been tough,” I said. “Especially since you’ve been here alone.”

She nodded slowly and I could see she was thinking about whatever had happened that she hadn’t yet shared. “The last couple of days have been scary. Conrad came to check on me a few times, though. That was nice.”

I tilted my head as I looked at her. Huh. The way she smiled when she said Conrad’s name was a little… unexpected. I wouldn’t have thought he was her type, really. Martha Stewart and… um… I guess, Jeff Foxworthy? An odd couple, but I smiled at her.

“He was the one who told us you were okay. He’s coming by later to check on us.”

Her eyes brightened a little and her hand fluttered up to smoothe her hair in another telltale reaction. “That will be nice.”

The silence set in. Gina and I had never had very much to talk about, really. We were different and you know we never liked each other. For a long time we just sat, staring at each other.

I fought for something to say to her, but I couldn’t think of a damned thing. Finally, she was the one to break the silence.

“So I guess you guys saw a lot, too? Coming from Seattle, I mean.”

I thought about everything that had happened for the past three days and shook my head. She didn’t look at me. I don’t think she really wanted to hear it all any more than I wanted to say it out loud, so I just whispered, “So much, Gina, it would take me a year to explain it all.”

Before she could respond, David came back into the room with two cups of tea. He set them down in front of each of us and then took a place beside me.

“Okay, so now we’re here and we’ve all acknowledged what’s going on,” he said as he put the ice pack back on his leg and propped it up on the table with a sigh. “So the next step is where to go now.”

Gina had been sipping her tea, but she choked on it as she stared at her brother. “Go? What do you mean where to go now? I’m not going anywhere.”

Dave and I exchanged another look at her resistance.

“This place isn’t safe,” Dave explained with the patience of a saint. “You’re too isolated and with so many people here turned to zombies —”

“I don’t want to leave,” she snapped. “It’s not safe out there. It wasn’t safe before, but now there are zombies or the infected or whatever you want to call them. We just have to wait until the government —”

“According to some people, the government is burning down cities where the infection is located,” I interrupted, searching for something, anything to say that would make her get what was happening. “What’s to say they won’t come here? That they won’t decide to wipe out the entire West Coast if they think it will stop this?”

She blinked at me. “Burning?”

Her brother nodded. “Yes.”

I swallowed. “And Gina, I have family around here, too. My Dad is just down in San Diego and I haven’t been able to talk to him since this started except for one e-mail the first day. Do you want me to abandon him? To just forget about him?”

A tear slid down my cheek and I wiped it away in surprise. When I first brought up the subject, I admit it was to manipulate her into agreeing to go with us, but I realized now that it went deeper than that.

Just like every good little girl, in that moment I wanted my Daddy.

“No,” Gina whispered and for the first time maybe ever her expression was soft as she looked at me. “Of course you can’t just forget about your father. My laptop is here, do you want to look?”

My heart swelled as she motioned to the dining room table where her laptop rested. “Can I?”

“Of course!”

I rushed over and flipped the top up. The machine blinked to life from its sleep mode and I hurriedly entered in the address to access my e-mail from the Internet. As the little hourglass rolled in the corner, I prayed. Prayed I could connect, prayed I’d have some kind of message from my Dad.

Finally, the page loaded. “Fuck,” I muttered as I scrolled down the line of messages. “God damned SPAM, now isn’t the time to increase my penis size.”

“There’s never a wrong time to get a bigger penis,” David said with a quiet chuckle as he came to stand behind me. His hand settled on my shoulder and I appreciated the comfort of his touch more than ever.

“There!” I gasped as I saw the new message from my father. I clicked it and it opened. As always, since my Dad wasn’t a man to write a page when three lines would suffice, it was short and sweet.

City overrun. Heard Chicago might be free of infestation. Be careful, love you.

I stared at the thirteen words. Maybe the last ones I’d ever have from my dad.

“He’s gone,” I murmured. “He had to run.”

Gina got up. “I’m sorry.” She actually sounded like it, too.

David cupped my chin and turned my face toward his. “He’s tough and he’s smart. He was in ’Nam, for God’s sake. He’ll be okay.”

I nodded. I believed it, actually. My Dad was the toughest guy I knew. If anyone would survive, it was him.

“And he says there might be safety in the Midwest,” David said as he turned toward his sister and back to our problem at hand. Her reluctance to even consider leaving might get us all killed. “And that’s all the more reason to think about leaving this place.”

Gina swallowed hard, but then she jerked out a nod.

“Now maybe we don’t have to leave today,” Dave continued, “But we’ve got to face facts that at some point we’re going to have to run. So why don’t we make some dinner and see if we can figure out how to do it with the least chance at zombie infection?”

Gina and I stared at my suddenly take-charge husband and we both nodded at once. It was the beginnings of a plan starting to take shape. And right now a plan was the best thing we had.

Nơi tổng hợp, chia sẻ và giải đáp thắc mắc về Thành ngữ tiếng Anh
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8099/
Trợ giúp dịch thuật (tiếng Anh)
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8020/​

 

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN​

Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 25

Hang out with other couples. It will remind you how lucky you are not to be a zombie.
We had almost finished making dinner when the power went out.

“It must be a fuse,” Gina said brightly as she turned away from the still-glowing gas range top.

“I don’t think so,” Dave said, his voice flat and filled with concern as he looked around the dark room for a flashlight or a candle.

He finally found it and I shivered as the bright globe lit up and filled the dim kitchen with a sickly glow.

My voice cracked as I whispered, “They turned off the lights.”

He nodded as Gina started to light some candles.

“Yeah. Or whoever was supposed to keep them on is…” He didn’t have to finish the sentence, so instead he smiled at Gina. “Hey, I’ll check the fuse box, though. It can’t hurt. Basement, right?”

She nodded, but her frown remained long and drawn and her face worried as she looked at him. Taking the flashlight and a shotgun, David left the kitchen and with a brief smile toward Gina, I went back to tending the chicken breasts cooking on the stove.

I guess I did it for her sake, but also for my own. As many zombie fights as David and I had been in together, him going into the basement made me nervous. His injury slowed him down and in the dark…

Well, I didn’t want to think about it.

And I didn’t have to for long, because Dave hadn’t been gone for five minutes when there was a banging at the front door. I jumped and turned toward Gina.

“That’s probably Conrad,” she said as she pushed off from the counter and moved toward the living room. “I’m glad he made it in time for dinner.”

I grabbed her arm before she could get too far.

“No,” I whispered. “Let me. You stay here.”

I took the handgun that was on the kitchen table and slid toward the front door like I’d always seen people do it on Law and Order and about a billion other cop shows and movies. When I reached the door, I rose up on my tiptoes to look out the peephole and sighed with relief.

“Conrad,” I said on a sigh as I opened the door. “Hi!”

He smiled as he wiped his feet on the mat outside, which was still covered in broken glass from earlier in the day, though he didn’t remark about it. With a sigh, he stepped inside. This close, he looked tired, but after a day of patrolling for zombies, it didn’t surprise me.

“Looks like you found her all right,” he said.

“We did,” I said. “Thank you so much for your help. We’re making some supper before we figure out what to do next. Will you join us? It looks like you’ve earned a good meal and some company.”

He hesitated but then he nodded. “W-Well, I can’t see the harm.” He looked around. “Looks like they finally cut the power, huh?”

I nodded. “Yes, Dave went down to check the breaker, but I think we all know it’s not that. I’ll go down and get him. Gina’s still in the kitchen, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you.”

He hesitated again and I frowned. Maybe he didn’t like Gina as much as she liked him or something. But this was the least of our problems, and one they’d just have to work out on their own, so I ignored it and headed down to the basement.

“Dave,” I called out at the top. “I’m coming down. It’s me so don’t shoot, okay?”

His voice came from the back of the dark area. “Gotcha. I’m in the back. The breaker’s fine, not that it’s a surprise.”

I made my way through the darkness toward the dim glow of his flashlight. He was still staring at the fuses as if he could somehow magically make them flow with electricity again.

“So they did cut the power,” I sighed when I reached his side.

He nodded. “Yeah. But we knew they would eventually. I’m surprised we lasted what… three days?”

I changed the subject because the power situation was too upsetting. “Conrad got here.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, distracted as he handed me the flashlight and closed the circuit breaker box.

“I figured I’d give him a minute alone with Gina.”

He turned toward me with a blank expression. “Why would you do that?”

“She likes him, dummy.” I laughed.

He stared even harder and I swear I could see the question mark appear in a cartoon bubble above his head. “Bullshit.”

“No bullshit. She likes him.” I looked toward the upstairs area. There wasn’t much light, just a dim flicker from the candles and lanterns Gina had lit. “But I’m not sure he feels the same. Still, we should offer to take him with us when we go.”

“Why wouldn’t he like her? And why would she like him?” he asked, his voice still filled with blank disbelief.

I laughed as we started for the stairs. “Because that’s what people do, babe. Even in these circumstances. Conrad is a good shot and he has some skill with cars. He’ll come in handy. Just don’t go all ‘caveman must protect sister’ on him, okay? He’s a good guy. She could do way worse.”

We got to the top of the stairs and in the increased light I saw Dave’s scowl.

“Okay, bad boy,” I teased. “Why don’t you just stay here then and cool down? I’ll break up the lovebirds and then we’ll eat.”

He shrugged. “Fine. But send Conrad in here, huh?”

I looked at him. Actually this protective streak was kind of cute, not that I thought Gina needed it. Still, I nodded as I went into the kitchen.

I stopped almost immediately because what I saw proved exactly what I’d been saying to David and what I’d suspected earlier.

Gina was standing in front of the sink and Conrad was standing before her. He was pressed up against her and from the angle I was at, it looked like they were kissing.

I smothered a smile. Well, Dave was just going to have to get over that. I cleared my throat, but the lovers didn’t break apart. Under normal circumstances I might have walked away and given them a minute, but we had a lot to discuss and I wasn’t sure Dave wouldn’t come charging in if he knew his precious sister was making out with a random guy.

“Hey, Conrad?” I said, this time louder.

He lifted his head from hers and then slowly turned. To my utter horror, his mouth was covered in blood and his red eyes glowed in the candles.

“Oh fuck!” I screamed. “Dave!!”

I could hear him coming, but Conrad was already heading across the kitchen. I couldn’t get my gun out of my waist fast enough, so I grabbed for the closest thing. The frying pan off the stove. Normally it would have burned me, but of course Gina had put a little cozy around the metal handle to keep it from being dangerous. As I picked it up, I briefly wondered if she’d crocheted the thing herself.

But that thought left my mind as Conrad lunged for me. I swung, connecting with the pan right across his temple. Hot grease flowed onto his flesh, burning part of his cheek away. He growled and went for me again. I slammed the heavy, cast iron frying pan a second time, sending him flying backward.

I jumped on top of him, crushing the frying pan down against his skull over and over until there was no chance of him coming back to life because he had no head left.

I stood up, tossing the bloody pan away as I stared at the now nearly headless body.

“Oh no,” Dave whispered from behind me.

I spun around. Dave had stopped and was now standing at the kitchen entrance, staring at Gina. She had slumped to the floor when Conrad released her and blood was spurting merrily from the fresh bite mark on her shoulder.

“Oh no,” I repeated the sentiment as we both went for her at the same time.

Dave fell to the ground and swept her up, holding her in his arms as I got down on my knees before them and checked the wound. Already the flesh where Conrad’s teeth had closed was beginning to gray and ooze blackness.

“Oh shit,” I whispered. “Dave…”

He shook his head at me, denying what my tone implied. Tears filled his eyes. “No. No, Gina. You listen to me, you’re okay.”

She looked up at him. “David?”

He nodded. “Yes, Gin, it’s me. I’ve got you. We’re going to fix you up.”

She shook her head. “Oh honey, no. You know better.”

He turned his gaze on me. “Why did you let him in? Why didn’t you check?”

I would have flinched if his tone wasn’t so pained and not angry. Plus, I was asking myself the same question. Over and over again as I began to remember all the signs Conrad had given that something wasn’t exactly right.

“I’m sorry,” I moaned. “Oh Gina, I’m so sorry.”

She turned toward me and I waited for her to accuse me of doing this on purpose. But instead she whispered, “No, there was no reason to think.… He seemed so fine. He seemed so normal. We were talking and then he had me against the sink. He kissed me. He said, ‘I’m sorry, darlin’. I thought he was apologizing for kissing me but…”

She trailed off with a great shudder. “I can feel it changing inside of me already. I don’t want to change.”

Dave held her tighter. “You won’t. You’ll be okay.”

Gina shook her head. “I won’t, honey. And there’s only one way to end this before I’m gone forever and won’t be able to control myself.”

Dave’s fingers tightened from where he held her and his face went almost as gray as a zombie’s. I could see he was thinking about Amanda and all the other “acquaintances” we’d been forced to slay in the last few days.

But this was different. This wasn’t some unimportant person on the outer fringes of our lives. This was family.

“Gina…” His voice cracked as he whispered her name.

She smiled at him, loving and like a parent rather than a sister. Before that had annoyed me but now I appreciated it a lot more.

Her gaze shifted to me, slightly unfocused and soft. “Sarah… you have to do it.”

I drew back as I realized what she was asking me. “Oh God, Gina —”

She coughed and a bit of black phlegm covered her bottom lip. “You and I never got along, but I believe with all my heart that you love Davy. You would do anything to protect him. And a brother shouldn’t have to kill his sister.”

Tears trickled down my cheeks. She was right, of course. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Dave turned on me. “Sarah!”

“Look at me,” Gina whispered, her voice starting to change. “You give me a hug. And then you go out of the room. You let Sarah take care of you. Let me take care of you this one last time.”

He tensed and I thought he’d argue. But I guess he could see as well as we could that this was over. In a few minutes, Gina would be gone, replaced by a monster he’d never forget if he didn’t walk away now.

“I love you,” he whispered as he hugged her.

Then he got up with a wince of pain, both physical and emotional. I rose with him and squeezed his hand before I let him limp from the room with silent tears streaming down his haggard face.

I looked down at Gina as I withdrew the handgun from my waistband. My hands shook as I lifted it and aimed for her, but I couldn’t bring myself to depress the trigger.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Gina —”

She smiled at me in a way she never had before. With real warmth. With real emotion. And in that moment, I realized why Dave loved her so much. And how much we were both about to lose.

“Honey, you’re doing the right thing,” she choked. “Now you do that and then you go take care of Dave. You two keep running. But run together. Stay together. Find more family and stay together.”

I smiled through my tears. “We will. We will, I promise you.”

I lifted the gun again. “Now close your eyes, Gina. Just close your eyes.”

“I love you, Sarah,” she whispered as her eyes, still so much like David’s even though they were starting to tint red, fluttered shut.

“I love you, too,” I sobbed.

And then I pulled the trigger.

Nơi tổng hợp, chia sẻ và giải đáp thắc mắc về Thành ngữ tiếng Anh
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8099/
Trợ giúp dịch thuật (tiếng Anh)
http://bachngocsach.com/forum/threads/8020/​

 

[Clarkdale]

LIVING WITH THE DEAD
MARRIED WITH ZOMBIE
by JESSE PETERSEN​

Genre: Horror - Zombies​

Spoiler: Chapter 26

Love one another. Zombie infestation or not, it’s the only thing that matters in the end.
The next morning we buried Gina on the hill behind her house under a tree.

It took quite a bit of time to convince David to do it, but we buried Conrad beside her. In the end I just kept reminding him of how good a man Conrad had been when he was alive. And how the thing that attacked his sister wasn’t really the same man who had lived next door to her for years.

We stood in front of the markers we had fashioned from some wood we found in the barn that day, and I have to say even Gina would have approved of the Martha Stewart job I’d done on hers. I’d carved her name so carefully and decorated it with fabric and flowers. Sure, those things would fade, but they were beautiful now and somehow that mattered in the midst of everything ugly around us.

Slowly I put my arm around my husband and looked up at him in the bright sunshine.

“Do you hate me?” I asked.

We hadn’t talked about what I’d done since the night before. Once I’d shot Gina, I’d just come into the living room. He’d been sitting waiting for me, his head in his hands, and we’d cried together for a long time.

Then we’d gone to bed and I’d risen long before him to tidy up the bodies for the burial.

He looked at me and there was shock on his face, as if he hadn’t ever thought of such a thing. I was relieved even before he spoke.

“Of course not. We both know… we all knew she was going to change and it would have been so much worse. I love you for doing it, I don’t think I could have.” He hesitated. “Do you think I should have?”

“No,” I whispered. “That’s too much to ask of any brother. You just remember her the way she was before, when you were kids. That’s the best thing you can do.”

He nodded. “I’m trying so hard to do that, Sarah. I hope I can someday.”

We were quiet for a while, just looking at the graves as a soft late summer breeze made the leaves shiver on the tree above us. We hadn’t seen any zombies this far out of town all day, so it almost felt normal here in that moment.

“You know what she told me?” I said after a while.

He looked at me. “What?”

“That we should stay together.” I smiled at him. “So what do you think, babe? Are we going to stay together?”

He nodded without even an ounce of hesitation. “Hell, yeah we’re going to stay together. Is there even a question?”

“No. Not anymore,” I said and meant it for the first time in a long time.

“So what do we do?” he asked. “I mean, we were coming here for Gina, so what do we do next?”

I smiled. “Well, since we know my Dad is out of San Diego, and that the city is already overrun, there’s no point in heading South.”

David nodded slowly. “Too bad, the weather would have been nice.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, we could have worked on our tans while battling the zombie horde. Oh well.”

“So do we go toward Chicago and hope your Dad was right about there being safety there?” Dave asked.

I thought about it a long time. I couldn’t picture a way that there could be true safety left in the world. But I didn’t want to give up hope completely.

“It may be our only option,” I admitted. “Though I think it’s going to take us a long time to get there.”

“You’re probably right. But I’m in this for the long haul, remember.”

As I squeezed his hand, Dave looked down at Gina’s grave and then blew a soft kiss before we started down the hill toward the house, arm in arm.

“You know, Dr. Kelly once told us that we should find a common goal to work on together,” he said. “That it would bring us closer together and help us remember why we wanted to be together in the first place.”

I nodded. “I think that was one of her better pieces of advice. We definitely did that over the last few days and look how strong we are now.”

“Well, I think we should take it a step further. If it’s going to take us weeks, maybe even months to get where we’re going, what do you think about starting a business with me in the meantime?”

I stared at him. Was he serious? I mean, there were hardly any people left that I could see. I had no idea what he could be talking about.

“What kind of business? Make scented candles? Flip houses? Sell insurance?” I laughed.

“How about exterminators?” he asked as he raised an eyebrow toward me. “We joked about it, but I we could use our skills to help a lot of survivors who are hiding out and waiting for a government that just might not come.”

I thought about it for a minute. He was right in a lot of ways. We were fucking good at this. And it beat slogging at my day job, anyway.

“S and D Zombie Extermination,” he continued. “We take care of your undead issues.”

“Zombiebusters. I like it,” I laughed as we went back into Gina’s house to gather up supplies.

There isn’t much good to say about the zombie infestation. A lot of people died in those first few days and a lot more were still going to die before the whole thing worked itself out. Plus, don’t even get me started on the mad scientists and washed-up rock stars we’d have to deal with eventually.

But I have to say, the zombie plague saved my marriage. And if you follow the rules, have each other’s backs and stick together… it could save yours, too.

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