“Hey Mister, do you know what’s going on?” I ask, slowing to a stop.
“Hi—hi baby. You pretty,” he says, a smile broadening across his shiny, red face.
Oh great, he's some midlife perv. With how this day's been going, how can this be a surprise? I should have known better than to stop from when I first saw that forty.
“Never mind,” I say with a sigh.
“No, no, don’t go. My name Edgar. It’s okay, really,” he says with one of the thickest accents I’ve heard in a while. He takes a step back, raising his empty hand and forty in submission.
I should go. This guy is going to be nothing but trouble for me. I know it.
“Hi Edgar. Have you seen any of the sick people?” I ask despite my reservations.
"Oh yes, people really sick. Eating other people! Not safe out here. You give me a ride home?" he says coming closer.
"No, I can't," I say shaking my head.
"Yes, you come to my home. Safe in my home," he says grabbing the dirt bike’s handlebars.
My heart is thumping so hard that I'm nearly frozen in place. I don't know what to do. I grab his hand and try to peel it off the handlebars, but his grip it too tight. Furrowing my brow and gritting my teeth, I try once again. His hand seems like it's cemented to the metal as his smile gets bigger and bigger.
Is this really happening? After everything that happened to my family. After watching my neighbors devour one another like savage lunatics. This creep-a-zoid is seriously going to make me go to his safe home. With all that I’ve seen today, who knows what demented plans he has in store for me. Even if I could somehow call the cops on him, no one would come. Edgar probably knows that already. I feel my heart racing into overdrive and my mouth feels parched from my rapid breathing. This is like, the worst day of my life. Way worse than that time Dad mopped the floor with my face after he caught me trying to run away. When this guy is done with me, I'll probably be buzzard food. I need to find someone who can help me, someone who’s a good person, not a total weirdo.
"Let go," I yell slapping his hand.
"No, you be safe in my home pretty girl," he says again.
I hear familiar roars that could only belong to the sick. Two men with the sickness come stumbling out of a backyard from the house across the street. They must have heard me yelling at Edgar. Growling and flashing their rotting teeth, their eyes meet mine. Both men sprint from the side gate on the house, never taking their evil stares off of me.
This is not happening. There's no way that I'm going to let this creep take me to his safe home. And I won’t let these maniacs darting toward us, take me out, either. I reach for the shotgun on my back and slam the butt of the gun onto Edgar's hand. He recoils, letting out a painful squeal, and dropping the forty. The beer bottle shatters upon impact with the asphalt. I roll on the throttle and peel out—away from that creep.
"Wait! Please help!" Edgar calls out.
I take one last look back, and see the two men chasing Edgar. I turn my head forward, looking out ahead, and feeling torn. I don't want that jerk to be killed by the sickened ones, but who knows what that he would have done to me in his safe home. With a heavy heart, I continue up the road, without looking back again.
DOWNTOWN
After ditching the bad part of town, the buildings around here would be truly spectacular, if not for all the people with the sickness racing around. The area is thick with people in this downtown neighborhood. However, I’m seeing fewer and fewer normal ones at every turn. Those that I do see—are running from the ones with the sickness. Broken-down cars and property litter the road. Opened laptop cases with pages of typed documents are carried in the breeze. Purses and duffle bags have been left behind by those who likely ran for their lives. Passing a police car, I see nobody inside. The driver side door is open, but I see no sign of the cop that it belongs to. I press on, traveling the obstacle filled streets. The further I go the more my heart feels pained at the horror by the entirety of it all.
As I pass an empty-looking ambulance with its back doors open, a normal man comes out from behind it. Seeing a regular person feels so incredibly relieving. My relief feels short-lived as the look on his face turns to a vengeful one and he begins running toward me. I speed up—only because I feel scared.
“Give me that bike,” the man yells.
He runs full speed toward the bike, his hands outstretched with a frightening look on his face. He isn’t sick, but looks unbelievably desperate. Increasing my speed even more, I leave that crazy guy in my tracks.
I swerve and weave between traffic trying to make my way to the city’s edge. Wondering where all the police are, I find myself questioning if they are all dead. And if the sickness is everywhere, where am I going to go?
“Please! Don’t take my car!” A woman in a white lab coat squeals at a man who peeled out in a small, compact car. On the side of the car door is a triangle symbol and the name, Strickland Laboratories.
I slow near the woman. She is carrying a large, black backpack with the same triangle symbol on it. Her chin-length golden hair framed her soft features, making her look almost like an angel.
“Do you need help?” I ask pulling to a stop near the woman.
“Yes, he stole my car. I have something really important that needs to be delivered right away,” she says breathlessly.
“What is it?” I ask. I don’t want to offer her a ride if it’s a bomb or something.
“I’m a laboratory technician from The Strickland Lab. The scientist that I work for…died yesterday. He was working on something very important. I was supposed to drop off the medicine in my pack yesterday. It could help a lot of people.” she pauses shaking her head. “I really messed up.”
“I’ll get you where you need to go. Don’t worry,” I say.
I think that helping this lady might change my luck. What else am I going to do? Besides, I’d rather my last act on earth—before the sickness kills me—be a kind one. Getting this lady where ever she needs to go, to help people with her medicine would be a good—last thing to do. When I die, I’d rather my last memory not be the one of me killing Ms. Andrews.
“You don’t understand, this is all my fault,” she says looking me straight in the eyes.
“What is all your fault?” I ask, not sure what she’s talking about. She can’t be talking about all this chaos in Port Steward.
“Never mind,” she says pulling on the backpack and sliding onto the back of the bike. “I need to get this to Angora Laboratories. It’s the big building, near the edge of town. I really appreciate the lift. I’m Haley, by the way.”
“Hang on Haley. I’m Monte.”
I roll on the throttle and maneuver the bike through the downtown area, toward the great laboratory. We travel several blocks with the streets looking very much the same—like everyone raced out of town without a second look.
The towering building looks to be about a mile or so away, when my arms begin to feel as if they aren’t working at full capacity. Every part of my body aches in agony. I know it’s the sickness. I feel as though I’m on the verge of passing out, when I decide to pull over in a clearing.
“What’s going on? We’re not far,” Haley says.
“You have to go alone,” I strain, getting off the bike. “I’m bit.”
I yank the shotgun off my shoulder and drop it on the ground, as I stumble over to the curb. Taking a seat on the sidewalk, I lay back on the concrete, ready to surrender to my fate.
Haley shuts off the bike and comes over, “Where were you bitten and when?”
“Like an hour ago,” I pull up my sleeve, revealing the wound.
Haley reaches in her backpack and pulls on a pair of latex gloves. They smell like grapes. Untying the rag from my wrist, Haley looks at it carefully. She reaches into the backpack and pulls out a small metal case about the size of a telephone receiver. Opening the container she pulls out a syringe filled with an orange substance. I want to protest, and ask a
bout the shot, but then I think--why? I can feel that I’m not far from death. Maybe this woman is just going to make it as peaceful as possible, why should I protest her taking my pain from me. My entire body hurts so much. The pain is everywhere for me, like my whole body is filled with poison.
Haley pierces my flesh inside the wound with the needle and injects the fluid. I’m surprised to find that I can’t even feel the shot.
“They’re coming,” Haley says breathlessly. “Get up. Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” I say, feeling weaker than ever. There is no way I can drive that dirt bike again.
“Get up!” Haley yells grabbing my hands and dragging me across the pavement toward a white SUV. “At least get in here, so they won’t get you!”
I use the last ounces of energy and life force I have to stand and climb into the backseat of the empty SUV and hide behind the tinted windows.
I look out the back window as my eyelids become heavier and heavier. Haley mounts the bike with her backpack on, and tries to start the bike, but has no luck. She tries kick starting the bike twice more, before she is overrun by a group of four with the sickness. As Haley disappears beneath the sickened ones, I find that my time has come and can remain awake no longer.
WAKE UP
My eyes lethargically creep open—it’s tough breathe. I am so hot. The blistering temperature leaves me feeling breathless, as if the oxygen has been sucked out of the world. I tug at my clothes and see I have on a lightweight hoodie and jeans. I’m trying to focus and remember how I got here.
Examining my surroundings, I recognize that I’m in a car—no an SUV. An expensive SUV. Where am I? Leather seats, electric windows, GPS system, this SUV is awesome, but stifling. I sit up, a little too quickly as a brief surge of dizziness sweeps over me. Looking out the windows, I’m thrust back into reality. Dozens of sick people shuffle along the street and sidewalks. They are everywhere. Some of them are roaming around, while others run after what few normal people remain in the street.
Cars are backed up in a tight gridlock and garbage blankets the ground. I look out the back window, remembering Haley. I don’t see her, but I see her backpack on the ground a few feet from the dirt bike. I try to fight back the tears, but it’s a futile effort, as my bottom lip quivers uncontrollably.
I tried to do something righteous, before the sickness got the best of me, but it was a waste. It’s like I’m cursed. Haley was the only civilized person that I’ve met today. She was going to help people. She helped me. And she died for it.
I look down at my wrist and pull back my sleeve. The fiery pain is gone, leaving my wrist and arm feeling nearly painless. Maybe Haley gave me a pain killer. I feel surprised when I peek at the bite. It’s scabbed over and the redness surrounding the wound has all but gone away. Come to think of it, my whole body feels…better. I have that sensation, like I’ve had a fever that has just been broken, like I’m waking from a cloud of confusion and soreness.
Maybe it was one of those anti…what are those medicines that fight an infection called again? Either way, I’m feeling so much healthier. In checking out the SUV, I find it picked over, and there aren’t any keys in the ignition. Climbing into the back, I sit on a knee and eye the dirt bike through the back window. I wonder if I should chance it. There are so many with the sickness out there, that I won’t have time to keep trying to kick start it if it gives me trouble.
Suddenly a bloody hand slaps against the back window, I flinch backward, drawing in a sharp gasp. The hand slowly slides down the window, leaving behind a bloody reminder of its presence. As I cautiously lean forward, I look downward for the body that owns the hand. A pale, chapped face pops up to eye level with me. It’s Haley. Her once sun kissed skin is now drained of all color, her veins have all rose to the surface of her skin and look extraordinarily dark, and the whites of her eyes are now black—just like all the others. She curls back her lips in a snarl, revealing blackened gums as she presses her face to the back window. Backing away from the window, I climb back over the seat and duck down. As fear pulses through me, the only thing I can think to do, is hide and hope that she didn’t see me through the tinted back window.
IN HIDING
From my hiding place, on the backseat floorboard of the SUV, I can hear Haley roaring. She emits a merciless sounding call, beckoning the other sickened in the area. I gently poke my head up, looking in her direction. As though she can see me through the tinted window, Haley slams her fist into the glass. She strikes it again.
My body remains motionless as I watch her repeatedly pound the glass. About seven or eight others have now joined Haley, surrounding the back end of the vehicle. The lady I met is gone and this…creature, in her place, is a monster. She tilts her head back snarling and wailing, while raining down a barrage of hammer-fists to the glass.
The strength of this relatively small woman is impossible. After another powerful blow, the glass begins to crackle. She proceeds with more blows as the glass collapses inward. Small chunks, the size of half-dollars fall onto the back carpeting of the SUV. About a half dozen more people with the sickness are making their way over to Haley, as if she’s discovered hidden treasure. The group of almost fifteen now, begins thrusting their fists at the rear, side windows and clawing at the broken out crater caused by Haley. A basketball sized hole has now been formed in the back window. Haley whips her head in the opening and starts to climb in. The others gather tightly around her at the rear of the vehicle pulling at the fractured glass.
I am so thankful for these tinted windows. I don’t think that the rest of the crowd can see me through the glass. It seems like they are following Haley’s lead, gathering toward the back of the vehicle.
Haley snakes in head first. Then her hands and arms slide through the opening. The hole in the glass is not quite large enough for her arms to fit through, but she forces them, causing the window shards to rip open the skin on her upper arms. Her dark blood explodes out of her torn flesh and streams from the splintered, broken window. It flows down her arms onto the floor of the SUV, like a faucet of blood.
Realizing that I have to move—to do something if I want to survive this, I climb over the center console into the front seat. Right now, I really regret ending my friendship with Denny Crocket last year. I could have picked up some of his bad habits and learned how to hot wire this SUV. But he did get busted by the cops—so never mind. The dirt bike is my only option. I have to try to get to it. I’m scared though. That’s how they got Haley and there
is no way I can out run them if the bike won’t start. I could try for the shotgun I dropped in the street, but from here, I can’t see it. Plus, there aren’t enough shells in it to taken down all these people with the sickness. Yup, the bike is the only way.
I quietly open the driver door and inch it open, while keeping my eyes on the ever growing crater in the window. I leap from the seat, sprinting around the front of the vehicle and darting toward the dirt bike. I steal a glimpse back at the SUV.
Those morons are still trying to get in through the window. Lifting the bike, I crank the kick starter, channeling all my fear into my foot’s thrust. It started! As I roll on the throttle, a woman with the sickness runs full speed toward me. I feel the woman’s fingernails tug on my hoodie. Her grasp is loose and slips off the fabric as the bike whisks me away.
I weave through broken down and stalled traffic, noticing that nearly every soul within eyeshot has the sickness. Am I the only one left? For how far—just in my town or state—or the whole world? Purses and backpacks are discarded in the street, even a diaper bag sits alone, left behind in the gutter as receipts and papers drift in the warm summer breeze. The people with the sickness move about the streets cluttered with empty cars like cockroaches raiding a kitchen cabinet.
I can see the highway that leads out of town from here, but it looks like it’s blocked with concrete road barriers—like the ones used for highway roadwork. The only way in or out of town by land is on the
highway. This coastal town is shaped like a witch’s boot and up toward the top of the boot, is a bottleneck that is scarcely wide enough for the highway, with the ocean on either side. I know I can get to the roadblock on this dirt bike, but why aren’t there lines of people trying to leave? As I get closer, I can see that there are people moving around behind the road block. Oh thank God, real—regular people!
I’m almost there, three blocks to go. I speed up and hear a long beep from a loud speaker.
“Turn around and return to your home,” the voice commands.
That’s not going to happen. Only one block to go. With a steady speed, I head toward roadblock. It only takes seconds for me to reach the barricade and slide the dirt bike to a stop.
I see about ten men behind roadblock that are dressed in camo, must be some branch of the Armed Forces. As I look to these men, they all have their weapons lifted and aimed at me.
HANDS UP
The military forces have their weapons drawn at me. I’m not sure if they’ll give me a chance or shoot me dead right here. Out of the corner of my eye, I see bodies piled up into a mound, fifty yards down the street. I only hope those bodies had the sickness when they were alive and were not normal people trying to leave.
Whatever it was that Haley gave me, it cured me. I don’t have the sickness. Maybe that’s how she was going to help lots of people—with the cure for the sickness. She gave me the medicine in time to stop it. But I think it will be better not to mention that to these guys, they may not believe me. I can hardly believe it myself.
“Can you help me, please?” I call out, laying the dirt bike down and raising my hands into the air.
The men look back and forth between one another, exchanging looks and head nods.
Darlings of Decay Page 77