Ron looked down at him and smiled as their eyes met. “Good boy!” He patted his head, and inspected the wound which appeared mainly superficial. Another shot rang out and glass shattered on the floor. Ron ran back and saw Ann in front of the window with the gun raised up. Most of the glass was gone and nothing stood in front of her.
Ron peered through and saw a motionless body lying on the other side with a wound to the head. “Okay, let’s go. Better give me that for now.” He lowered her arm and slowly took the gun. He holstered it, grabbed her hand, and they ran back to the bags of gear on the floor. “One second.” Ron went into the kitchen and knelt over the body to get his knife. Grunting as he pulled, the knife slid out, and he wiped it off and sheathed it. Then he pulled his hidden magazine from the drawer and pistol from under the sink. He added it to the bag, and they moved everything to the front door. Ron peaked outside and did not see any more walking through the yard. “Okay, run to the car, hurry!”
They scurried across the yard, and Ron got the covers off the car and opened the trunk. They tossed the bags inside and left them how they landed, and Ron kept his holstered sidearm and assault rifle. He closed the trunk and saw another lumbering figure approaching from the backyard. “Get in the car with Cassius.”
Just following commands, she ran around to the rear passenger’s side door, put Cassius in the back, and then jumped in the front.
Ron covered the distance to the car door in two long strides and opened it. Resting the rifle on top, he took aim, fired one round, and started into the car without observing his handiwork. The undead fiend dropped to the ground as a chunk of its head spat out the back. Once inside, Ron quickly turned the ignition and smiled as the engine started purring, slammed the gear into reverse, and floored the gas pedal.
“Where are we going?” Ann looked around with more clarity in her eyes and took hold of the handle over her window at the same time.
“I figure we drive east, should be fewer people deeper in the mountains.” He took a corner without slowing down and grunted as the g-forces pulled his body in the opposite direction.
“That takes us through town.”
“Yeah, but it’s our best option.”
“Can we stop at my house to get some things?”
“Sorry, it’s not safe.” He grunted again as he took another corner at high speed and skidded around it leaving tire marks on the street. The turn threw Cassius into the door, and he lied down abruptly to avoid a repeat.
Ann looked over at Ron with one eyebrow cocked higher than the other. “Yeah, safety first, right?” Her head pushed back on the seat as Ron floored the gas again and sped down a straightaway.
They drove through a sparsely forested area, and then came out to an intersection joining a larger road. Ron stopped the car and looked left at a strip mall on top of the next hill. He squinted and craned his neck as he stared. “You see some people up there by those stores?”
Ann peered through the windshield also squinting. “Yeah, maybe, it’s a long way off. I’m not sure.”
He looked over at Ann. “Me neither, well that’s east. You ready?”
Ann exhaled and puffed out her cheeks. “I guess so.”
Before Ron could push the accelerator, the car jolted as something crashed into the rear driver’s side window. He turned his head, just as Cassius started snarling and barking, and saw a very large male, probably a body builder in life, with spiky blonde hair. It no longer possessed its living speed or full strength, but its mass dented the car as it slammed into the side again. Behind that one, Ron could see a couple more coming out of some high grass. “Can’t win ‘em all.” He looked ahead and floored the gas pedal. The tires spun and peeled out, leaving the undead clutching at white smoke as they looked around.
As the car came up to the strip mall they looked over and saw many more figures wandering around through the open-air hallways. They almost could have passed for shoppers, except for their aimless walking into each other and through the parking lot. On the grass near the road several of them hovered over an object. The car drew closer, and they saw frenzied hands ripping away inside the hollow carcass of a woman. The creatures brought up chunks of meat and tissue and ripped at them violently.
“Is that…? That looks like…a person.” Ann looked over at Ron, and her forehead wrinkled up.
Ron let his eyes drift over, but carefully kept the road in his field of vision. “It is. They’re eating her. My God. That’s why they keep attacking us. They’re hungry. The one in the house tried to bite me. I thought it was fighting.”
“Jesus.” Ann squeezed her mouth with her hand until the knuckles went white. As they passed by, she saw the woman’s head was turned toward her and could make out her face. The eyes stuck wide open, devoid of life, and blood covered her neck where the fingers had ripped in. Her head rocked back and forth as the foul creatures tore at her insides. “Oh my God, I know her. That’s Kelly Winston. Oh no, we went to high school together.”
“Look away, Ann. Just look away. We can’t help her now. Don’t look at it.” Ron rested a hand on her shoulder.
But she could not look away. With her hand still covering her mouth, she continued staring at the slaughter. “What’s happening, Ron? Are we in hell?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” He accelerated and left the area as fast as possible.
Several of the undead looked up when the engine revved and started walking toward the road, but had already missed their quarry. As the car sped away they staggered down the road after it.
For the next mile the road rolled over a couple hills and around a sharp bend. The stretch had very few businesses, and only a few houses dotted the hills. They mounted the last hill in town and looked down into the valley below. Downtown sat below them, and it was their way out. It also contained another residential section, before reaching an isolated road going east.
In this older part of town, the roads, buildings, houses, and sidewalks all sat scrunched closer together, relics of a time before large automobiles and mass transit. They entered the area slowly as their eyes washed over everything.
Ann stared at front yards and driveways. “It looks quiet.”
“Yeah, strange, more people live here than in my neighborhood. This place should be crawlin’ with ‘em.”
“What do you wanna do?”
“Our road’s just up ahead. Let’s get outta here.”
“Good idea.” Looking around Ann saw a kid’s tricycle overturned on the sidewalk, and farther down a hose laid strewn out in a yard. A few houses after that a mailbox sat open. “What do you think happened here? It looks as if life just stopped.”
“It might’ve. People probably came outside after the strike and looked around. At first they probably rejoiced, since there was no wind or earthquake. Then whatever happened, came, and now…I wonder if we’re the only people left alive.”
“Surely not.”
Ron kept scanning the houses they drove past, then slammed on the brakes, and reversed the car to look down a side street they had just passed.
“What?” Ann’s nose wrinkled as she gazed out the window.
“Down there, look.” Ron pointed toward the end of the small street where a large crowd gathered around a cozy, brick building with high steps leading to a set of double doors. A tall steeple, painted white, pierced the sky above their heads. “I’ll bet you some people are trapped in that church. It’s exactly the same thing they did at my house. Every damn cannibalizing one of ‘em, from miles around, converges on one spot wherever people are hidin’.”
“What do you wanna do?”
“We have to help ‘em.”
“How can we fight all those things? There’re too many!”
“We have to do somethin’. What good are all these weapons I have if I only use them to save us?”
“How do you know any people are even in there? Come on, Ron. Look, our road is right there. We’re almost free!” Ann’s outstretched arm
touched the windshield pointing to where their road disappeared under a canopy of trees.
Ron looked ahead at the road, and then he shifted his weight in the seat to face Ann and looked her dead in the eyes. “It takes more than two people to live a real life, Ann.” He pointed over his shoulder at the church. “Those things aren’t having a convention. There’re people holding up in there, scared to death, and praying for their lives just like we were. We have to help them. I couldn’t live with myself if I drove away after what we just witnessed.”
“There must be more than a hundred of ‘em, Ron. What can we do against so many?”
Ron gave her a little wink without smiling. “Don’t worry, I have an idea.”
Chapter Seventeen
After a recovery, marred by depression, that went on longer than anticipated, Jackson and Kathleen cleared out of their basement and carried what they needed upstairs.
With machete in hand Jackson cleared every room and checked every closet.
Kathleen looked at the front door and frowned to see it still closed and locked. “Jackson? The front door’s shut. How in the hell’d they all get in before?” She heard a thump and looked around the corner and saw Jackson at the back door lifting a broken screen.
Jackson stuck his head out the back and darted his eyes over the yard, and snapped his head back inside. “I guess this door wasn’t much of a problem for ‘em. Jesus, it’s in pieces.”
Kathleen examined the door and looked over at him. “How’d they know we were in here, this exact house?”
Jackson ran a hand through his hair. “Noise and smell probably, then they go bat shit crazy. Let’s get movin’. Time to get the hell outta here.”
Jackson stepped outside pulling his coat tighter around his chest. He shivered and zipped up the front in one fast motion and rubbed his arms. He blew hot air into his hands and rubbed them together as he peered out over the lawn and down the road to see if it looked safe to go any further. For the time being he did not see any staggering corpses. With gun in hand, he slowly proceeded out to the edge of their front porch. He looked up and down the street at the rows of houses with small front yards and short driveways tucked to the side with many cars still parked.
He kept his eyes on the houses as Kathleen came through the front door. “I don’t see anything, do you?”
She stepped out and slipped on her coat as well then looked down the row of houses to her left. “No, it’s so quiet. I mean, it’s always quiet, but this is so eerie.”
Jackson picked up a bag and started down the steps. “Okay, let’s load the car.”
Kathleen stayed on the porch looking right and left and chewed on a fingernail. “Hey, Jackson?”
He had the trunk open and lifted his head from the inside. “Yeah.”
“Our car’s such a piece of crap. Why don’t we get another one?”
“Huh?”
She threw her thumb back at the house. “Well, they’re not using ‘em.”
Jackson turned around and looked at the cars. “True, I didn’t really think about it. Which one you think?”
“Do you know how to hot-wire a car?”
Jackson shook his head and smiled. “I seem to have made it to adulthood without acquiring that skill. Maybe we can find someone’s keys in a house.”
“Let’s check down there.” Kathleen pointed to the biggest house on the street. A black Jeep with large tires sat parked in front. “That has plenty of trunk space, and it can handle some rough driving if necessary.”
Jackson looked back up at Kathleen. “I should probably go alone. Stay in the basement while I look for the keys. If I find ‘em, I’ll drive back here and get you. Okay?”
“You want me to go back in there, with the bodies?”
“It’s hardly the time to worry about that. Besides, the temperature has dropped since I came out last. What are you gonna do, wait outside while I look for the keys and freeze to death? And what if more of those things come?”
“This coat’s warm enough for me to stay here. I can keep a lookout for ya’. If they come, I’ll hide.”
Jackson exhaled as he looked at her and gritted his teeth, and the steam rising up in front of his face mirrored his opinion of her recklessness. He raised his finger and almost spoke, but balled it into a fist instead as he turned around and looked at the yard.
Kathleen stood still watching him and waiting.
Finally, Jackson exhaled and turned back toward her. “All right, I’ll be back before you know it, and we’ll get the hell outta here. DO NOT LEAVE THIS PORCH!”
“Okay, hurry.” She nodded and smiled.
He yanked the magazine out of his AK and inspected it, then slammed it back in the housing and ran off across the street through a few yards, until he reached the Jeep. He tested the doors first, but they were locked. He raised the AK’s muzzle up to the lock but then slowly lowered the gun and shook his head. Too loud. He pursed his lips and tried the front door, but it was locked; so he ran around the house to the backdoor which had no windows and was also locked. He continued around and found a reading room built mainly out of glass. He raised the butt of his rifle to head level and braced his legs and paused. Noise, the damn noise! Instead, he looked left and saw a patio with a couple deckchairs, so he ran over and grabbed a cushion off one. He placed it over a long pane of glass that came waist high and drove the butt of the gun into it like a hammer. Then used the gun’s muzzle to clear out some loose glass and managed to squeeze inside. Still noisy, dammit.
First, he checked the obvious place, a loose change bowl on a stand by the front door. He dumped it out on the stand and spread the contents out with his palm. Loose change scattered over the surface and bounced off the floor. Jackson pushed it all around and cursed. He ran to the kitchen and opened some cabinets but found nothing. He noticed that the dining room table had moldy plates of food on it, and a couple pots with spoons in them still sat on the stove. He ran out of the kitchen and made his way up to the master bedroom.
This family had recently moved into the neighborhood, and they had not had the chance to get acquainted. He passed by a family photo and stopped to look. He recognized the parents but not the two children. He remembered shooting the mother and father in his basement. An image of their partially decayed faces coming toward him before getting shot in the head flashed in his mind. He put the photo down and backed away and forced his eyes away and looked around the room. “There’s got to be somethin’ here.”
Pulling out the drawers, he emptied all the clothes, papers, and little knickknacks onto the floor, still no keys. “Damn it!” He kicked some clothes across the room and pinched his eyebrows as he thought. He ran back downstairs for another look. He proceeded into a hallway containing a few more doors. One of them, a walk-in closet full of miscellaneous items, a washer and a dryer, another a bathroom, and the last one would not open. He jiggled the handle, but it did not budge. Finally, he pursed up his lips and gave it a swift kick. It flew open and rattled loudly as it smacked the wall on the other side. He looked down a short flight of steps and saw total darkness. The natural light flowing through the house pierced the blackness for the first five feet, and then stopped. As he stood their peering into the black void he sniffed and turned his head away as the odor of human urine drifted into his nostrils. It had taken on more of the smell of ammonia than urine but was still very distinct.
Jackson ran back to the laundry closet and found a flashlight stuck in a bracket on the wall. He switched it on and it tested the light on his hand and washed the hallway with incandescent light. He walked back to the doorway and shined the light into the basement. He could only see the floor, carpeted in blue, and a child’s red, toy truck. He backed out and started to go but stopped himself and leaned on the doorway. “You can do this, Jackson. The keys must be down there. Get it over with.”
His arm felt tired from holding the AK with one hand, so he took off his belt and used it to strap the flashlight onto the barrel. He
raised the gun back up and waved it around while looking down the sight. The flashlight stayed firmly in place and lit up the area the gun pointed at nicely.
Satisfied, Jackson slowly stepped into the basement and swung the light through the room. Close to the entrance he saw a TV, stereo, and game console, with controllers and different cords strewn all over the floor at the base of an entertainment center. He stepped farther in and saw a reclining chair and a couch with dolls, action figures, toy trucks, and tiny race cars cluttering the floor. He pointed the light to the other end of the room where a computer sat on a desk next to some filing cabinets by the wall. He walked forward raking the room with the light’s beam. Apart from the clutter and urine smell, the room looked clean and without any dust or stains on the floor, but nothing stirred as he shined the light around in all the corners. About halfway through the room he saw the source of the urine smell, a tiny bathroom on the right. This gave him an important piece of information. He knew that the water had turned off two days prior, so somebody had used the bathroom since then. Also, the urine in there would need at least that long to go rancid and fill up the entire room with its stench.
He proceeded to the office portion of the room, and saw that the desk only had a computer and a couple loose papers on top. He opened the first drawer and searched around. It contained numerous little extras like pens, pencils, sticky notes, paper clips, memory sticks, and a couple old cell phone adapters. Finally, his finger touched a little ring, which he hooked and dragged out of the clutter. He sighed and smiled when he saw several sets of spare keys on it, and the longest one had “Jeep” emblazoned on the side. Jackson puffed out his cheeks and blew a large breath out as he stuffed the keys into his pocket and turned to leave.
He took one step and stopped. Something about the room felt wrong, but he couldn't place it, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Ever since he opened the door, he sensed something else lurked in the shadows, but his sweep with the flashlight had put him at ease a little bit. He could not say for sure if his imagination had gotten the better of him, or not.
The Inroad Chronicles (Book 1): Legion Seed Page 19