He felt for the ladder with his feet and pressed both boots down for a solid hold. A slow, long breath pushed through his lips as he started his descent. The climb went slow and steady. The sounds echoing up the shaft were a bizarre mix of moaning from the dead, faint distant screams, and a humming tune from Alicen. It felt like an eternity before the light from the lower levels was strong enough to reach the climbers. Chris heard Jafar before he could see him.
“Almost there.”
His wide-shouldered silhouette was highlighted by the edge of an open elevator door. The light illuminated the undead a few floors below, trapped at the bottom of the elevator shaft for an eternity. Jafar had hold of one side of the ladder and Michael had the other. They pulled as Chris climbed and soon everyone gathered at the edge of the elevator, peering out at an empty ticketing floor. The screams were louder and the gunshots closer. The moaning of the dead was accented by the growls of the infected. The truth of what pulled the dead away from the elevators was clear before Tom tried to explain it.
“They’re drawing them in.”
Chris started toward the escalators. “Keep quiet and don’t stop moving. We have to get to the bus.”
The sounds of chaos grew with every step. The shrieks were bloodcurdling. The echo of the dead rose to a fleshy feast, making it impossible to block out the fate of the people trying to escape. Chris reached the top of the escalators before the first signs of trouble came into view.
The endless sea of undead had pushed their way out onto the gaming floor, and there was no sign of the infected. The problem stemmed from the distance between the escalators and the main doors. The entire length of the front hall was open on both sides and offered a clear view. The moment Chris and the others set foot on the first floor, they would be exposed.
“We can wait it out.”
Sarah’s voice was low but still too loud for comfort. Chris could hear the subtle hint of anxiety in her tone. He got down on his knees and took a look around at the group. The panic showed through on all of them. The sounds of the dead and infected in a feeding frenzy was more than any of them could bear.
“Load up as much as you can,” Chris said, deciding not to address Sarah’s suggestion directly. “We only have one shot at this and there’s no turning back.” He made sure everyone had at least one gun. He loaded a pistol for Jake. “No matter what,” he went from one pair of eyes to the next, “don’t stop moving.”
“We can wait,” Sarah said again. She nearly dropped her gun as she spoke. Michael had to grab hold of her hands to keep her from shaking.
“We’re not going to do that,” Chris said. He got up to his feet when he was ready. “Let’s go.”
He was heading down the escalator before anyone could object. As far as Chris was concerned, nothing was more important than reaching the bus. He was convinced that staying in the building was suicide. They couldn’t control the other people, and if Tom was correct, the infected would soon work their way up to the higher floors.
Chris felt something pull on his belt. A look over his shoulder revealed Jenn grabbing a firm hold of him. Alicen was holding onto her with Jake following his sister. Tom was behind the kids with Jafar at his side. Chris hit the first floor moving as fast as his train of followers would let him. He didn’t bother to look at the opening onto the gaming floor, but the erupting sounds told him all he needed to know. He focused on a sizable hole in the long row of glass entrance doors.
He felt Jenn tugging on him before he heard Sarah’s yell. The train of people came to a grinding stop. Chris followed Jenn’s gaze back to the escalators. Michael was yanking on his mother as she tried to get back up to the second floor. A terrified yelp from Alicen forced Chris to look at what was coming.
The gaming floor was alive with movement. Rotted figures pushed toward the far wall as dozens of infected pressed in on the dead trying to get into the stairwell. A line of undead had turned from the backside of the room, now focused squarely on the commotion in the main hall. A number of twitching infected took notice and began the sprint for fresh prey.
In that moment, Chris made a choice. He turned toward the doors and ran, pulling Jenn with him. His eyes told him they couldn’t reach the entrance before the infected caught up with them, and even worse, the figures moving around outside showed it wouldn’t matter. Jafar fired the first shot from somewhere behind him. An infected man at the top of the gaming stairs spun as the round plunged into his shoulder and washed the front doors with blood.
“Help us.”
Chris heard Michael’s plea but didn’t stop until he reached the entryway. He took aim as the first of the infected pushed up the wide stairs off the gaming floor. Jafar was close but still some distance behind. The group fired several rounds into the first wave of bloodlust.
A crimson spray erupted along the row of the infected like the once proud fountains that lined the main Vegas strip. Bodies fell, one after another, as more pushed in behind them. Jenn grabbed hold of the kids and rushed in behind Chris. Tom frantically searched for a sign of refuge that wasn’t there.
“Go,” Chris said between trigger pulls. “Get to the bus.”
No one moved. It wasn’t until Jafar caught up that Chris had a moment to get his bearings. Jenn’s eyes were on the mass of infected forming out in the street beyond the doors. Jake had his arms draped over Alicen, and the little girl’s eyes were locked on the escalators.
Michael fired at anything that moved. He was stuck on the stairs, his mother at the top, staring helplessly down at him. A herd of infected pushed in from the bottom, some sliding down the sides of the equipment as they tried to get their hands on him. Sarah was screaming hysterically, but nothing could be heard above the fray. The dead packed in behind the infected, pressing into one another.
Michael pulled the trigger one last time, and the gun failed to fire. They were on him in seconds, devouring him completely as they went. The rest of the pack stepped over their brethren, pushing up the stairs after Sarah. She continued her screams but never moved. The first step backwards was her last. A woman grabbed her head and clawed at her eyes. Sarah fell as the crowd pressed down on top of her.
Chris spun around and forced Jenn to move. She pushed herself between two stacked tables and out through one of the broken doors. Tom went after her, pushing the kids as he did. Jafar continued firing, dropping guns as they ran out of ammo. Chris stepped through the door and took a quick lay of the land.
Some of Isabel’s people had made it outside from another exit on the ground floor. Swells of infected gathered at the west end of the building. A series of gunfire encouraged the undead to follow. The streets were alive with movement. Jenn blew a man’s head off as he leapt off the top of a burnt out vehicle. Alicen screamed as two more twitching figures quickly took his place.
Jafar crawled out the escape route, and Chris headed for the bus. A booming scream froze Chris in place. He looked back in time to see Jafar bash in the head of an infected female which had latched to his leg. Her body was stuck between the two halves of the broken doors. A third strike split her skull, but the blood soaked gash in Jafar’s pants told of the damage already done. Jafar’s defiant stare locked onto Chris.
“Run.”
Chris didn’t argue. He urged Jenn to keep going and herded Tom and the kids behind her. He took down one of the advancing infected, and a shot from Jafar nearly ripped a second man in half. Chris held his ground and slung an arm around Jafar. Jenn and the others were out in the street by the time the two men set off again. The infected were on the move, encouraged by the sight of prey out in the open.
Chris and Jafar reached the street as an advancing line of infected closed in on them. Disfigured and rotting corpses pushed out into the street from the buildings directly across from the hotel. Chris forgot about shooting and focused on the run. Jafar was at half strength, but his will propelled him, and the two moved between the first lines of broken down cars before the zombies reached them.
<
br /> The sound of the horde of infected rushing toward the bus overpowered everything else. The bus came to life soon after Jenn, Tom, and the kids jumped onboard. Black smoke rose from the rear as the engine revved, but the sound was lost in the chorus of chaos. Chris pushed himself to move faster as Jenn turned the bus around. He and Jafar broke free of the debris as the bus began to pull away.
“Hurry.”
The kids hung out of the windows waving frantically as the bus picked up speed. A surge of stamping feet filled Chris’s ears as a wave of infected breath engulfed him. Movement came into view on both sides as the bus pulled farther away. His lungs burned, and he pushed himself far beyond his strength. The weight of Jafar pulled him toward the asphalt, and his mind told him to run, but his body slowed. The moment his feet came to a stop, the bus taillights flashed red.
Jafar pulled at Chris and his legs responded. Tom was in the open door firing over their heads as they approached. The old man risked a jump onto the road as the two men dove onto the stairs. Tom leapt up as Jenn slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. Determined fists beat against the exterior of the vehicle and a roar of the nefarious crowd erupted in a violent cry as the bus picked up speed. The remaining window glass rained down as the horde tried to pound its way in.
Chris got to his feet and followed Tom down the center aisle. They fired their weapons at anything that moved in the windows. Hands and arms were blown off, reaching in after the kids. Heads were obliterated as they tried to climb in. The firing continued until both men pulled the trigger with no response. The bus drove away, and the darkness of the horde was left howling in the street far behind.
21
The bus was filled with silence. Tom and Chris helped dress Jafar’s wound, both knowing there was nothing they could do to stop the inevitable spread of the infection. Jake sat in the back seat of the bus with his arms wrapped around his sister. Alicen had her face buried in his chest, unable to stop herself from sobbing.
They stopped only once on the outskirts of Las Vegas. They had less than half a tank of gas, and it was going to become an issue quickly. Luck brought them to an old 76 station off the highway. The pumps and service station were a wreck, but a reserve tank hidden by a number of rundown vehicles out back filled the bus with enough fuel to make it to California. Jenn calculated they would be able to coast to their destination on fumes.
Chris sat in one of the front seats with Jafar. The big man’s strength was fading fast. He hadn’t spoken in a while, and Chris knew the questions hanging on everyone’s mind. He couldn’t decide what he was going to do about it at the moment. The truth was he didn’t feel much for the loss of Sarah or Michael. Jafar, however, had made an impression on him. The impact of his loss was stronger than he would have guessed.
“Go ahead and say it,” Jafar said out of the blue. His words were slurred and his accent heavier than ever. “I have to get off the bus.”
Jenn watched him through the rearview mirror. “No one said that.”
“You don’t have to.” Jafar coughed and a thin stream of blood ran down his bottom lip. “I’m a threat to all of you.”
Tom got up from his seat a few rows back and slid into the bench across from them.
“How much time do I have?” Jafar asked.
Tom shrugged, unable to look him in the eyes. “Maybe an hour, no more than two.”
Jafar shifted his weight, and his body shuddered. He broke into a coughing fit, and throwing his hand over his mouth was the only thing that kept a hunk of blood from hitting Chris in the face. The spasm subsided, and he pulled his hand down to reveal crimson-covered teeth. He shook his head as he tried to speak.
“This is ridiculous. Stop the bus.”
He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. Jenn glanced at Chris, and he hesitantly nodded. The bus slowed and veered off the side of the highway. They had left the outline of Las Vegas far behind, and the surrounding landscape was filled with wide-open nothingness. Jafar grabbed the back of the seat and tried to get to his feet. His strength gave out, and Chris had to hold him up.
“Mind giving me a little help?” Jafar asked and managed a smile.
“Sure.”
Jenn opened the folding door, but she didn’t get up. She glanced at Jafar as he passed. The sounds of her heartbreak were kept to a whisper as she kept her eyes trained on the window. Alicen’s cries could be heard all the way from the back. Jake talked quietly to her as she tried to get up to say goodbye.
Chris helped Jafar down the steps. He was surprised at how little strength the big man had left. The two men got out onto the dirt beside the highway, and Jafar motioned at a suitable spot. He took a seat, leaned back on an embankment, and let out a long, slow breath.
“I wish I could help you the rest of the way,” Jafar said.
Chris nodded unsure of what to say.
“I think my wife would have been proud of me.” He reached under his jacket and pulled out a handgun. “I’m looking forward to seeing her again.”
Chris crouched down in front of him and forced himself to look him in the eyes. “We wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”
Jafar grinned and nodded. “You should go.”
Chris stood up and took one last look, then turned and headed for the bus. The sadness he felt ascending the stairs pressed against him with gut-wrenching intensity. Jenn closed the door before he reached his seat. The moment he sat down, they were moving again.
♦
The silence was haunting. The bus felt like a rolling coffin for the remaining five souls. Highway 15 was clear, offering an unobstructed view of the barren landscape. Darkness was settling in, when the outskirts of Barstow changed the skyline ahead. Chris had the map spread out across the front seat. He’d been studying it for miles.
“I’d rather get off the highway than try to go straight through Barstow.”
“No telling what we might run into on one of those smaller roads,” Tom countered.
“I think the infected and the dead are gathering,” Chris said. “Most of them are holing up where the last pockets of people are hiding.”
“He’s right,” Jenn said. “It’s the same thing we saw all along the highway since we left Denver. The more people, the more infected.”
Chris ran his finger along the map as he eyed the yellow lines. “We could take this old highway 58 and try to get connected up with 395. It might help us get around Victorville, as well. Not sure we can avoid much else once we get into San Bernardino.”
They pushed on through the night, but a flat tire forced them to the side of the road in the morning. They were lucky to have a spare, but a lack of any other tools left them with a difficult task. It was noon before they got back on the road. The detour route took them farther out of the way than they’d planned, and it became obvious their fuel supply wasn’t going to last. Jenn got them back on the highway, and they started up the elevation through the San Gabriel Mountains. They didn’t expect much trouble in the foothills, but once they reached the other side, there was no telling what they might run into.
Chris sat behind Jenn, his eyes trained on the fuel gauge. They started their descent out of the mountains, and the needle was holding steady on empty. Chris brought it up a few times but stopped when he realized there was nothing they could do about it. There was a good chance they would soon be on foot, and he didn’t like the idea of scurrying across L.A. with Tom and the kids in tow.
An hour later, the greens of the mountain pass gave way to the grays of city life. The roads were void of anything save a desperate need for repair. The hills were behind them and the highway lanes widened for the once overpopulated area. It was impossible to tell how much farther the bus would take them, but no one wanted to venture down into the city streets unless they had to.
Jenn took the first major off ramp and pulled them onto the 210. Chris mapped out the route all the way to Long Beach, knowing full well they wouldn’t come anywhere close. The impact of the past se
veral months was evident once the buildings came into view. Blackened and burnt, the city streets looked like the battlegrounds of a long-forgotten war. Nothing moved. The entire thing was dead.
The bus pushed on until the first sign of trouble turned out to be the last. The engine roared and then sputtered. It cut out as Jenn pushed on the gas. Then the engine turned over a second later. The second time though, Jenn put the gears in neutral. The engine gave one last gasp and died. The bus coasted another half mile before it came to a creeping stop below an exit ramp which read Diamond Bar.
“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” Chris said, looking out at the darkening sky. “I think we better button up and stay put for the night.”
Jake made his way to front to get into the conversation. “Light didn’t seem to make much of a difference in Vegas.”
Tom seconded the theory. “There’s no reason to think the infected here haven’t evolved as much.”
Chris wasn’t convinced. “I think it’s situational.” He looked to Jenn for support. “The infected in Denver wouldn’t even step out in direct sunlight. I don’t think we’ll know until we see for ourselves. Besides,” he stood up on his seat and slid the map over so the others could see, “I don’t want to walk all this way without being able to see where I’m going.”
Tom leaned in and Jake poked his head up over his shoulder. They collectively ran their eyes over the remaining lines.
“How far?” Tom asked.
Chris shrugged. “Thirty miles, give or take.”
“Thirty miles?” Jake said in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. “How long will that take us?”
“There’s no way to say,” Chris admitted. He slid past them into the aisle and stretched. “Who knows what we might run into.” He thought about it. “I think we could do it in a day if we started at sunup and kept a good pace.”
Jenn made sure the door was locked. She slid into the seat opposite the gathering around the map. She produced a small bag of chips from her jacket pocket and offered the half-eaten snack to the others before taking one for herself. She pulled her boots up on the seat, pushing her knees up beneath her chin.
The Decaying World Saga Box Set [Prequel #1-#2 & Books #1-#2] Page 39