10 Minutes From Home | Book 1 | 10 Minutes From Home

by Howard, Bill

  "Thanks Denny," he paused. "Really, thank you."

  I wasn't sure what to say, do you just say you're welcome to someone for bringing their infected raging monster of a girlfriend/daughter figure/friend to them?

  It was only late morning, so with a little luck and no obstacles or catastrophes, we were hoping to finally make up some lost time. Every second I spent resting or tending to something or killing one of those damned things was a second more that my family was in danger. And I couldn’t let that go on any longer than I had to.

  As we walked through the woods together, I couldn’t help but reflect on my journey thus far since Thom and I left the Bloor Cinema in Toronto. It had only been a matter of days, but it felt like an abbreviated lifetime. None of these people had to be here with me, coming along with me on this absurd journey to get home to my wife and daughter. Sure, some people had reasons, Ellie had her kids, Stephen wanted to find someone to help with his infected kids, and wanted to find it safely, with our support. But Clive and Thom. They were literally just here to help me. They were risking their lives to get me to my family. I would be forever grateful to them for that; I would owe them my life. Even if Thom was not quite right now, dragging a half-dead infected girl through the woods with us.

  We rounded a corner in the creek bed we were following and went under a small bridge. We walked single file, Thom holding the pole over his shoulder like a hobo, only instead of a plaid sack he was pulling along Isabel. Around the next bend, we came across large slabs of concrete in the middle of the creek. Huge chunks, some as big as thirty feet long, just lying in haphazard heaps in the middle of the creek. On either side of the creek were high dirt walls leading up to fields. With the concrete ahead of us, it occurred to me that we were at a bit of a bottleneck. If I were a more negative person, I would have thought that to be a bad thing. We started to climb over the slabs; it looked like we could climb over a few, then under one very large one to reach the other side of the strange formation. Stephen was leading us and got to the opening first. He took one step down and stopped, his hand jutted into the air, signaling for all us to stop. Max stopped at the same time and started in with a low, steady growl. It was dead silent but for the trickling sound of the creek and Max's rumblings. At the same time, we all heard a twig snap above us, and our heads swerved in unison to the right. On top of the dirt hill, right near the edge of the drop off into the creek where we all stood like sudden Roman statues, was a soldier. He was decked out in full military gear, camouflage fatigues, harnesses, and straps galore, a gas mask over his head and a tricked out AR-15 rifle. We didn’t see anyone else; it just looked like a lone soldier going for a nice walk in a field. I was hoping the hindrance of the gas mask would keep us out of his peripheral vision, as long as he didn’t turn his head. Stephen started to move forward very slowly, stepping down into the gap under the two giant concrete pillars. I watched as he set one foot in, holding on to the top of the slab as he did. The soldier had stopped just behind our position, still looking forward. Stephen set another foot in, and seemed to slip, as half of his body disappeared into the dark gap. Clive’s hand shot out to him and grabbed his wrist. Stephen looked back from in the gap, only his head, shoulders, and one arm visible to us. The look on his face was sheer terror, and I started to panic. Stephen’s body was jerked again, this time pulling his whole body out of view, and ripping his hand right out of Clive’s grip. Clive almost yelled after him, but remembered the soldier just in time. He braced his arms on either side of the gap and leaned into the darkness, looking for Stephen. Clive’s face jerked back suddenly and he lost his footing, falling backwards onto the concrete. His face was spattered with blood. Thom and Ellie leaned in and helped him up; I kept an eye on the soldier. Max seemed quite fixed on the gap, he stood in front of it, about six feet back, and just stared into it, continuing his low growl. Clive wiped the blood off his face with his sleeve and leaned in close to me.

  “What in God’s name should we do now? We have something ahead of us that just grabbed Stephen, and the military above us, so going back isn't really an option.”

  I didn’t have an answer. Isabel jerked and tugged in her restraints, but it looked like it was more out of a lack of comfort than an act of resistance. Ellie let out a quick quiet whistle and I looked over. She pointed to the left side of the slab we were standing on, where a hand was gripping the edge, followed shortly after by a head and shoulders of an infected teenager, probably about fifteen years old, female, and horribly disfigured. She was wearing a pink Adidas tracksuit, or at least it had been pink at one time, now it was stained a dark brown from dirt and dried blood. Just as she was steadying herself on the slab, she was followed by another infected, this time a full-grown man with a beard. He was probably about six foot tall and dressed in a suit. Isabel was starting to fidget at the end of Thom's contraption. I turned to Clive and the others.

  “We’ve gotta get in that hole.”

  I didn’t see much other choice. We had to move forward at all costs, doubling back or staying to fight just wasn’t going to work. Now there were two more infected crawling up the right side of the slab; we were being effectively surrounded. Thom was holding the switched off chainsaw in front of him when an infected jumped on him from behind. Thom fell forward, the chainsaw and Isabel's pole skidding across the concrete. Ellie yelled ‘NO’ without thinking about it. I glanced back over my shoulder to the soldier on the hill. He turned his head and looked down, followed quickly by a leveling of his rifle in our general direction. The air in the creek valley echoed with the pops of the automatic rifle as the soldier fired down from above. Thom was still on his stomach, arms contorted, trying to keep the thing off him, when Isabel stepped over to him. She grabbed the neck of the thing on Thom's back and hauled it off with surprising strength. Isabel turned the thing around in her hands and opened her jaw wide, locking onto its face like a magnet. Her teeth sunk into its head, yellow and red liquid pouring out the sides of Isabel's mouth. I yelled for everyone to get into the hole before something here killed us, whether it be one of the infected or the soldier. We ran for the hole as the shots from the soldier's rifle whizzed by us, chipping the concrete into tiny showers of debris. It felt like in the movies when someone is trying to run down a hallway to a door, but the door just keeps getting further away. I felt like I was running in slow motion. Thom had gotten back on his feet and grabbed Isabel's leash once more, dragging her along as he ran to the hole. I could hear the howls of the infected things as the soldier's shots connected with them, the odd hollow thumps of bullets hitting the infected things that were chasing us. Max had already gone down the gap, and Ellie was second to go. Next Thom jumped in, swallowed up by the darkness and pulling Isabel behind him like a favorite doll. I felt a sharp push into my left arm and a warm spray on my left cheek as a bullet went clean through my shoulder. It threw me forward and into Clive’s back, and we both fell right into the gap. The next thing I felt was a cool splash as I fell into the creek within the black nothingness at the bottom of the hole. I could feel that I landed on Clive, then rolled off into the water. A moment later, light illuminated the dark from a flashlight in Ellie’s hand. It looked like we had actually fallen into a shallow cave of some sort. There was no sign of Stephen, nor of Max. We all stood up and I looked up at the faint light filtering through the hole we fell through about eight feet above our heads. Nothing was coming through after us, and we could still hear the cracks of the rifle firing; in fact, it sounded like more than one now. Ellie swung the flashlight around and revealed a passage that went further back, the ceiling of which was only about five feet high. Thom got up and pulled on Isabel's leash, prompting her to get up off the wet ground and follow Thom. I was surprised that Isabel wasn't trying to attack us every chance she could; she didn’t even run off when Thom had dropped the pole that was looped around her neck. I didn’t know how to explain what was going on with Thom and Isabel, but I was concerned nonetheless.

  We picked up o
ur packs and quickly made our way along the passage. I really didn’t like the idea of being down here, not knowing if there was a way out or if there was trigger-happy military on the other end. But it wasn’t like I had a choice either. We trekked down the corridor until we heard the sound of Max’s barking up ahead. We proceeded with guns drawn, at the ready for anything that awaited us. Around the next bend, Max was in the middle of a small clearing in the caves, a small column of light pouring out of a hole in the ceiling above him. He was sitting on the rock floor beside Stephen, who was lying on his side, unmoving. Clive rushed to Stephen and turned him over gently. His throat was gone completely, just a head on a thin spine attached to his body. All the meat of his neck was cleaned off in its entirety. Max whined, then turned towards the back of the clearing and barked. Our guns went back up and Thom approached the area, Ellie behind him with her flashlight showing the way. Hunched over in the darkness of the furthest corner of the clearing was a young man of about twenty years old. He was all curled up in the corner wearing jeans, but no shirt or shoes. He was acting like a small child, in a ball with his back turned towards us. He was making little grunting noises, and kept looking out at Thom and Isabel. Thom got a little closer and it barked out, warning him to keep his distance. When he did this, we could see the pulpy chunks of flesh in his hands and his gore-soaked mouth. My stomach turned. Thom took another step towards the thing, keeping Isabel off to his right side. As he did, the thing raised its head, turned it slightly, and gazed at Thom. Its arms lowered and it let out the slightest whimper. Thom raised his arm and in one swift movement, put the barrel of his gun to its head and fired. The skull erupted out the back and the body slid to the ground. Isabel gave out a low howl, and then returned to her newfound position as Thom's passive captive. Thom holstered the pistol and turned back to all of us.

  “Can we get the fuck out of here please?”

  CHAPTER 34:

  GOD BLESS THE CHILDREN

  AND THE BEASTS

  The cave was small and did not go on much further. It came out, to my estimation, about a half-kilometer later at the side of a grassy hill in a field. We all pulled each other out of the small exit hole, having to haul our packs separately to fit. Thom seemed pissed off now for some reason, his brow furrowed, and his overall demeanor darkened. He had a hard time coaxing Isabel out of the dark and into the sunlight, but he managed to wrestle her up through the hold and onto the grass. The rest of were just wet and drained. I stood for a moment and got my bearings, figuring we should be somewhere in Ajax by now. The hill we had come out on was fairly high and gave us a good vantage point of the horizon. I could make out a grouping of four large apartment buildings in the distance, and was pretty sure it was the White Oaks apartments on the Whitby/Ajax border. That was good; we were making some progress. We hiked uninterrupted in the late afternoon sun for a few hours, our clothes drying in the sunlight, but our moods still dampened. No one spoke; we just walked and kept to ourselves. Stephen had not been with us for long, but his death was a personal tragedy for all of us. We all felt for his wife, who was now alone with their infected children, left to wonder if her husband was ever coming home. I vowed to myself to get back to her at some point and help her if I could. After Diane and Jordan were safe, and this outbreak was under control, I would go back and bring help. I felt I somehow owed that to Stephen now.

  We reached a main road cutting through the woods and farmland; I was guessing from the time we had spent walking that it was probably Salem Road. There were a few farmhouses and barns along the way, but we had enough supplies so we tried to avoid them, giving them a wide berth on our path. The sun was riding low in the sky now, the clouds turning a warm orange color with blue halos. We were getting to the point that we would have to stop for the night again, and with the time we made today, it looked like there was a good chance we would make it to my house by late the next day. That filled me with a restrained joy. We angled south to try to reach a neighborhood before dark.

  We came across the first row of houses about thirty minutes after sundown; this was the longest we had ever stayed moving after dark. We tried to keep Clive’s flashlight on for guidance, as he was leading us at that point, but the rest of us kept ours off. No need to attract any undue attention, it was bad enough we were walking almost blind. We reached the house closest to us and split up, Ellie and I keeping watch on the front lawn and taking care of Isabel, and Clive and Thom checking the house. Ellie and I stood back to back on the lawn and waited for word from the others that the house was secure. Except for the sound of Isabel's labored breathing--a soft, quiet gurgling--the night was quiet as a church funeral, and it was the first time it occurred to me how creepy the night could be without the sound of insects. Where did they all go? While I was pondering the intricacies of the animal kingdom during a viral outbreak, Ellie turned and put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Denny. We’ll reach Jeremy’s house first. After I see that the kids are all right, I’m going to have to stay with them at Jeremy’s until this thing is over. I can’t go with you the rest of the way.”

  I smiled.

  “Of course Ellie." I took her hand in mine. “I’ll be fine, thanks to you helping me get this far. We’ll get you to your kids, and then I’ll get to Diane and Jordan. We’ll all be fine. ”

  I wasn’t sure I believed my own words at this point, but it seemed to make Ellie feel better. She put her arms around me and hugged me tight, which was awkward since I was holding Isabel's leash. I kissed her forehead and stepped back into position when something cracked under my foot. I looked down, as did Ellie when she heard the noise. My foot was on a plank of wood lying in the grass. I reached down and lifted it up; it was a wooden sign hanging from a fallen metal pole. I flipped the sign over and read the brightly painted words. Lil Tots Daycare. I dropped the sign, handed Isabel's pole to Ellie and told her to stay and keep watch on the lawn. I ran into the house, my pistol drawn, and despite calling attention to us with my racket, I screamed for Clive and Thom. As I entered the house, I shot a glance up the stairs, Thom was standing there looking down, a puzzled look on his face. I ran to the side of the staircase, looking into the various rooms for Clive. I ran into the kitchen, and around to the side door, where I saw Clive standing in front of the basement door with his hand on the doorknob.

  “Clive, no!" I shouted.

  Clive physically jumped at my outcry, and I noticed the latch was undone and the door already open a crack. A split second later, the door burst open and a sea of small bodies flooded out of it, pouring over Clive like a swarm of locusts, knocking him to the linoleum floor. The children’s clothes were all colors of the rainbow, blue overalls, pink flowery shirts, green dresses. There were blonde heads, brown heads, and heads with jet-black hair. All shapes and sizes with one grotesque thing in common: those hellfire yellow eyes. A few of them lingered on top of Clive, snapping at his face as he tried to hold them at bay. But most of them ran right over him and spilled into the kitchen, coming straight for me. I not only found it hard to shoot for fear of hitting Clive, but also--regardless of what these soulless beasts were—because these were once adorable little children. I kicked up the 50s style kitchen table and ran into the hallway, hoping the table would slow the kids enough for me to get ahead of them. I tore up the stairs to where I had seen Thom standing, but he was no longer there. I grabbed the banister and swung myself into the upstairs hallway, looking into rooms for Thom. I slipped on a small runner on the hardwood floor and slid on my ass into a room at the end of the hallway, flinging my hand over my head to slam the door behind me. I skidded to a halt on the soles of my shoes and got up, pushing a nearby dresser in front of the door. I almost collapsed against the bureau trying to catch my breath, and surveyed the room. It was a little girls room, for sure, with a four poster canopy bed, and posters of Zach Efron and Justin Bieber on the wall. Thom was here as well, standing in front of the lace-draped window, looking out.

  “Thom, Jesus, this pl
ace is a daycare, they are all over Clive, we have to get down there and. . . . ”

  I stopped. Thom hadn’t turned to me when I came into the room, and he still hadn’t as I was talking to him. I got up and slowly approached him, unsure that I wanted to see whatever was capturing his attention outside. I walked up beside him and looked out the second-story window. The front yard below was absolutely teeming with infected people. I couldn’t even make out any patches of grass, every inch was covered. Worse still, I didn't see Ellie.

  “Jesus Christ on a cross." I muttered.

  I turned my head to look at Thom. He wasn’t staring down at the conglomeration of infected souls, he was just staring ahead, out the window into the horizon, into nothing. I set my hand on his shoulder.