She didn’t dare make a sound until nearly half an hour later, when she hadn’t heard anything on the other side of the door. Only then did she let her feet touch the floor.
Curling into the fetal position on the cold tile, she cried until she slipped into an unconscious slumber.
***
Caitlin awoke with a jerk and a gasp, arm flailing out over the dirty tile.
The plane crash.
The dead man.
The zombie.
She sat up too quickly and her head swam, making her queasy.
Inhaling through her nose, she closed her eyes until she knew she wasn’t going to vomit.
The bathroom didn’t have a window to look out from, so she had no idea what time it was or if more of those creatures had shown up. The only way to check if the coast was clear was to open the door.
“Shit.”
Forcing herself onto her feet, she winced. Even after sleep, her body still ached horribly.
Slowly, silently, she pulled the bolt out of the slot. Then she turned the lock on the handle.
Holding her breath, she waited. Nothing yet.
Twisting the knob, she eased the door open a fraction.
Early morning light cut through the darkness, and she blinked away the spots in her vision. Scanning the parking lot, she waited for signs of life… or signs of the undead.
The truck was still parked there, with the gas nozzle in the tank. Nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.
Everything was quiet.
She opened the door another inch, waiting for a blitz attack.
Nothing.
Stepping her foot out, she craned her neck to look around. From what she could see, she was alone.
Steeling herself, she left the safety of the restroom and limped into the parking lot. If the zombie was still there, it either hadn’t heard her or was clearly preoccupied with something else.
She couldn’t bear the idea of checking inside the store, even to use the phone or get a bottle of water. The clerk was still inside, still a bloody, disemboweled mess.
Caitlin didn’t waste any time. She turned left and continued down the road, hoping beyond hope someone human could help her.
She struggled for over an hour, even tripping and falling a few times, and crying out in pain.
Fresh tears fell from her lashes as she hobbled towards the edges of suburbia.
Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t give up.
In a daze, she followed the pavement. She hadn’t even realized she’d turned into a neighborhood until she saw the mailboxes.
The street was quiet, and each house she passed seemed deserted.
Caitlin shuffled around a curve in the street to see she’d managed to find herself in a cul-de-sac. The house at the end was surrounded by haphazardly raised fencing, several large SUVs blocking the front. An attempt at guarding themselves.
A figure shifted on the porch and she reached out clumsily, almost a wave.
“Jeremy!” The woman yelled, ushering smaller figures—children, Caitlin realized—inside. “Get the gun!”
Gun?
Caitlin frowned and then realized how horrid she must look. Bloody and covered in filth. Barely able to stand.
“Help…” She tried to call out while people were rushing around on the porch and out the front door. “Help. Please.”
A man came out to join the woman who had yelled, holding up a shotgun but not aiming it directly at her.
“Stop right there,” he yelled. “What do you want?”
Caitlin’s vision blurred momentarily. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay upright.
“Help… me,” she croaked. “Please. I…”
She stumbled forward, catching herself on the side of the nearest car.
“Jeremy, she’s hurt,” the woman said, touching his arm.
Taking a few steps forward to the edge of the porch, Jeremy lowered the shotgun. “Are you bit?”
Caitlin wrapped her arm around her throbbing ribcage. “What?”
“Have you been bitten?” He glowered down at her from where he stood. “Don’t lie to us.”
“No…” She shook her head. “I’m not bit. I…”
Her knees started to buckle.
“Please. Help.”
Caitlin crumpled to the pavement, and the world went dark.
Chapter Three
“Hand me that gauze, honey.” A man’s voice said, faint like he was at the end of a tunnel.
“Is she gonna be okay, Mama?”
“We’re gonna help her as best we can,” a woman answered the child. “Just stay over there, alright?”
Like rising from a thick patch of mud, Caitlin slowly came back to her body. Her breathing was tight, someone was holding her arm, something scratched her left temple… But she was alive.
Blinking took a lot of effort, lids heavy, and the opportunity to slip into unconsciousness all too appealing. But Caitlin forced her eyes open.
“Wh…at,” she rasped.
The silhouette of a man leaned closer, and she could just make out the brown curls over his forehead. “Hey,” he soothed. “Don’t worry, we’re getting you patched up.”
Caitlin closed her eyes and struggled to open them again. “Where… am I?”
“We brought you inside,” the same woman said, but Caitlin couldn’t see her. “You’re safe here.”
Shifting her head on what she realized was a throw pillow, Caitlin nearly started crying.
Safe. She was finally safe.
Sleep took her then—real, healing sleep.
When she came to again, she was covered with a throw blanket and a water bottle was next to her on the end table.
The house was anything but quiet though. Voices, adult and children alike, filled the home. Pockets of conversation bumped against others as they filtered through the air—some discussing food, some playing with dolls, some asking about supply rations.
Caitlin tried to sit up and yelped, ribs refusing to yield.
“Oh, hey, hold on,” a younger man called, standing up. “Jeremy, she’s awake!”
Glancing around, Caitlin tried to follow who he was talking to. “Who?”
Several people emerged from the kitchen, and she recognized the brown curly hair on Jeremy. The woman looked familiar as well, and Caitlin guessed she was the one on the porch.
“Hold on, don’t try to sit up yet,” Jeremy told her. “We had to tape your ribs up and you’re gonna be sore for a while.”
Caitlin swallowed dryly. “Can I…”
“Here honey,” the woman said, unscrewing the cap on the water bottle and kneeling at her head. “I’ll help you.”
The woman tilted Caitlin forward just enough to drink comfortably, and she guzzled the water.
When she finished, Caitlin asked, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Hannah,” she said with a smile. “And you are?”
“Caitlin.” She leaned back on the pillows, looking around. “Is this your house?”
Hannah nodded. “Can you tell us what happened, Caitlin?”
She inhaled as deeply as her injuries would allow. “I… I was flying out of Atlanta. And just after take-off… Something… Our engines exploded and…” She steadied herself. “We crashed. But nobody came. I must’ve been unconscious for a while, ‘cause when I woke up it was almost dark.”
The younger man—barely out of his teens, she could see now—glanced at Jeremy, expression grim. “We saw that plane go down. When dad and I were leaving school.”
“They said they were grounding planes, but we didn’t know they’d shoot them down.”
Caitlin shook her head, confused. “Wait, shoot them down? Who’s they?”
Hannah reached for her hand. “The National Guard. They put this area in a state of emergency after the outbreak.”
Outbreak. They must’ve been talking about…
“Those things,” Caitlin mumbled, voice hollow. “Those…”
&nbs
p; “Geeks.”
The little boy behind Hannah piped up, craning his neck to look around his mother.
Hannah turned to shush him. “Josh—”
“But Mama…”
Caitlin smiled faintly at him. “Where’d you get ‘Geeks’ from?”
The little boy got up, running to a bookshelf and coming back with a comic in his hands. “It’s from this.”
“He’s always been into monsters,” Hannah said. “I still think he’s too young, but Jeremy tells me I’m being overprotective.”
It clicked for Caitlin finally. Jeremy and Hannah were married, and Josh was their little boy. The others were friends, neighbors, relatives.
Jeremy was pulling out a stethoscope to listen to Caitlin’s chest as he said, “I read stuff like that when I was his age. I turned out alright.”
Watching him, Caitlin furrowed her brow. “Are you a doctor?”
“ICU nurse,” Jeremy told her. “You picked the right neighborhood to stumble into.”
Caitlin nodded, breathing out a harsh laugh. “Tell me about it.”
After listening to her heart and lungs, and seeming satisfied with what he heard, Jeremy took the stethoscope off and smiled reassuringly. “Everything sounds okay. We checked your blood pressure while you were asleep, and from what I can tell you don’t have any internal injuries. Just these broken ribs and sprained ankle and that cut on your head.” He patted her arm gently. “You have no idea how lucky you are. Surviving a plane crash and walking away like that.”
“No, I really do,” she told him.
Others started to pass by, curious about the newcomer but trying not to intrude too much. Hannah gave another woman a nod and then looked to Caitlin.
“We should get you something to eat,” she said. “And I think I have some pain killers left over from my back surgery last year. I’ll go dig those out.” Standing, she called to her son. “Josh, leave her be, okay?”
“No, it’s okay,” Caitlin hurried to say. “I… I appreciate the company.”
With an agreeable sound, Hannah glanced at Josh and said, “Don’t be a pest, okay?”
“Okay Mama,” Josh called as she walked away.
Looking up at Caitlin, he offered her the comic in his hands— a popular series that had gained a following. She’d seen them in bookstores before but never thought to read them herself.
“Wanna take a look?” Josh opened it up for her. “See? It even shows you how to kill Geeks and what happens if you get bit.”
Flashes of the scene in the gas station flickered behind her eyes. She already knew what happened when someone was bitten…
“Thanks,” she told him weakly. “Wanna read it to me?”
Settling against the pillows, she pulled the blanket up higher as Josh curled up against the side of the couch, making sure she could see the panels as he read.
A little while later, Hannah brought her a peanut butter sandwich and more water. She also handed Caitlin the bottle of prescription painkillers with a nod. No one blinked twice at her taking two with her sandwich.
Caitlin drifted off to sleep again, lulled by the hum of the group and Josh’s reading.
***
The next morning, Jeremy helped her move around a bit, acting as her crutch as she hobbled the length of the living room and back. Once she seemed steady enough on her feet, Hannah and another woman—Jessica—helped her upstairs to use the shower. It was kind of an awkward shuffle, trying to keep herself covered while they assisted her, until Caitlin finally threw her hands up and said, ‘Screw it. The world is ending, who cares if you see my ass.’
They all had a laugh at that.
Caitlin was given fresh clothes to wear while hers were being washed and Hannah helped re-tape her ribs.
“Thank you,” Caitlin murmured as the other woman adjusted her bandaging. “Your whole group has been so generous. I’m sorry I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
Hannah waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not a trade. You were in need and we could provide. And we’re happy to do it.”
Over the course of the day, Caitlin learned more about what happened in Atlanta. The virus outbreak had been an accident—the escaped patients the papers were talking about were actually test subjects. But something had gone wrong according to Hal, the ex-radio host in the group. He’d heard the reports of a deadly virus and that they were going to quarantine the whole city and had bolted to get his son, the younger man Caitlin had seen before, from college. The whole neighborhood had come together, deciding to wait for news together.
All the television stations looped the same messages over and over.
Stay away from the city. Stay inside. Do not approach infected individuals. If you’re bitten, please seek medical care immediately.
Jeremy had scoffed at the last part.
“There’s no cure,” he said, turning the television off. “We had five people come into the hospital on Thursday, all of them infected. And you know what happened? They bit more people. Five turned into ten turned into twenty-five in less than two days.”
Caitlin adjusted her leg propped up on the coffee table. “When did those patients—test subjects, get out?”
“A week before they started reporting it. Apparently, the lab was in the government’s pocket. They were trying to keep it all quiet, but…” He crossed his arms. “See how well that worked out, huh?”
“By the time people were starting to notice things were bad, it was too late,” Hannah commented. “Now we just gotta wait and see what happens.”
“I still say we should pack up and bug out,” another man said from the corner.
“Carl, we talked about this,” Jeremy started. “We’ve gotta wait for the evacuation plans, otherwise we won’t know where to go.”
Carl, in his tattered ball cap and hunter green Carhartt, scowled and shook his head. “Gunna trust the same people that shot that poor girl’s plane down?”
Jeremy didn’t have an argument articulated, but he looked frustrated with Carl’s side.
“Atlanta’s too close,” Carl continued. “We saw five of those freaks on our last run to get propane for the generators.” He looked to Caitlin then, asking, “Miss? You saw them, didn’t you?”
Caitlin nodded, trying not to think about the grotesque monster that had chased her.
“Can I ask where you were?”
“I’m not sure how far…” She frowned, glancing out the window. “It was a gas station. A Citgo.”
Carl seemed to know the one she was talking about. “That’s less than three miles from here. It’s too close, Jeremy.”
“It’s dangerous on the road too,” Jessica interjected. “If we leave, we’re putting ourselves at risk. At least here we have water, food, electricity—”
“How long you think that’s gonna last?” Carl leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I’m not saying we gotta head out this second. But we need to start thinking about a plan of our own. We can’t rely on anyone else tellin’ us what to do or where to go. And those things are spreading out, far and wide.”
Hannah stepped up. “I happen to agree with Carl,” she said.
Jeremy cast her a shocked stare, but she continued before he could interrupt her.
“I’m not saying we should leave today, or even tomorrow, but we need to start planning. We have enough food to last us a while, and our water and electricity haven’t been cut, but we can’t take those as givens. We need a Plan B. I think if we put our heads together, we can figure out something that keeps us all safe.”
After a moment of thought, Jeremy nodded. “Alright. I guess over dinner we’ll look at some maps. Try to get organized.”
Josh and two other children jogged through the living room, grabbing a few board games and taking them into the dining room. A flash of innocent optimism amid the horrors around them.
The rest of the afternoon, Caitlin floated on a painkiller high, drifting in and out of short naps. When she wa
s lucid she played cards with Josh and the other kids, keeping them entertained as best as she could from the couch. Some of the other women whose names she hadn’t yet learned would stop by to chat or offer her extra pillows. Their kindness still overwhelmed her.
That night, Carl spotted the first Geek trudging down the street towards the house. It took several shots to put the creature down, but finally he landed a bullet in its skull and the thing fell with a sickening thud.
“Coming closer,” he muttered on his way back inside. “Told y’all.”
No one slept well that night. Not even Caitlin, despite still being doped up on borrowed meds.
The illusions of safety were starting to wane.
***
Two days came and went with little excitement. Caitlin did her best to help where she could, which usually meant watching after the kids while they played in the living room or occasionally on the porch. Jeremy wanted her to get some sunlight and fresh air, and she couldn’t argue.
She helped Jessica and another woman fold laundry, dried the dishes as long as she could sit while she did it, and answered as many questions as they had about her life in New York.
Even as a zombie virus was taking over, she was still a big city girl living a glamourous life in their eyes. It was endearing and helped her focus on the positive.
She’d make her way back somehow. She’d see her friends again. She’d find her loved ones.
Over dinner the group hatched a plan. They would start stockpiling supplies, consolidate their essentials, and in a couple days they’d begin scouting for a route out. Being just outside the city, they knew it was only a matter of time before things got worse.
Caitlin went to sleep listening to Carl and a couple of the other men discuss who should focus on what task. She barely remembered Josh coming by to tell her goodnight and leaving another comic with her in case she wanted to read it.
Someone jerked her awake, violently yanking her.
“Caitlin, Caitlin get up.”
Hannah, it was Hannah’s voice…
Bleary eyed, Caitlin tried to focus. “What… What’s happening?”
“We gotta go,” Hannah told her, pulling her up. “There’s… God, there’s so many of them, c’mon.”
Bloody Sunrise: A Zombie Apocalypse Romance Page 2