by Brown, TW
The drive in had gotten a lot more interesting the closer that they got to Portland. They began to see a few vehicles on the roads. One instance was a bit terrifying.
They had passed a large panel van driving east in the westbound lane of Interstate 84. The van had slammed on the brakes and tried to block their path as they neared, but the interstate was too wide and Jason swerved around it. The van had come after them and Jason had made a snap decision.
“Hand me that street sweeper as soon as I stop,” he said over his shoulder.
Rose hadn’t actually known what a street sweeper was up to that point, but she grabbed the shotgun with the large canister that looked like some sort revolver on steroids.
“Hang on!” Jason shouted and then slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel a bit to the left to put the driver’s side of her car facing in the direction of the oncoming panel van. In a flash he threw open his door. “Hand me the shotgun!”
Rose did as he asked and then watched Jason pump the weapon and bring it to his hip. Then he did something crazy; he started walking towards the oncoming van! She kept wondering why he wouldn’t shoot. At last, he pulled the trigger. Then things got even crazier. Jason kept firing, and the van kept coming. It seemed to be impossibly close and she remembered wondering why she hadn’t gotten out of the car. She was going to be rammed and the odds were not in her favor to come out of it without serious injury. Fortunately, the driver of the van must have finally seen the weapon and been a bit nervous, because it swerved suddenly.
Jason fired one more shot and then dove out of the way. Rose thought that she heard him yell something like “Hang on!” but she couldn’t be sure. In any case, that last shot must have hit a tire because there was a loud pop or bang and then the van did a sumersault…and another…and then three more. Rose swore that thing actually cleared the hood of her car on that second flip, but in any case, her little Honda Civic had escaped unharmed.
At least up to that point.
They came off Interstate 84 and were merging on to Interstate 5 when a black SUV came upon them fast as it rocketed north on Interstate 5. Jason had to swerve hard to the right and clipped the concrete barrier. The horrible grinding sound set Rose’s teeth on edge and made the terrible headache that was banging in her temples that much worse. The SUV clipped them enough to spin them around to where they were now facing south into oncoming traffic. At least a dozen cars flew past with none of them so much as slowing to see if any of them were hurt.
Jason had to restart the car, and for a moment, it did not look like he would be able to as the engine made odd noises and seemed to sputter. At last it turned over and he spun them back around in the right direction. They had made it off the interstate, but not much further as black smoke began to leak from under the hood.
“We’re almost there,” Erin pointed at the sign.
Together, the three of them grabbed everything from the car and started off the rest of the way on foot. They were just coming around the corner of a big park when the sounds of gunfire could be heard coming in bunches from the direction of the hospital. A few louder booms followed sporadically.
“Grenades?” Jason said as more of a question.
Rose had no idea. She had never heard a grenade before, but the noise did remind her of the sounds from the Fourth of July displays that came on the heels of the flashing display of light.
They continued on, Erin starting to increase their pace from a fast jog to more of an all-out run. Rose stayed with them, noticing that they started to slow again after only a minute. She could have kept that pace for a while, but neither Erin nor Jason were in the shape that she was in.
“Almost there,” Rose reminded, trying to coax the two into picking their tempo up.
As they passed a non-descript building, a figure stumbled out at them. Rose jumped and cleared it easily, but Jason stepped to his right and fell off the curb, hitting the pavement with an audible exhale that was forced out with a yelp of pain.
Rose stopped and turned to help him and heard Erin’s footsteps continue on as if nothing had just happened. A pair of zombies were now closing in, and Jason was making a strange croaking noise. The noise was not the problem so much as the fact that he did not seem to be making any effort to get back up or even roll over.
Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she saw Erin disappear around the corner. Zombies were seeming to come out from every direction. Some of them were following after Erin who was now yelling her friend’s name.
Rose heard the refrain of “Cherry, where are you!” growing faint as the woman continued on her way towards the hospital and all the gunfire that was now becoming more like popcorn when the batch is almost entirely popped.
10
“Yes. This is really happening.”
Ken hurried along the tree line. He could see the house. So far, not a single zombie could be seen. He paused and made sure before coming out and jogging across the last stretch of open ground that brought him to the barbed wire fence that bordered the property.
To the left he could see the road that ran along the front. Already, birds were circling the “free” buffet that was being served up as dozens of corpses now began the process of rotting in the sun. That would have to be a top priority on his to-do list. They had to burn or dispose of all these bodies.
Slipping between two strands of the barbed wire, Ken hurried the rest of the way to the house. He was almost to the porch when he heard a low growl come from inside, quickly followed by a shushing sound. Juanita’s head peeked out from the curtains of the shattered window beside the front door.
“Thank God it’s you,” she breathed.
“Who else would it be?” Ken asked gruffly as he reached for the door to enter the house.
“Some people were outside of the house a moment ago,” she answered in a whisper that, coupled with how fast she spoke, almost made it impossible for Ken to understand what she had said.
“We aren’t looking for trouble,” a voice said from behind Ken. He spun, his pistol up and ready. It only took a slight adjustment for him to be lined up with a shot that would hit center mass of his target.
It was a woman, and she was holding the hand of a little boy no older than six or seven. She immediately stepped in front of the child and shielded him with her body.
“Please!” she almost begged. “Our car crashed up the road a ways. My husband tried to avoid hitting one of those…things. We went into the ditch and he got knocked out by the air bag. I tried to wake him, but nothing worked. A bunch of those things were headed our way so I grabbed Evan and we ran.”
Ken sighed. He knew what he needed to do, but that didn’t mean he would like it.
“You and the boy get inside. That is Juanita.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the woman as she opened the front door and emerged onto the porch.
A second later, before Ken could introduce himself, Evan shrieked. “Doggies!”
The black and white dog had bolted past Juanita and rushed to the child. Its tail was wagging furiously and the dog nudged and jumped up on the boy until the two fell to the ground and began rolling around, a mix of laughter and happy yips.
Ken’s eyes began to search in every direction. This noise would bring more of those things. He pursed his lips and snapped, “Quiet!”
The pair almost froze, both stopping in their play and turning their heads to the man who had just ended the fun. The dog sat down, but the boy started with a jutting lower lip and then erupted into bawling. He scrambled to his feet and ran to his mother that was now looking at Ken like he might actually be worse than the zombies.
“Listen,” Ken raised his hands in a sign of peace, “you two can play all you want inside. But if you make all that noise out here—”
“The monsters will come?” little Evan managed around his crocodile tears.
“Yes, the monsters will come.” He looked up at the mother and saw her stance ease a bit. “I am going to go for a walk up th
e road…” He raised his eyebrows as he left that sentence as a bit of a question.
“That way,” the woman said as she pointed up the road towards the direction he had come when he first arrived at this house.
“Okay.” Ken rose and dusted himself off. “Juanita, you take the new folks inside. Keep the door shut and keep a watch in the direction where the fence is busted. We need to fix it or plug it up, but I don’t think it will do much good. Too many of those things at once and the barbed wire snaps like string. We are going to have to come up with something more durable if we plan on staying here.”
“You’re staying here?” the woman asked, sounding equal parts shocked and alarmed.
“Where else would we go?” Juanita asked, signaling Ken to keep quiet. “The FEMA centers are falling. Anybody who is bitten becomes one of those things.”
Ken would have missed it if he blinked, but he saw the woman’s eyes tighten just a bit at that statement. He gave her a closer look. She seemed fine. He felt his throat go dry as he turned his attention to the boy. Was that a scratch on his right arm? He moved a little to get a better look. Apparently the woman had picked up on his move. She lunged forward and snatched her child back to her side and then nudged him behind her body.
“On second thought, we will go see if my husband managed to get the car out of the ditch.”
“I thought that you said he was unconscious?” Juanita asked, obviously confused.
The woman locked eyes with Ken. Her lips were pressed tight, and he saw a determination in her gaze that let him know she would die trying to save her son if it came down to that. He gave a knowing nod and stepped back. It didn’t matter if he already knew that the child was as good as dead. He let his eyes drift to the boy once more and saw the beginnings of dark tracers creeping into the whites of the little boy’s eyes.
“I think we might have a few things that would help,” Ken said quietly. Ken nodded to the open back end of the pickup. The woman looked back at Ken and he saw the acceptance of a terrible fate in her expression.
“No thank you.”
With that, the woman took her son by the hand and headed for the opening in the fence. He watched them go. He almost hated the fact that he was a little relieved when a single zombie fell in behind them and did not come through the open spot in the fence.
“Why did you let them go?” Juanita’s voice cut through his thoughts and returned him to the situation at hand.
“The boy was bitten. He was infected and is going to become one of those things.”
Juanita’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. She let her gaze drift over and get one final glimpse of the mother and her son just before they vanished from sight.
“How could you just let them leave like that?”
Ken spun and saw the reproach directed at him. He had actually expected this woman to understand. Up to this point, she had seemed fairly reasonable.
“And what would you have me do? Hold them against their will? Wait for the boy to turn into one of those things and then try to fight my way past that mother who is ready to die to save a boy that is beyond saving?” Ken did his best to control his voice, speaking in a low, even tone.
Juanita seemed to consider his words for a moment. It almost reminded him of watching that frame-by-frame series of pictures when Mount St. Helens blew. It was a slow and steady collapse and then tears streaming in rivulets that cut through the dirt and grime that had accumulated during a day of killing zombies, running through woods, and killing more zombies.
“This is really happening,” she hiccupped once she stopped crying.
At that moment, there was a scream. It came from the direction that the woman and her son had gone. A moment later, another scream joined it; mother and son in a chorus of terror. He turned back to Juanita.
“Yes. This is really happening.”
***
Jason felt that instant fear that comes when the breath is knocked from a person. There is a period of time when there is a sense that you may never be able to inhale again. The harder you try, the more that fear escalates. At the moment, Jason was at the peak of that fear. When something fell on him, he was certain that death was imminent. His only consolation came in the fact that he would not be letting loose with one of those horrible screams as he was ripped apart. He could barely make the weak croaking noise that was escaping his lips at the moment.
Then, another noise came and something shifted on his back. A head rolled over his shoulder and landed on its side just a few inches from his face. The head belonged to a man. Its shaggy and bedraggled appearance made it a logical guess that this man had been homeless. Through the involuntary tears that had started to fill Jason’s eyes, he could still see the mouth moving and the filmy, tracer-ridden eyes shifting back and forth.
There was another dull thud and a body fell right next to him, thankfully blocking the view of that head. Something gripped him by the collar of his jacket and tugged. Jason braced for the end.
“C’mon, try to stand,” Rose’s voice filtered in through the haze of fear and pain. That was when he began to realize that there was something wrong with his left ankle.
Jason was rolled onto his back and found himself looking up at Rose. There was just enough light in the sky to make the shadows partially hide her features. In that moment, she was amazingly beautiful.
“Erin took off. We need to get moving.” Her head popped up and the sun washed over all of it, chasing away those shadows for just a moment. And that was when he saw them.
Jason fought to move, but remained helpless for several seconds before some of the control returned. As he regained his ability to move and breathe, he was momentarily thankful. He had seen the tracers starting to work into the whites of Rose’s eyes. Yet, because he had been incapacitated for the most part, she had not seen his feelings of pity that were churning in his gut.
“Help me up,” he managed to croak at last.
“Erin left us.” Rose pointed up the street in the direction towards Legacy Hospital.
“Then we better get moving.” Jason took slow, painful steps at first with his arm slung over Rose’s shoulder.
Together they made their way to the corner. By now, the sounds of grenades and gunfire had ended. However, now the screams of the dying and the moans of the undead had filled in the silence of a city that was spiraling into the abyss of total loss. Portland, Oregon would fall to the zombies. Of that there could be no doubt.
By the time that they reached the entrance to the parking lot, they had passed at least a dozen people going the other direction. All of them were looking over their shoulders in horror. A few simply stumbled by in absolute shock, their faces void of anything resembling emotion. In many cases, they could have been mistaken for the undead.
“Stay close,” Jason whispered.
It was practically a needless request since Rose had pressed herself against him once they began to encounter the living stragglers. The symphony of pain and panic continued to come at irregular intervals from the gigantic hospital complex.
As they neared, strange lumpy figures became visible. It took Jason a moment to realize that he was seeing the broken bodies of people who had leapt to their deaths. His eyes tracked up to some of the top floors and noticed at least a dozen windows that had been busted out. He seemed to recall someplace that hospital windows were not just regular glass. He might have been wrong, but that did not diminish the fact that people had chosen to plummet to their deaths rather than face whatever was inside that large brick building.
The doors to the emergency entrance were gone. Actually, Jason corrected himself, that was only partially true. A small car had driven into the large double-doors. It had apparently backed out at least partway; presumably to allow the occupants the ability to exit the vehicle. Of course, if it had been bad when he’d left so many hours ago, he could not imagine that it had gotten better.
“Umm…” Rose was tugging on his sleeve.
&nb
sp; Jason swiveled to look in the direction that the woman pointed. Coming across the parking lot were five individuals in some sort of body armor. They were coming at a sprint and waving for everybody to flee. In the midst of these people, Erin was running beside a woman with short red hair.
“Come on,” Jason urged as he tugged at Rose’s arm.
“But that’s Erin.” Rose tried to pull away as she pointed emphatically with her free hand.
“Yes, and she is waving us away. I have a bad feeling about—”
Before he could complete that sentence, there was a tremendous explosion from just down the gradual slope and around the corner of the hospital. A ball of fire rose straight up. It poked out and roiled from black smoke and a grayish cloud that matched the fire’s race skyward. Second later, huge chunks of rock and metal began to rain down on the parking lot.
The sounds of heavy impacts smashing the hoods, roofs, and windshield of the various cars in the lot added to the cacophony of ear-splitting noise. Jason gave Rose a yank and then started away as fast as he could limp on his injured ankle.
***
Rose sat in the back of the Volkswagen Beetle. If her car had been old, this thing was beyond ancient. However, it had been the car that Jason had hotwired for them. When Rose had asked why they didn’t try one of the newer, nicer vehicles in the parking lot of the brick Baptist church where he had led them as they fled the explosion and resulting fire that now raged a few blocks away at the hospital, his reply had been another in a string of revelations.
“Newer cars are not really prone to being hotwired as easily as older cars,” he explained. “I would not even know where to begin. Old cars are easy. Plus, they can take more punishment.”
That had been good enough for Rose. She turned her attention to Erin and the tall, much-too-skinny woman standing beside her. Her hair was that sort of orange that reminded her of Pippi Longstocking. It was cut short in a very fashionable style that hovered just above the shoulders. Her eyes were a hazel that swirled with flecks of gold and her skin did not look like it had ever seen the sun.