2 Days to Live: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

by Phil Maxey

  She looked up into the multiple floors above them and ascended, both of them pushing their modified arms and legs to their limits to climb as high and fast as they could. Landings flashed by, with names and numbers of floors stenciled on the empty patches of wall until finally they arrived at the top.

  Instead of opening the door, Joan looked back down over the guardrail to the lower floors. “I think we’re good.” She turned and ran to the door and pushed it open. There was a rush of cooler air and Sam knew where they were.

  They stepped out into the underground parking garage and just a hundred-feet away from the SUV they have driven there in. Sam’s heart jumped. She was shaking as they ran towards it, her legs having the consistency of jello and collapsed against the passenger’s door and fumbled to open it.

  Joan unlocked it from the inside and pushed it open. Sam staggered forward, falling onto the seat and struggled to lift her arm to close the door but did so, just before the truck surged backwards in an arc.

  “I can’t believe… we… did it…” Tears ran from her eyes.

  The screeches from the tires echoed off the smooth walls as Joan drove them up a ramp, towards a square of intense light. Sam’s mind was full of questions as to why the former marine who had gone to all that trouble to kidnap her was now helping her escape. Maybe she wasn’t the monster that she seemed to—

  The truck lifted off the ground as they burst from the garage into the early morning light. Snow had been falling and for an instant before the dark mass slammed into the side of the SUV, her mind was filled with the smiling face of her little brother.

  The world was a tumbling blur of pain and screeching. When it stopped she was no longer inside the car, but on the cold wet concrete of the road, looking at her arm bent in the wrong direction.

  A creak of metal warping helped bring her attention to her right. She flipped over, her left arm shooting agony into her shoulder. The SUV was upside down with part of the front missing. The door flew back and out staggered Joan, blood oozing from various lacerations which seemed to be sealing as Sam watched. The older woman looked at the girl on the floor and started to move in her direction, when a screech rang out making her flick her head, back along the road.

  Sam looked in the same direction, her heart sinking on seeing what lurked there. Clumps of legs and arms, held together with torsos that appeared to have no definite form. The things. One of them was walking towards them, becoming more human the closer it got.

  “I won’t let you kill her, Lucas!” screamed Joan at the newly formed being. “I don’t know why you want to do that. That was…” The older woman stopped, pierced by an idea that was obvious now she thought it. “It’s you…”

  The thing which claimed to be Lucas was larger than when Sam last it. A good foot taller, and its clothes were ill fitting amongst arms which had layers upon layers of muscles. More than any bodybuilder she had ever seen.

  He smiled. “So now you know who I am, you will also know that I cannot let you leave with the child.”

  “Why… do you…” Another thought hit Joan, this one more terrifying than learning the identity of the thing in front of her. “You don’t want to fix this mess… you want to—”

  The Lucas creature moved with a speed Sam could hardly believe. A blur which slammed into Joan sending a spray of blood across the powder white street, but Joan somehow survived and transformed, both tumbling into the SUV, spinning it around such was the strength of the impact.

  Run Sam… run…

  Sam couldn’t tell if the voice was inside or outside her mind, but it prompted her to try and stand. As she pushed her right hand into the soft ice, screeches and growls came from near the truck and she looked on, mouth agape at the two things fighting. They had long since given up their human origins and were now two amorphous shapes that swiped and scythed with claws and teeth which appeared and were gone just as quick. One moment Sam thought a giant octopus was attacking a dog headed creature which morphed into a huge human with multiple pincher like limbs which was tangled with a snake?

  Run…

  She backed up, holding her useless left arm, almost tripping up the curb. One of the masses of skin, bone and muscle seemed to be faring worse than the other and it fell back against a tree, making the wood creak.

  It’s Joan… I know it’s…

  The middle-aged woman’s face appeared, just for an instant while other parts fought to stay alive. “Run!”

  Sam turned and staggered across frost-covered grass as a groan then screech rang out behind her. She knew what it meant. It meant they were now coming after her.

  The ground shuddered as things thundered over the snow. Despite one half of her torso burning with pain she surged onto the concrete of a parking lot, dodging round cars. The dark enclave of a building was ahead of her, blocking all other routes. Her only hope was the entrance door would be open.

  She crashed up against it, the reinforced glass barrier swinging back and ran into a large glistening corporate lobby. Large paper boards held images of DNA with smiling scientists in cliched white coats. She smashed into one, then a shelf full of leaflets, extolling the benefits of what Biochron had given the world.

  Light bounced off a glossy floor and counter as she ran into a hallway, running past doors to offices as glass shattered like electricity somewhere behind, but she kept on running, arriving at a final door, pushing it open and running up the stairs.

  “He’s not going to get me… not going to… get… me…” She kept repeating the mantra under her breath as anger fueled her ascent. Soon she was at the top floor of the three-story building, then climbed higher, pushing open a door and coming out onto a snow-covered roof.

  She immediately noticed the spires of central Denver standing proud to the north.

  Home…

  Roars bellowed below from no definite direction, but she could feel them in her mind. Like a nest of ants had taken up residency inside her skull. Spinning around she scoured the roof for an escape route then spotted a possibility. Leaves and branches from a large tree, one of a few which sat near the side of the building, hung over the far side of the roof. Without hesitation she ran forward then winced from the pain jolting through her body with every step. Forcing herself to the wall, she looked over the side. Amazingly, apart from a few vehicles the parking lot was clear. In the building below doors and flimsy walls were being dismantled by angry things, bent on finding their prey.

  “Not going—” She reached up with her good hand, grabbing hold of a strong looking branch. “— to get… me!” She leaped from the wall, swinging her legs up and wrapping her ankles around the branch, which lowered a few feet with a creak of wood. For a moment her heart missed a beat as she thought the branch would keep on bending and break but instead she bounced gently up and down. The sounds of monstrous things weren’t far. Pulling her feet towards her, then away she awkwardly drew herself to the thicker part of the branch then stood near the trunk and looked down, twenty or so feet to the ground. She thought about jumping. She was stronger than she used to be, maybe she would—

  The exit to the roof crashed open and something vaguely human in form emerged. She looked on in horror as a featureless man ran towards her.

  “Not going to get me!” She stepped off the branch, falling while trying to catch what branches she could to slow her fall, but was only partially successful and hit the snow-covered mud hard and rolled forward. For a moment the immense pain from her arm curtailed any further effort to escape certain death, but the sound from the roof above spurred her back to her feet and she broke into a run. Her target was the woods beyond the nearby road and pond, but she only took a few steps before seeing the gold-colored sedan and its open door.

  Keys… please be keys…

  A memory pinged of the smell of coffee and dewy grass and being with her mother on a frosty morning, almost a year ago. They were both sitting in her parent’s old car and as promised for her birthday she was going to get her fi
rst driving lesson. Two hours shot by feeling like minutes and by the end she had at least some grasp of how to drive.

  She flung open the passenger’s door and almost wept in relief on seeing the keys dangling from the ignition. Clambering across the seat, she turned them. The engine fired up then spluttered as she quickly got in position then slid the stick into drive and hit the gas.

  For a fraction of a moment her mind couldn’t understand why she wasn’t moving forward, because her foot was all the way down, but then she looked in the mirror and saw… him. His smile was wrapped onto a jaw too large for his skull, as were his bulging eyes and his arm, three times wider than natural was below where she could see.

  “No…”

  She pushed the gas down again and again, rocking back and forth hoping her motion would be enough to dislodge the claw or talon holding the vehicle in place.

  “Please! Come on!”

  Just before her world turned black she heard the sound of the rear window fracturing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  9: 10 a.m. Highway 63. Powell’s Diner.

  “I hate her!” said Josh through the door to Rufus’s living room. He continued but his words became lost within sobs.

  Meg placed a hand on the bare wood frame, its varnish only remaining in a few patches. “They’re coming back, Josh. You know your—”

  The door rattled from a fist or a foot, she wasn’t sure. “You don’t know that! They have left me, again! Why…” More sobs seeped through gaps. “Why didn’t they want to take me with them… Everyone dies…”

  Meg let out a long breath and swallowed her own sadness for the boy just a foot away. Someone cleared their throat behind her in the hallway. She turned around to Brad.

  “Let me try,” he said under his breath. He took her place and leaned in. “Hey buddy.” Silence came from the other side. “I need your help in the diner. There are people coming from the school and Rufus wants to get the diner back up and running. Can you help?”

  There was a pause before Josh replied. “I know you’re just saying that to get me to leave this room…”

  “I am. But Agatha’s driving me crazy. We’re short of hands out here.” Brad looked at Meg who nodded with a smile to him. They both heard the sigh and the living room door opened. Josh’s eyes were red, his hair scruffier than usual.

  Brad put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There are meant to be some families arriving, with kids your own age.” Josh remained silent but followed Brad out of the front door and down the steps. Meg watched them walk across the snow-covered ground towards the larger building as the floorboards from the kitchen creaked. Syd ran up to the open door.

  “Get back here!” shouted Rufus to his dog, walking to Meg’s side. “Got the boy out then.”

  Meg frowned. “Yup. But he’s right. I basically pleaded with Jess to stay, but… well that didn’t work out.”

  “Trust in the… Just trust things happen for a reason.”

  Meg kept watching as Josh and Brad walked inside the diner. “Never have believed in the big picture kind of world view.”

  “You don’t believe in an afterlife? I have heard you talk to someone when you thought you were alone. Someone called Liam?”

  Meg turned, walking back towards the kitchen. “You got what you need for the diner? Daryl told me on the radio that there are a lot of hungry folks on the way here.”

  “Yes, Arlo’s in the kitchen in the diner, getting the oven warmed up. We have enough ingredients that haven’t gone bad to make several pizzas.”

  Meg poured herself some water and looked out over the yard at the back then the fields and trees beyond.

  Did you find them, Jess…

  As she heard Rufus go into the living room she thought about the child in the diner and the others.

  “Too old…” she whispered to herself. Kids never happened for her and Liam, which was part plan and part life. But here she was, middle-aged and four kids to look after? Oh, and there was that small point of the world having ended. She shook her head and took another sip wishing it was something stronger.

  “Where are you, Jess…”

  *****

  9: 33 a.m. School of Bowlands.

  Esther looked at the small map they had found of the town, then handed it back to Jess who placed it in the backpack they had retrieved from the truck. They with Landon, Sanchez and Lachlan were standing at the bottom of the main stairwell. The morning sun lit the hallway and classrooms around them and groans from outside penetrated the walls and windows.

  Esther nodded to herself. “Okay, I think I got it. There’s a road that heads south. Takes you to the town of Newgrove. If it’s clear of the thing’s I’ll wait there, if not I’ll go on to the next town and keep going until I find somewhere I can wait. Hopefully you find your kid and get back to me before dark. If not…”

  “We’ll be back,” said Sanchez. “You really think I’m going to leave Bertha behind, after all the work I put into her?”

  Esther smiled then glanced at the woman by her side. She looked back to Sanchez and the teen. “Let’s make sure the path is clear…”

  “Er… okay,” said Lachlan. He walked past the gray lockers with them, looking over his shoulder as he went.

  Landon looked at his wife. “This is going to work. We’re going to find Sam.”

  She let out a breath while looking down.

  “What? We can do—”

  “I have to go alone…”

  Landon’s head jolted as if it had just been punched. His expression then turned to confusion. “What are you talking about? We’re doing this togeth—”

  “Josh needs at least one parent!”

  The anger that came with her words almost made him take a step back.

  “I’m sorry…” Her demeanor relaxed slightly. “I didn’t mean…” He stepped in closer, but she shook her head stopping him. “I know about your hand.” She met his eyes with her teary own. “They might have doctors back west—” Now it was his turn to look away. “— Someone who can help you!”

  He turned back. “You can’t do this alone! I know you’re different… stronger and all that, but this is different, Jess. There’s a whole city of those things that you’re going into!”

  Her face was now one less of anger and more of sympathy. “Landon… He needs one of us to get through this…”

  Landon looked away again, also shaking his head.

  “I need you to go with Esther. And if we don’t return, find your way back east, to the diner and the School. Meg, Daryl… They’re good people. You and the others can start again once all this is over. But I have to go on alone. I’ll find her Landon, I swear to you. And I’ll do everything I can to bring her back.”

  He stood in silence, resistance having already left him. He knew she was right. “You can’t trust him.”

  “Sanchez?”

  “Yup.”

  “I know. I’m not planning to. But I need him to get me where I need to go.”

  “And getting out?”

  “One problem at a time…”

  Landon snorted then swallowed. He moved forward and embraced his wife. “I love you.”

  She held him tight. “I love you too. We’ll all be together soon.”

  “I know.”

  They pulled apart then walked towards the others who were trying not to watch.

  “So I take it one of you is coming with me and Lachlan?” said Esther.

  “We head south as planned,” said Landon.

  “Can’t say I’m complaining about having more company. But I get to choose what CD’s we play.”

  Landon nodded with a brief smile.

  Sanchez looked at Jess. “You ready to do this?”

  She nodded.

  He looked at the door to the basement. “Alright then.”

  “Umm,” said Lachlan to Jess, she paused as the others moved inside.

  “Yes?”

  “I know this is dumb to say, because she’s your daugh
ter and all that but…”

  Jess smiled and briefly squeezed his shoulder. He grimaced a little but then smiled as well. “I’ll bring her back. Don’t doubt it.”

  “I can still come with—”

  “You know that’s not possible. You’re still not fully healed…”

  He frowned.

  “I’ll see you later today, okay?”

  He nodded and they quickly made their way through the door and down the dark steps. The machinery that had once kept the air con functioning was dormant and they moved swiftly past the pipes and electrical wiring, arriving with the others at another door and staircase.

  Sanchez opened it and listened. “They don’t seem too close. This might actually work.”

  Jess was also using her own more enhanced senses and confirmed what he said. She nodded. “The closest one is maybe… fifty-feet away, or closer behind a building, I’m not sure. We should go now.”

  Sanchez did a bad job of hiding his frown, then nodded and they all moved to the top of the stairs, to the final door. Blue sky was visible through the small glass window. He looked out.

  “What’s it like?” said Landon.

  The parking lot they had run across when it was still dark, looked smaller in the daylight and beyond the gate and fence, Bertha and the pickup sat looking unharmed by the creatures that had been patrolling around them. There was no sign of anything to be fearful of in the sunbathed street, or within the nearby trees and single-story homes but they could all hear them. Groans, growls and the sounds of backyards being disturbed.

  Sanchez nodded to himself. “Looks clear.” He slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open. All five felt the rush of cool air as he pushed it further and stepped onto the frosty concrete path. The sounds drifting on the light wind also increased, giving them some idea of where possible danger lay.

  Lachlan nodded towards a pale wooden home, on the other side of the road behind an overgrown lawn and a rusting pickup. “There’s something behind that house.”