Aberdeen

by James Bierce

  "Did you have any pets before all of this?" Christine asks quietly, seeing a few people further down the road, walking away from them.

  "We had some goldfish in a pond, and my son had a tarantula that I hated."

  "What happened to them?"

  "The fish are still in the pond as far as I know — but we turned the spider loose before we left. Hopefully it's dead by now."

  "I always wanted a cat, but my dad…" She stops in mid-sentence, feeling Rachel pull on her sleeve as she points down a cross street.

  "There's a man down there, and I think he's watching us," Rachel whispers, keeping the same walking speed as before.

  Confirming her suspicions — as soon as the two of them reach the middle of the intersection, with only another block to the bank, the man starts picking up rocks and pieces of loose brick from the sidewalk and throwing them in their direction, but missing wildly. Christine aims her gun at the guy as they hurry toward the next building for shelter, but Rachel motions for her to lower the weapon.

  "He's not gonna hit us throwing like that — just ignore him," she tells the girl. "Don't shoot anybody unless you absolutely have too, there's no telling how many people are within earshot of us."

  Seeing no indication of the man following them, they cross the next intersection without a problem — but right after spotting the sign in front of the bank ahead of them, Christine spots something else lying on the sidewalk just past the front entrance.

  "What is that?" she asks Rachel, pointing straight ahead of them. "It looks like a body — was that there earlier?"

  Rachel holds out her hands and stops both of them, recognizing the clothing immediately. "No, that's the guy from the shed — the guy that saved us."

  "Is he dead?"

  "It looks that way." She looks around the area closely, knowing that there's a good chance that the old man could be nearby — but the only people she can see is the growing crowd of infected wandering around down by the harbor. "Stay here for a minute," she says, leaving Christine behind as she sneaks quietly down the sidewalk with her gun pulled out — stopping just short of the first bank window. She can hear talking inside, and when she peeks through the glass she sees Curtis tied to a chair on one side of the lobby, and another man slapping him across the face and yelling at him. She looks around at the rest of the bank and sees nobody around, then she slowly backs away and returns to where she left Christine.

  "What'd you see?" Christine asks.

  "That old bastard has Curtis tied up — we need to get him out fast."

  "How do we do that?"

  Rachel thinks for a moment, looking at a line of cars parked across the street from the bank, and then at the people down the road. Finally, she pulls her radio out and glances at it quickly, then holds it out and offers it to Christine. "One of us has to get his attention, and the other has to shoot him. Do you have much experience killing people?"

  "Not really, no," Christine says, taking the radio from her. "What do I have to do?"

  "Sneak up to that window and wait for my signal, which will be a thumbs up — then turn the radio to alarm and run like hell. You can hide around that last corner."

  "Where will you be?"

  "I'll be hiding behind that car across the street. As soon as he comes out, I'll shoot him."

  "And what if I can't make it around the corner in time?"

  "Just set the radio close enough to the corner to make it work — it doesn't have to be right in front of him." She waits for Christine to nod her lukewarm approval, then she points at the alarm switch on the radio. "Just flip that switch — but make sure you wait for my signal, okay?"

  "Okay, I got it."

  Keeping low to the ground, Rachel jogs down to the first car that's parked across the street from the bank, watching the windows of the building closely to make sure she isn't seen. A light is coming from inside the lobby that wasn't there before, and she can see a lantern burning on top of a desk just a few feet from where Curtis is tied up. The old man is standing over it, warming his hands as he continues talking to his captive. She glances to her left, where the infected are still several blocks away, and then back to Christine, who's kneeling down about thirty feet from the front entrance of the bank. Rachel closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, then opens them again and gives a thumbs up to Christine, who then sets the radio down onto the pavement and turns the alarm on, which blasts out a loud siren that echoes throughout the entire section of town.

  The alarm is louder than Rachel anticipated, and her immediate fear as she watches Christine run for her life back up the hill, is that it might attract too much attention during a time when the infected are gathering in numbers. Seconds later, she sees the door to the bank fly open, and the old man exits with a rifle in his hands, taking only a short glimpse at the radio before he looks around at the rest of the surroundings — spotting Rachel easily as she stands up and aims her pistol at him, firing several shots before he has an opportunity to defend himself. Her first couple of shots miss him entirely, hitting the brick wall behind him instead — but the next one hits him in the left shoulder, followed by another one that strikes his abdomen just below his sternum. He fires off a quick shot of his own as he falls back against the brick, holding the rifle with only his right hand, but the bullet flies clear over her head. Seeing him drop the rifle and grab for his handgun instead, Rachel fires twice more, but misses both times, causing her to duck behind the car as he points his own pistol at her and unloads several rounds into the vehicle.

  She can hear more gunshots coming from further away, which she can only assume are coming from Christine's weapon — but when she looks down the street she can't see any sign of her. Hearing some loud, painful moans coming from across the street, she waits a few moments after the last gunshot to peek around the car tire, and sees the man slumped down into a seated position with his hands at his side. His head is slumped too, but she can see his chest heaving as his lungs take in the cold, damp evening air.

  After taking another look up the road to the north, where she still sees nothing, Rachel rises to her feet and slowly approaches the disabled man — then she carefully aims her gun at him again and sends another bullet into his chest, which elicits absolutely no reaction from him. Hearing footsteps to her right, she sees a disheveled Christine appear from around the corner, her jacket and face covered with blood as she walks in a trance-like movement down the sidewalk.

  "Are you okay?" Rachel asks. "Are you hurt?"

  The man suddenly moves his hand and raises his gun into the air, causing Rachel to jump back and pull the trigger once more before the magazine runs out of ammunition — but his arm continues to lift his pistol, until the muzzle of it is pressed firmly against the side of his head. An instant later, a shot is fired, and his body falls completely to the ground.

  With shaking hands, Rachel loads another clip into her gun, then turns to a frightened looking Christine who walks carefully around the newly formed stream of blood on the sidewalk. "Christine, are you okay?"

  "I'm fine — it's not my blood," she responds, staring past Rachel and toward the harbor instead. "We should get inside, they're coming this way."

  Rachel spins around, and sees a small group of people walking up the hill toward them — but the larger crowd behind them is also looking their way. "Grab the rifle," Rachel tells her, as she reaches down and snatches the two pistols from the old man. "We might be here for a while."

  CHAPTER 26

  Aberdeen: March 31st

  Retreating into the living room with her sons, Sarah aims her pistol at the sliding glass door and waits for the knocking to continue, then cocks her gun when it finally does. What started out as a friendly rapping has now turned into a violent assault on the door, and she's afraid of what might happen if they actually manage to break the glass panes.

  Matt is standing beside her with a gun himself, and Ben is sitting on the couch behind them, armed with an aluminum baseball bat that he found in t
he closet of the back bedroom.

  "Why can't we shoot through the glass?" Matt asks, his voice shaky with fear.

  "Because we'll be left with no protection at all. Besides, we need to make as little noise as possible, so we don't arouse any attention from the neighborhood."

  "Who's outside?"

  The voice startles Sarah, who quickly points her gun at the hallway and sees Larry standing there with a bottle of water in his hand. "Jesus, Larry, I almost shot you!" Sarah yells, turning her attention back to the door. "I didn't even see you get up…"

  "Yeah, clearly — but who's at the door?"

  "One of those things I'm guessing," she answers.

  "I think it might have followed me," Matt says. "I went outside for just a minute to see if that family had a gun with them when they died."

  "Well, they're gonna wake up the neighborhood if they keep this up." Larry motions for Ben to hand over the baseball bat, then he checks his sidearm for ammo and puts his coat back on.

  "Where're you going?" Sarah asks him.

  "To take care of it. Wait here, I'll be back in a minute."

  "You must be feeling better…"

  "Not really, I feel like shit," he says, still limping badly.

  He leaves through the front door, and a minute later they hear the rusty hinges on the metal gate beside the house creaking as they're forced open. Then they hear Larry's voice behind the house, bringing an end to the constant banging on the glass — but the noise is soon replaced with a sharp thud, followed by another. Sarah rushes to the sliding glass door and looks out through the curtains, seeing Larry standing over a small-framed man who's lying on the ground with his arms raised into the air in a defensive stance — and when she closes the drapes again and turns around, she hears more hits as Larry continues the beating.

  "Is Larry okay?" Ben asks.

  "He's fine, he's just making sure the guy can't hurt us."

  "What if they're healthy?"

  "They aren't."

  "Yeah, but they could be. Maybe they just need our help…"

  "Ben, listen to me…" she says, in as soft and soothing of a tone as she can muster under the circumstances. "Nobody in his right mind would just beat on someone's door like that, especially not anymore — and he also has bruises all over his body."

  In truth, she didn't see the man well enough to tell whether he had bruises or not, but she was hoping the innocent lie would be enough to ease Ben's conscience. After the sound of the assault stops, they hear the gate open once again, and then they see Larry dragging what's left of the frail man across the front yard and down the street.

  "Where is he taking him?" Matt asks.

  "He's probably afraid he'll attract too much attention," Sarah answers.

  "From who?"

  "From anything that wants to eat him."

  They watch as he disappears from sight, walking further into the neighborhood that extends up the hill past the hospital. When he returns a few minutes later, he's busy wiping his face and hands with a sanitizing wipe, followed by the bat and his shoes — then he simply tosses the contaminated wipe onto the pavement and continues along the pathway to the house. At one time, not so long ago, littering like that would've enraged Sarah, especially something filled with so many toxic chemicals — but at this point it seems like an incredibly foolish thing to argue about. Even if he were to throw it in the garbage can next to the house, it's not as though there's anybody around to pick it up anymore.

  He walks in and sets the bat down in the corner of the room beside the door, then takes his coat off and throws it onto the couch. "Any sign of Curtis?" he asks Sarah.

  "No, Rachel and Christine went to the bank to look for him there," she answers back, a little concerned as to what his reaction might be.

  Without saying anything, he walks in front of the window and stares down the hill, and then at the hospital that's still burning in places, with massive streams of smoke rising from the broken windows throughout the entire complex of buildings. "I heard gunshots a few minutes ago, coming from that direction," he finally says.

  "Oh my god…"

  "There were a few different guns going off — did they take a radio along with them?"

  "Yes," she answers, handing him the other handheld radio. "Should one of us go check on them?"

  "Rachel, Christine, are you there?" he says into the radio. When there's no immediate answer, he turns to Sarah again. "How long ago did they leave?"

  "Not long, just before you got up."

  "I'm gonna go outside — I might get a better signal out there."

  "Are you mad?" she asks as he opens the door.

  "I'm too tired to be mad, Sarah — I just want this to be over."

  He steps outside and sits down onto the wet grass, oblivious to the feeling of the cold ground soaking into his pants. "Rachel, Christine, can you read me? This is Larry." He can see the clearing horizon to the west, where the setting sun is painting the remaining clouds a golden color against the blue sky, and sending the last few rays of sunshine into the city of Aberdeen below him. If not for the terrible circumstances, this would be the first pleasant evening of the year, with even the wind blowing across the harbor feeling somewhat warmer than usual — although still bitterly cold by most standards. He also sees numerous silhouettes in front of the hospital, moving through the thick smoke as it rolls out of the doors and windows and into the parking lot next to it.

  He holds the radio up to his mouth again, feeling the dreaded sense of despair wash over him as he speaks into it. "Rachel, Christine, please come in — we're worried about you up here." Waiting another couple of minutes, he then stands up and starts to make his way back to the house, his mind grappling with whether to stay here with Sarah and the boys, or to find out what happened down the hill before it's too late to save anybody.

  "Larry, we're fine, we're with Curtis now. I'll get back to you in a few minutes," he hears from the radio, the voice obviously coming from Rachel.

  Although the bank faces east, Rachel and Christine can see the bright glow of light from the sunset behind them, covering the charred buildings and blackened cars across the street in a brilliant orange hue, and then disappearing completely — leaving the city looking desolate and forsaken once again.

  It's not only the ruined structures and emptiness that makes it feel that way — in fact, the downtown area doesn't feel the slightest bit empty. What roams the avenues and sidewalks throughout the city though, feeding on what little scraps are still left, are no longer the residents that once occupied the houses and apartments — those people are long gone. The infected that remain resemble them physically, but their memories and personalities died shortly after the virus became active, and the living shells that have been left behind are now destroying the last pieces of humanity that survive.

  Rachel has been living in the present now for as long as she can remember, never looking past the next day or two when her head hits the pillow at night. As horrible as the present is, thinking about the past is even worse, each memory a painful reminder of just how much they've all lost. Family and friends, hobbies — and even the relatively unimportant things like television and music. All of them are gone, likely for good — and accepting that unpleasant truth is something that she simply doesn't have the strength to do.

  The most depressing, however, is the future. In all, she's only heard of slightly over a dozen people that survived the virus completely, having never experienced a single symptom. Considering the fact that those same people came from areas as far reaching as the Olympic peninsula, Portland, and the Puget Sound, she has to figure that the odds of living through this were astonishingly low. Even if people were to someday recover, the chances of it happening in her lifetime are practically zilch in her estimation — and the chances of finding happiness again, are even lower yet. It's a discouraging situation to say the least, and one that she hasn't allowed herself much time to think about until quite recently — but as she looks out
across the landscape in front of her, where dozens or more infected are scouring the surrounding buildings for food, she can't help but think that the virus' greatest crime was not being thorough enough.

  "We should probably stay away from the windows," Christine says from behind her, sitting in the dark and away from the dim light coming through the windows. "In fact, you might wanna get some sleep while everything is quiet."

  "When was the last time that you slept?"

  "It's been a while. Every time I close my eyes, I see her staring back at me."

  "Amanda?"

  "No — Beth."

  "I know that must have been horrible, but it was Jake that shot her — you don't have anything to feel guilty about."

  "I didn't pull the trigger, but I wanted to."

  "That's nothing to be ashamed about," Curtis says from behind them, rising from the uncomfortable couch in the corner of the room and into a sitting position. "If we run around feeling guilty about every disgusting thing we do, we'll end up dead just like all of the others."

  "You don't feel the least bit guilty about anything?" Rachel asks him.

  "I'm sure I will someday — but not today, and certainly not when it protects my family."

  "How do you feel?" Christine asks him, as she sits down next to him and checks his various wounds with her flashlight, noticing for the first time the welts and bruises developing all over his face.

  "I have a headache, and my hand hurts like hell."

  "Do you wanna talk to Sarah again?"

  "No, we'd better save the batteries on the radio," he says sleepily, as he struggles to his feet and limps over to a seat beside Rachel. "How many are out there?"

  "They keep passing by," Rachel replies. "Hopefully they'll clear out by morning."