N87 Virus | Book 1 | After the Outbreak

by Kadin, Karri

  She pulled off into a shaded area behind some trees to eat her lunch. She reviewed her notes and the map and realized to get to her next spot she had to travel through a highly infected area or take the long way that would add days to her journey and take her through Collector territory. As she ate some dried fruit and debated her options she glimpsed a black truck that was definitely the one from earlier. It was a few streets over from her and driving slowly. Her heart pounded and her stomach contracted into a giant nauseating knot. This was not a coincidence. Let’s see how badly they want to follow me. She shoved the dry fruit back into her backpack, set her gun and a box of bullets on the seat next to her, and headed in the direction of the old fire road Dave had marked on her map. Collectors wouldn’t be guarding it, it would take her to the next town she needed to visit, but most importantly it would take her right into the Infected.

  Chapter Twelve

  Allison

  Dave had warned Allison that the fire road had not been maintained for years and would be a risk to drive down. He had given her some lessons in truck repair before she left and made sure she had the tools she would need to keep the truck going. He had not exaggerated about the road condition, if it could even be called a road anymore. The outline was still visible, but some holes were so large that if Allison drove into them the truck would never get out. She carefully navigated to avoid damaging the truck. Gigantic trees had fallen on the road over the years, but thankfully Allison could drive around them with the truck’s four-wheel drive. Allison heard a sound like someone yelling. She cracked the window so she could hear it more clearly. Someone was definitely yelling. To her left through the trees she saw someone running toward her, frantically waving his arms. He was maybe in his thirties with a large pack on his back.

  “Please help me! Stop, stop!” he screamed as he burst from the woods into the cleared valley. He tore through the tall grass, running full speed toward Allison, arms pumping like a track star, his face twisted in terror.

  Two Infected erupted from the woods beyond the valley, their bare bodies like streaks of white lightning across the green landscape. The lead Infected veered toward the man and the other one followed. Their rail-thin bodies scurried and gained quickly on their prey. The Infecteds’ eyes focused on the man, completely ignoring Allison’s truck as it bumped along. The lead Infected reared its head back as it released a piercing screech that sent chills down Allison’s spine.

  She hit the brakes and the old truck jerked in response before it came to an abrupt halt as a third Infected emerged from the woods. She threw the truck into park but left it running. Allison opened the door with an unsteady hand as the beat of her pulse filled her ears, threatening to make her deaf. Breathe, just breathe. This is not the time to lose your shit. Allison grabbed her pistol, racked a bullet into the chamber, and leapt from the truck in one fluid motion. The familiar burn pulsated in her stomach as her body’s senses jolted to attention. Sweat covered her clammy hands as she gripped her pistol tight, her hands still shaking.

  “Drop your bag! They’re right behind you!” Allison screamed to the man. Allison’s body throbbed with excitement like a kid on Christmas morning. Her hair stood on end as the heat grew in her belly, pushing its way outward.

  The man’s backpack was not only secured with the shoulder straps but also had strips around his torso that clipped at the chest. He fumbled with the clip, but it wouldn’t budge. The man’s face contorted with fear and frustration as he struggled with his pack while trying to maintain his speed.

  Allison’s mouth watered at the fear on his face. She shook her head, pushing away the desire to make the man scream, and refocused her attention on the Infected.

  The lead Infected dove and seized the backpack. They both tumbled to the ground, disappearing from view. Allison raised her pistol, aimed, and fired, hitting the second Infected. Its body jolted back as the bullet tore into its chest. It fell and vanished in the tall grass.

  The lead Infected climbed onto the man. The tall grass made getting a clear shot impossible. Allison’s eyes darted between the frenzied struggle in the grass and the straggler Infected running toward the fight.

  The man screamed on his back and pushed up on the Infected’s chest, trying to free himself. The Infected held the man’s chest straps, pulling itself forward, jaws snapping at the man’s face. Allison moved forward with her gun raised and fired again, but missed. Damn it!

  Her heart raced as the burn engulfed her body. Every beat of her heart sent a fiery jolt through her veins. Saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes locked on the back of the lead Infected. Allison’s body moved toward the ensuing battle. The world around her became a blur as she broke into a run, her eyes darted between the two remaining Infected, her prey. She raised her gun, continuing to fire as she moved forward.

  Her eighth shot hit the straggler Infected right as it reached the backpack man, and let out an ear-piercing scream. She fired again hitting it right in the chest sending it crashing to the ground.

  The lead Infected sunk its teeth into the man’s face. It pulled away, a chunk of bloody flesh in its mouth, blood running down its chin. The backpack man screamed in pain and beat his fists against the Infected’s head. The man’s legs kicked upward trying to dislodge the Infected from on top of him. Allison aimed at the last Infected and pulled the trigger, but it just clicked. She looked down at the open rack, no bullet. She ejected the magazine, empty. She dropped the gun and ran toward the man.

  I have to help him. The Infected looked up at her, its face covered in chunks of meat and skin. She made eye contact with it, and it flashed her a bloody smile. An inner fire consumed her as pure hate engulfed every inch of her being. She lunged, slamming into the Infected’s back, propelling it forward.

  She landed on top of it ten feet from where they started. Rage burned and pulsated under her skin as if trying to escape through her flesh from the core of her. The Infected wedged its legs between itself and Allison as she tried to pin it down and thrust them out, throwing Allison onto her back. It climbed onto her and its jaws snapped at her face as she squeezed its throat with her hands, keeping it pushed away from her. Allison’s body burned, and rage consumed her. A growl escaped her lips as she tightened her grasp on the Infected’s neck and pulled its face a mere inch from her own.

  “Get the fuck off me!” Allison snarled and cast her arms out, hurling the Infected into a bush.

  She bounded to her feet, picking up a thick, broken tree branch. Allison glanced up and saw the Infected surge through the brush, scurrying toward her. She lifted the branch and swung.

  A loud crack rang out as the branch made contact with the Infected’s head, and it collapsed to the ground. Allison gasped for air, trying to catch her breath as the rush of heat subsided and the rage melted back into her core.

  She looked down at the Infected, perplexed by what she saw. It was just a body; the neck where the head should have been was just a bloody, jagged hole, the nub of its spine a sickening yellow.

  Allison looked down at her hand. Blood speckled her skin. She gazed down the shaft of the branch until her eyes landed on the end. Half of the shaft was gone, replaced with newly exposed wood stained deep red. Blood dripped from it, landing like raindrops. Tissue adorned the point like tulle draped from a wedding arch. She threw it down and ran to the backpack man. His eyes were glazed over, still rimmed with tears, and fixed on the sky. A cavernous hole in his neck so large Allison could see through to the grass below accompanied his missing cheek. She stared at the pool of blood as her pulse slowed to normal.

  The rumble of a vehicle startled Allison back into action. They followed me. She tried to get the backpack off the man but the chest clips wouldn’t release for her either. She glimpsed a knife on his belt. She pulled it from its cover and jerked upward, slicing through the straps, freeing the bag from its former owner’s corpse. She rolled him over and slipped the bag off his back.

  “I’m sorry. I tried to
help you. I’m so sorry.” She lightly ran her hand over his eyes, closing them before she stood and darted back to her truck, stopping only to snatch up her gun and empty magazine.

  She hopped behind the steering wheel, tossing the backpack to the floorboard on the passenger’s side. She shifted the truck into gear and raced off down the road as tears blurred her vision. She used some towels to wipe away the sticky gore from her exposed skin while she quickly examined her body for injuries, finding none.

  How did I knock its head off? How much force does it take to do something like that? The incident at Sandra and Dave’s with the table and door came roaring to the front of her mind. She had hoped it was a fluke. This proved it wasn’t. Allison was different now. The girl who considered shopping at the mall cardio, the girl who struggled to carry her chem book, intro to business book, and laptop at the same time, now had super strength. She could literally knock someone’s head off with one swing.

  Gabby would get a hoot out of this. Gabby would compare her to Spider-Man and plan out how to use Allison’s strength for good. Before all this, back when the world was normal, Gabby would often tease Allison about her lack of any athletic ability. Physical tasks were never Allison’s thing and now that she was more than capable of doing them it was just one more thing to mark her as different. Different from Gabby, different from who she was before, different from everyone. The last thing she wanted was to be different. Allison did not want to be one of those former Infected that people talked about in quiet voices, debating back and forth about whether the rumors of special abilities were true or false. She just wanted to be normal. But the days of normal were long gone.

  As she drove she glimpsed Infected in the distance, but none of them headed in her direction and she continued to drive. They must have learned long ago that they can’t catch vehicles. She exited the fire road, merging onto a paved street as she consulted her map. Her hands trembled as she traced the lines. She needed a safe place to rest.

  Allison found a rest area obscured from the road by overgrowth. She pulled in just as the sky turned a dusky orange and the sun sank beneath the horizon. She parked the truck behind an abandoned RV, making sure it wasn’t visible to anyone who pulled in after her. Then she cracked down her window and listened. No sounds. No Infected, no people, no black truck. The sky faded to black and she drifted off to sleep.

  Allison startled awake to the rumble of an engine. The fog of sleep clouded her mind as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. Headlights pierced through the trees ahead and then disappeared as an engine cut off. They’re here.

  Allison grasped the gun on the seat next to her. Shit, it’s empty. Voices whispered on the other side of the RV and small lights flickered as the bodies belonging to the voices rounded the side. Allison was blinded by the bright lights, unable to see the faces of the people in front of her.

  “Step out of the vehicle,” a man’s voice boomed.

  Allison felt for her keys still seated in the ignition and turned. The old truck’s engine revved to life.

  “Stop now!” screamed another man.

  Allison jerked the gear shift into reverse and hit the gas, flying back away from the men with bright lights. The men advanced as Allison turned the wheel of the truck to the left, angling it toward the rest stop exit. The men charged the side of the truck as Allison moved the gear into drive and hit the gas. One man in all-black Collector garb grasped the passenger door handle and popped it open as Allison pushed the pedal to the floor. He lost his hold and tumbled to the ground. The door flung open and then slammed shut as Allison accelerated. She exited the rest area and glanced in her rearview mirror. The men scramble to get to their truck. She kept the old truck’s gas pedal to the floor. Her body trembled as she held the wheel with white knuckles. She kept her eyes locked on her rearview mirror in search of headlights, occasionally glancing out the windshield to see what was ahead of her. The road was empty, surrounded by black forest, framed by dreary skies. Who are those people? What do they want? Then the answer slammed into her like a sumo wrestler’s winning blow: Dr. Neff. It has to be Dr. Neff. Her cheeks glistened as tears flowed down them. Allison wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and kept driving.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Allison

  Allison awoke as daylight peeked through the trees, the sun barely above the ground. The small digital clock near her head chimed out and she hit the off button. She sat up and looked out the window. The forest was still. She listened at her cracked window to the music of birds. No engines, no people, just birds. She cautiously unlocked her door and popped it open. She froze, listening. Nothing but birds.

  She climbed from her seat and began pulling off the branches that were covering the truck, dropping them to the ground. She then removed the camo tarp and went to clear a path for the truck to exit its hidden forest of solitude. It had been a tight squeeze getting the truck into the trees the night before. Allison sandwiched it in so tightly the passenger side door couldn’t be opened. This wasn’t an area made for vehicles, but thankfully Old Blue had made it in.

  She pulled away the dead branches she’d used to hide the slight opening from the road. Her stomach grumbled as she worked. Allison pulled an apple from her bag. Apple Acre Farm and little Jake’s bloody arm shot to the front of her mind. He just wanted to give me an apple. She stared down at the red, shiny surface before tossing it into the woods and pulled out a thin protein bar instead. She munched on her breakfast as she finished her work, got back in the truck, and pulled onto the road, stomach still rumbling.

  She drove a few miles before she saw the sign for the town she was looking for. It depicted a sun wearing glasses and a smile. “Welcome to Comfort, Population 6,000.” As soon as Allison drove into town, she knew she was in the right place. Everything seemed so familiar. Then she saw it, just as it had been in her flashback, sans the family and other Infected. Her heart pounded and her stomach turned, threatening to regurgitate the little sustenance it had received that morning.

  A little white midsize car sat in the center of the road, the back driver’s side door open. Allison parked the truck next to the car and looked around to be sure no one else was near. She reloaded the pistol and placed it in her waistband before exiting the truck. She strolled around the car observing every dent, scuff, and blood smear. Allison ran her hand down the side of the car, wiping away a layer of dried blood and dirt. It had been sitting vacant awhile, but even the rain hadn’t been able to wash away all the traces of the tragedy. Allison glanced at her blood and dirt covered hand. Whose blood is it? The father? The mother? One of the children? She held back tears as she wiped her hand on her jeans.

  She looked in the back seat through the open door. There were two child’s size duffle bags. One was bright green with “John” embroidered on it in yellow. The other was red with “James” in blue. John and James. Her mind raced back to the terrified faces of the children on top of the car. Her stomach twisted into a knot, and sweat beaded across her forehead.

  Butterflies danced in her gut, flying up to her throat, making swallowing even saliva difficult. On the ground at the open door sat a stuffed penguin with blood-marred fur. Allison swallowed, but the butterflies kept coming.

  She opened the driver-side door and sat in the seat, trying to imagine the fear the driver felt when they were surrounded. No one should die like this. She clenched the steering wheel, staring in the rearview mirror as she imagined the panicky children’s faces looking back at her. Her face drained of color as she heaved to the side, losing her protein bar all over the street and door. Allison wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before taking a drink from her canteen.

  Was the mom or dad driving? Were they from this town or just passing through trying to flee from the hordes of Infected? Allison looked in the center console and found a cell phone decorated with a pink sparkly case.

  “Phone on,” Allison said. Her glassy reflection looked back at her. She tried again, “Phone
on.” Nothing. She double tapped the screen, still nothing. The battery was long dead. She carefully placed it back in the spot she found it.

  She dug through some papers to the bottom of the console, uncovering an address book with gold lettering on a blue cover. She opened the stiff pages, carefully turning to the front page, and read, “This book belongs to Alisha Coons.” The address area was blank. She flipped through the book and noticed the addresses filling its pages were from all over the world. This family really got around. Allison’s eyes burned as tears resurfaced. She wiped them away and took a deep breath as she placed the address book back in the console. Where were you from? Allison opened the glove box and found the insurance card. It read, “Brandon and Alisha Coons.” The address was a P.O. box in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Not from here. Another dead end. She tossed the insurance card onto the passenger seat as she leaned her head on the steering wheel. I have no way to get to Pennsylvania or any of the places in that fucking address book. How am I supposed to make amends with this family? Allison picked up the card and put it back into the glove box.

  She popped the trunk and walked around to the back of the car. Allison lifted the trunk open and her foot hit something under the back of the car. What the hell? She kneeled down, resting her knees on rough bits of pavement. Right under the tail end of the car was a bat. The bat from her flashback. As Allison pulled it out with trembling hands, she heard the clatter of things moving. She positioned her body flat on her stomach and looked under the car. There lay a heap of dark bones aged by years of exposure to the elements. A small skeleton. Her breath burned in her throat, and guilt clenched her windpipe, threatening to choke her. There was no denying it was the remains of a child.