by catt dahman
Hank frowned, “Get out? Outside? How?”
“Well, I suppose the only way is either to mountain climb down or use the van.”
“Van?”
Nick nodded absently at Norman, “In the old barn. I guess that’s the only vehicle, two of them actually. We were supposed to evacuate when this went bad but things came up and….”
“Shut up,” Norman ordered.
Hank pondered the information, “All we have to do is get to the van. Do you have keys, or will we need someone who can hotwire?”
Rudy grumbled drunkenly, “Why’re you looking at me? I may be a redneck, but that don’t mean I can steal cars.”
“Can you or not?”
“Yeah.”
Nick smiled, “I have keys.”
“Hand me the keys,” Norman said.
“They’re mine. Why would I give them to you? Are you going to beat me up for them?”
“I might. Hand them over. Face it, I am more likely to make it than you.”
Nick frowned, “That’s kind of rude.”
“But true,” Norman took the keys, “I plan to get myself and the rest out.”
“Chair legs,” Hank began to flip a table over, and Norman helped; they kicked and wrangled the legs off a table and hefted their weapons, “You just beat their heads in and move on. Never stop running. Nick, draw us a map, and let’s learn the way, in case anyone is separated.”
Nick used a piece of paper and a pen to draw a map. They gathered to watch him draw and point out places. His picture was terrible, but everyone understood his little squiggles and boxes as he explained, “The issue is how to leave here safely and then get from the place we are here to there.”
The bartender, Ed, shrugged, “This is easy. We go into the storeroom, into the hallway, and into the dining area. No problem.”
Hank stilled the urge within himself that made him want to punch Ed for waiting this long to mention the other door. He knew people were dense anyway. If he hit Ed for being stupid, he might as well hit Dallas and Nick as well, “So they stuck you in here with a bunch of infected people, knowing it would be a killing field, and your way out is across the lawn, some of your people are dead, and you’re all just peachy?”
“No, my lip hurts,” Nick narrowed his eyes at Norman, “and my eye hurts.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have fought with you,” Norman said.
“With me? You beat on me!”
Peri jumped up. Hurrying to the bar, she started looking at bottles, “Ed, get me every bottle that is; let’s go a hundred and twenty proof; line them up for me.”
“Huh?”
Norman grinned, “Brilliant. Smart girl.”
He surprised her with a quick kiss, but neither had long to think about it as Ed began lining bottles up after a quick wink. He understood what they wanted.
Dana began ripping napkins in half. She knew about Molotov cocktails as well. Her head jerked to one side as the hammering on the door grew more intense as they creatures heard them speaking and moving around. Dana ignored the hammering because she was relieved to be up and working on a plan; action calmed her more than sitting and complaining.
Hank brought over candles from tables, “here, some of you please use my pocket knife and shave some wax into the bottles. It’ll make it stickier at least.”
Dana hugged him, “Not just handsome but smart, too.”
Tina, Cindy and Ann who had only listened came over to help. They grabbed knives from the bar.
“Get me those fishing poles,” Cindy said to Dave Dallas.
“You going fishing? Gonna fight them with bobbers?”
“Young man, please get those fishing poles for me, and pray I don’t spank your behind for that fresh-mouth. After you get them, break them halfway, and we’ll duct tape knives to the ends for spears.”
Fearing Cindy as she wagged her finger at him, Dave Dallas climbed up and took them down as he asked, “And why would you think there is duct tape in a bar?”
Everyone turned.
“What? Seriously?” Rudy shook his head indignantly.
Norman held a hand out.
Rudy grumbled and reached into his jacket, removing a roll of duct tape that he handed over, “Y’all are just stereotaping me.”
“Typing,” Peri called out.
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Norman snickered, “Thanks.” He handed Cindy the tape and left her and her friends to order Dallas around and make their weapons. It was a bright spot in a bad situation: seeing the women making weapons and give orders.
Rudy raised an eyebrow, “If you got to the souvenir shop, you could snag some of them silly shit-things like tom-a-hawks and spears. They aren’t great, but they might work.”
“There are bows and arrows there from the Caddo, Osage, and Quapaw tribes,” David Dallas said. “There is all kind of stuff there about those tribes: arrow heads and books.”
“Real bows or toys?”
“Toys,” Dallas admitted.
Rudy sulked again.
Peri stood before him. There was something she had to do to clear her conscience, “I am genuinely sorry about your loss. If I could have done anything, I would have.”
“Eh. I heard ya. I know you were asking them to get help, and they ignored you. It’s okay. I should’ve known that anytime someone like me wins a fancy vacation, there’s a catch.” Rudy rubbed his eyes.
“How is that, Nick? How did people win this vacation? What did your people do?”
Nick Hoyt grimaced, “The higher-ups handled that. They always have made sure the most unlikely people win trips so that their sample is more random. You want to try Ebola? There’s an out-of-the-way spot in New Mexico. Want to try a new drug that causes paranoia and aggression? We have a closed-for-the-season hotel in Colorado that will drive a person mad in the isolation. They always have enough going on so that if they need a study, there’s a place for it.”
“That’s really sick. It’s inhuman.”
“Let me tell you what’s worse. Dallas and I haven’t eaten in a while, and these iron pills aren’t helping much. Now, that is a real problem.”
Peri recoiled.
“We ought to beat your heads in,” Rudy said, “but you’re going to be one of them anyway.”
Nick and Dallas traded glances and shrugged. They chewed iron pills like candy.
Hank hoisted a heavy bag full of homemade Molotov cocktails on to his shoulder. Peri, Dana, and Norman decided to stay close to him and to keep the creatures away so Hank could light the rags in the bottles. They would have to be quick because flaming zombies were very deadly; only in the outdoors was that a good plan because they would catch everything on fire and cause more danger.
Tina, Cindy, Ann, the bartender, Gordie, and Rudy armed themselves with a variety of weapons. Bristol and another man from the bar, Jason, carried table legs. Nick Hoyt and David Dallas carried weapons and wanted to lead the escape.
“Go to the vehicle and get in. We will go from there and drive out,” Norman reminded them. “Hit them in their heads until they stop moving. Be aware they can bite from the ground or attack straight forwards; stay away from the teeth and if anyone is bitten….”
Nick shook his head, “It’s one hundred percent infectious and one hundred percent fatal. No exceptions. If bitten, you are infected, and you will turn and bite others.”
Norman nodded, “That means no matter who it is, if bitten, you can’t go with us.” He refused to think about his best friend Hank being bitten or about Peri getting attacked.
“There was a town,” Nick said, “and that’s where it went hot. If we had contained it there, a chance would be possible, but a few of those infected made it out. We tried to lock it all down, but we knew it was loose, and that’s when Dr. Parce inoculated us, began the tests, and….” He held his hands out as everyone prepared, using the rest of the tape to cover their lower legs and exposed arms.
“Your tests set it loose here.”
“But everyone except us were expected to…well, you know…if people didn’t behave. As long as no one infected gets out of here, then we haven’t done anything wrong. The rest are more about isolated cases and eliminating them, but the view is it can’t stop, and in a week or so there will be several cases, and within a month, there will be no stopping a full onslaught. It’s already in all kinds of places in the world.”
Peri asked Dana and Nick, “When there are that many cases, then what?”
“In a place like New York City if there were ten cases, then there would be twenty with one infection per case. Twenty times two is forty, eighty, a hundred and sixty, and so on. I guess in twenty-four hours there would be saturation,” Dana said. She did the math. In a heavy populated area, it might go twice as fast.
“Meaning?”
“It means that New York would be full of either biters or those hiding and fighting back at about ninety percent against ten percent non-infected. It would be a total loss.”
“In twenty-four hours? Impossible,” Peri shook her head. She wrapped tape around her wrist and tested movement.
“Not when one can infect ten people quickly. Going that way within a few hours, the area would be infected. Places such as India where people live close together would be wiped out. Places where people are more isolated might have a small chance. The question is that if we get out of here, where do we go to remain safe?” Dana asked.
Nick huffed, “Don’t look at me. You kidnapped Dallas and me as far as we’re concerned, and we have a place with the military, but you don’t. Eh, they might let you in and inoculate you. It’s possible.”
Hank grabbed Norman before Norman started beating on Nick Hoyt again.
Norman glared, “I’ll die before you give me a shot that makes me like those things. You’re infected, Hoyt. You’re just a little smarter than they, and that’s the only difference.”
“I don’t want to be eaten, and I don’t want to be one of those things. Being used by the infection and biting loved ones and friend…eating flesh…no…no way. Call me what you want and damn the inoculation, but being one of them, that’s something I can’t do. I want to survive. The world may be shit, but I want to live,” Hoyt explained hotly.
“Good speech. I still don’t want to be like that,” Peri said.
Hoyt shrugged, “Whatever, but the infection is going to take over. We are so screwed.”
Quietly, they opened the door that connected to the dining area. Because the horde still moaned and pounded on the other doors, it was easy to hide some noise.
Bristol nudged Peri, “We have to find Connie, Rhonda, and Mira, too.”
“I hope they made it, but Bristol, how can we? There are hundreds of those things and ones who are not turned are hiding in rooms.”
“Then, we have to check our rooms. They would look for us.”
Dana and Peri sighed. Bristol was right.
“I’m going upstairs. The back way is close, and from there, I can use the fire escape or jump off a balcony, but I have to find Mira, Rhonda, and Connie. Later, I’ll think about Shan and Lisa, and it’ll hit me. I’ll fall apart, but I can’t leave them,” Peri whispered.
“Seeing what happened to Lisa almost killed me,” Dana admitted.
Connie, Mira, and Rhonda were last seen in the dining room. As they came out of the bar, the fighters were close to that area, and either they would find their friends, or look for them. Bristol dared a glance and then moved back and shut her eyes tightly as she leaned back on the wall. “I saw Connie. Someone else look. I can’t stand to look again at her or see if the others are there with her.”
Norman whispered, “Don’t look. Really. Connie is right in the front. Go figure.”
“It’s her?” Peri asked.
He hugged Peri, “It’s her. I didn’t see Mira or Rhonda, but those things…I mean…they are all over the place, and there’s no way to know who made it, but we can assume someone else did if we did. Going up the stairs is a good plan after all because we can get out that way. There’s no way we can get past all those creeping around.”
Norman and the two point men jumped into the hallway quietly, and with weapons held ready, they looked around. Hank, slowed by the bottles he carried, kept to one side of the stairs, letting the women go first. Rudy, although still drunk, bashed a zombie’s head in as it met him on the steps; the skinny man stopped moaning and slumped down in a loose-bone pile. He and Dana went to the next pair, clubbed them, and let them fall to the side as they went upwards.
Dana, in a flash that lasted a split second, thought as she watched Hank. He and his friends had stuck with her and her friends all through this when they could have run away and saved themselves. He was unlike any man Dana had ever met: thoughtful, brave, smart, and a selfless soul. She felt she had dated him for ages and could have sat down and cried for the frustration she felt as she finally had met the perfect man and her world was falling apart. She felt cheated.
“What?” Hank mouthed the words to Dana with a quizzical look. She was looking at him with a forlorn expression that made his stomach twitch with anxiety. She had calmed him this whole night, but now, his pulse quickened as he worried.
She gave him a small smile.
Hank relaxed a little, wondering what she was thinking and hoping she was thinking something good about her and him in the future. He was going to marry this woman, he knew for a fact. If he could, he would marry her right that second. He relaxed, and he was smiling in a silly way when she mouthed, “Goof,” back at him. Hank didn’t care.
The rest followed. Dana went ahead, bravely moving up the stairs.
The bodies that fell were messy and nearly skinless because either they had been chewed on or they had peeling blistered skin that hung like festooned crepe off faces and arms. A few scalps were ripped as well so that the hair looked like horrible toupees, spiked up and stiff with blood. The people were dead, smelled like the beginnings of decomposition, urine, and bowels. They stank like open sores and festering infection, and more than one of those running up the stairs had to pause and vomit to the side.
Nick, Dallas, and Norman ran up last and began tossing expensive sofas, chairs, tables, and plants down the stairs to block the zombies below. Plenty of furniture lined the hallways and was useful for their needs. The rest fought with biters that moaned and converged on the group. The stairs were easy to fill and made a good blockade.
“That is Dr. Erika Dickson down there,” Nick Hoyt complained, “and she’s one of them.”
“She wasn’t immune to being eaten. She was immune to the contagion. I didn’t think they would…you know…eat their own,” Dallas agreed. He had also seen her body, piled to the side, half eaten away, but unmoving. This whole situation was wrong; the people in charge had not done a very good job.
“Someone you knew?” Peri asked as she heaved a table down the stairs.
“A psychologist, Dr. Dickson. She studied the behavior of those things. I thought she would get out first, but I recognized parts of her. She was the one who questioned everything, and she didn’t like any of this. Damn,” Nick said.
He was pale, breathing hard as he struggled to maintain his control. The scent of blood and meat was everywhere, and like Dallas, it was a chore to hold back. He needed the iron. Blood.
Dallas and Dana tag teamed a woman, bashing in her head as she moaned and reached pitifully for them. Dana sniffed back tears as she fought, hitting children and adults without stopping. Reaching down low, she slammed her table leg at a man’s legs, knocking him off balance; Hank pounded at the grey-haired man’s skull until it squished into a depression. He was someone’s grandfather and husband, maybe a man with a life. He had been. Now he was a corpse, dead again with an arm chewed to the bone and gore matted onto his shirt.
Hank held an arm across her way, “Stand back. I have it.”
Dana groaned as Hank and Norman stepped into the hall and battered at the heads of a little girl and bo
y, both under twelve, who but for their moaning and hungry eyes, looked untouched except for bloody clothing. It was possible they had unseen bites, or maybe they were part of the experimental group and immune to the virus but out of control. Dana felt it was the former; both children were blood-covered beneath the neck
Peri gasped and stepped back, bumping Dana, “Oh, God, that’s horrible.”
“They’ll bite and infect you like any of the rest,” Dallas said, nodding approval as Hank and Normal cracked the children’s skulls, “The infected bite.”
“You even think about biting me, and I will lay your ass out,” Dana warned Dallas.
Dallas glared, “I never thought of biting you. I have better manners.”
With the hallway clear of all but bloody bodies piled along the walls, everyone stopped for a few seconds to rest. Behind them, the stairwell was packed solid with expensive furnishings and below, ghouls moaned, wanting to get up the stairs to feed and spread the infection. Behind some of the closed doors, hands banged and slammed wetly, making sticky sounds. People were infected and trapped behind their doors, not intelligent enough anymore to understand how to turn a knob and get out of the room.
Peri ran over to the room Rhonda shared with Shan, “Rhonda? Ronnie??? It’s Peri, Bristol, and Dana.” She was prepared to hear a sloppy banging at the door and monotonous moaning from her friend. Tears already stung her eyes.
“Peri? There are bad people out there,” Rhonda called from behind the door. “Are you okay? Are you bitten?”
“Oh, Ronnie. We’re here to get you out and to safety. We’re not infected. Is Mira there?”
Rhonda opened the door a bit, peeking and seeing Peri. She looked her up and down and decided her friend looked safe. She opened the door fully and embraced Peri and then her other friend. “I have been here all alone. I tried to get out, but those things are all over and they bite and eat people. I’m not making that up. I haven’t seen Mira or anyone else but you.”
“We know. We’ve seen it. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Where’s Shan? I looked but had to run back.” Rhonda slowed down, watching Peri’s face, “No. No way in hell. Not Shan. Maybe you just thought something happened….”