by Stevie Kopas
She didn’t want to say anything to him for fear of jinxing themselves. So far their luck, if that’s what you could even call it, was in order and all they needed to do was keep running.
Isaac finished drinking from the bottle and offered it to Veronica. She took it from him and sipped delicately and handed it back to him. He tightened the cap back on the bottle and looked around the office for anything useful. “Do you think we should stay here tonight? None of those things saw us slip in here.”
Veronica shook her head, “That man won’t last long. He’ll either kill himself or they’ll get to him. We need to keep moving while they’re distracted otherwise we’ll have a lot more than bad memories to run from.” She regretted sounding so cold, but it was the truth.
“Do you feel bad?” Isaac couldn’t help but ask her what she thought about using the man as a decoy as he placed the water back into its place and closed his pack back up.
“No. Him or us. That’s what it was. I made a decision.” She stared at the exit door. “Let’s get going.”
Isaac didn’t respond, he just followed his sister silently out the door. The back door of the florist led to a very narrow and very empty alley way. “Head back left, make a right when we get to the street.” He followed Veronica’s direction just because he simply knew he would be lost without her. Geographically speaking, he would probably have been fine, but he very much so needed his sister right now. More so than he had ever needed another person.
When they got back onto the street Veronica began running again. Isaac followed; glancing behind him and saw no one was in pursuit. He was relieved and knew they were running because she wanted to, not because they had to. Another sixteen blocks and the streets were almost pitch black. Their surroundings were getting quieter as they moved away from the city’s center. Screams were heard every now and again, gun shots here and there, and the alarms were still going off, but he could now hear the sound of his own feet slamming down on the pavement, which made him a little nervous. They were moving at a comfortable jog and were much more alert at this pace. The pair had probably run about 6 miles, very strategically, from their former home. They reached a pizza place they had frequented right on the edge of the city that wasn’t too far from the highway. Veronica decided it was as good a place as any to take a rest. “No, not inside.” Veronica had said when he started toward the door. “I want to be able to see. We need to be able to run again if we have to.” She sat down with her back against a Lincoln Navigator parked out front.
Isaac pulled on the door anyway. “It’s locked.” He sat down on the window ledge and set his pack down. He took a couple of deep breaths in and out, his calves burned and his feet ached. He knew he would feel like total shit the next day and wondered how long and how far they would have to run? Where were they even going? He wanted to ask Veronica how she felt but knew she wouldn’t be honest with him. He was frustrated and upset, and he had no idea how he was supposed to be behaving. “What are we doing V?” He asked her in a hushed voice.
“We’re getting out of the city. That’s the plan, I’m sticking with the plan.” She nervously studied their surroundings as she answered, craning her neck to peer down the street in the direction from which they came.
“Actually, we don’t have a plan.” He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his remark getting his sister’s attention. “Running isn’t a plan. What do you want to do? Run all night? Run into the next day? Run until we’re so exhausted that if we’re ambushed by a group of those things that we have no energy left to protect ourselves? Just run, run, run?”
Veronica didn’t want to admit that he was right, it wasn’t in her nature to agree with her brother. “No, Isaac. The plan is getting out of the city, at whatever cost.” Her irritation was showing in her voice. “We stop when it’s safe to stop, farther away from the city, in case we need to start running again.” She could feel her face getting hot, embarrassed that she in fact did not have a plan and simply wanted to put as much space between her and the apartment as possible. “And besides, protect ourselves? It’s not like we’ve had to do much in the way of protecting ourselves so far, I think running has worked out for us, wouldn’t you agree?”
Isaac sat silent for a moment, staring at faint cracks in the sidewalk. They didn’t always get along, he didn’t expect them to all of a sudden bond over tragedy, but he didn’t think it was the time to behave worse than they normally did. He rubbed the back of his neck and adjusted the collar on his faded green polo as he sat up. He knew his sister did not have a plan, that the two of them were just doing what they needed to get out of this hell hole, but his feet continued to throb and he had a plan for the remainder of the evening; and it did not include any more running. “Well so then things don’t exactly change all that much huh? If there are any other people out there, I guess they’re all just probably runnin’ from their problems too. Just like any old day of the week.”
“If that’s how you want to see it, then good for you. I’m glad you’ve got it figured out.”
“Yeah, just be a bitch V. It looks good on ya.”
The two had obviously not noticed that the volume of their voices had increased and the bitter air between them had temporarily lightened the seriousness of the situation. Veronica was about to fire back an insult at her brother before he could utter another sarcastic complaint but she suddenly froze in horror and put her hand up to shut Isaac up. She strained her ears and Isaac jumped up from the ledge, looking around. It was extremely hard to see but they could both clearly hear it now, a frantic set of fast moving steps and the familiar growl of an eater. “Shit, shit, shit.” Isaac chanted and snatched up the rifle.
Before either of them could determine which direction the eater was coming from it appeared faster than anything Veronica had ever seen and was on her brother in an instant. The two went crashing through the storefront of the pizzeria, smashing the table that once sat directly in front of the window and landed in a struggle on the pizzeria floor.
“Isaac!” She hadn’t meant to yell out but couldn’t help herself. She had been caught off guard, wrapped up in their bickering and in her own selfish thoughts. She was responsible for this. She didn’t plan for this.
She leapt through the window but as soon as she got in she was thrown off to the side like a ragdoll. She felt strong arms holding her back against the wall as she watched a man of at least 6 and a half feet tall grab the eater off of Isaac’s body and bring its head down fast, impaling it onto one of the remaining panes of glass left in the large window frame. Veronica’s heart was caught in her throat and her thoughts raced. Who is this man? Is Isaac alive? Who is grabbing me?! Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.
Isaac groaned on the floor and the large man offered a hand to help him up. “But I gotta warn ya pal,” the tall man said, “you make any sudden moves and I’ll have a bullet in ya faster than you can cry mama.”
Veronica felt the arms holding her ease up and she backed away from whoever it was. Isaac moved to his sister’s side and saw in her eyes she was startled, but fine. She promised herself she would apologize to him later, when she knew they were safe.
A third person appeared with a lantern and raised it, revealing the room. There in the ruins of a once busy pizza parlor stood the tall man who saved Isaac, a very petite woman and a second man who was at least a foot shorter than the other; all of them armed, all of them staring at Veronica and Isaac.
The woman’s eyes grew wide and she took her hand off her weapon. “They are kids.”
The tall man smiled and lit a cigarette. “Welcome to Pisano’s Pizzeria.” He said in a very bad impression of an Italian accent as he exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling. “One of you better know how to fix the window that you just made your grand entrance through.”
Veronica and Isaac looked at each other nervously, not knowing how to respond, not knowing if they had just landed themselves in a bad situation.
The tall man snickered,
“Ah, lighten up, I’m messin’ with ya.” He took another drag off his cigarette, “but I suggest we get a move on closin’ her up before more of those assholes show up lookin’ for dinner.”
VII
The newly assembled group cast introductions to the side in order to cover the gaping hole in the storefront. The stocky man disappeared into the back and came back with a stack of cardboard nearly as tall as he was. “It’s all we’ve got, they’re too stupid to realize they can get through it.” The man spoke with a Spanish accent and despite his size, moved around faster than all of them. It wasn’t until Veronica had grabbed a piece of the large cardboard that she realized they were unassembled pizza boxes. She handed them to the tall man beside her and he attached them to the wall with duct tape. She couldn’t help but smirk at the duct tape. Her father always kept a roll around, he said it was the only tool a ‘Southern Engineer’ needed.
Everyone worked silently and in a matter of minutes, the broken window was replaced by a wall of ‘Pisano’ pizza boxes. “Let’s go. They are stupid, but not deaf.” The stocky man gathered the remaining cardboard and other bits and pieces of supplies he had brought with him and led the way to the back of the pizzeria. It was a small parlor, and from the light the lantern cast around the room, it looked exactly as Veronica remembered it from the last time she ate here. Minus the broken glass and garbage all over the place. Two red booth seats with white tables lined the walls on either side and a large table, which had been in the middle, was lying on its side near the back door to the kitchen. They were ushered past the counter and through the kitchen door by the petite woman who stayed in the front parlor. Through the now closed door Veronica heard the table being pushed up against it and saw the woman’s head appear as she crawled through the drop window over the counter to join the rest of them in the kitchen.
The smell hit Isaac first as he began to cough and gag. Veronica’s eyes watered and she brought her shirt up over her face and held it there. The woman shushed them and pushed them forward into the darkness of a small foyer. The tall man had already vanished up the stairs and the stocky man held the door open for the rest as Isaac, followed by Veronica slowly crept up the stairs. The petite woman closed and locked the first door and joined them on the steps while the stocky man secured the door he had been holding. The stairs led to a small living room with a large sectional sofa and lazy boy off to the side. An unused flat screen television was mounted to the wall, underneath it, a plethora of dead electronics.
The tall man was seated in the lazy boy, feet propped up, gun in his lap. This room had two more lanterns, one in his corner, and one under the TV. The petite woman shut hers off and set it near the couch as she sat down, ringing her hands, looking back and forth from the tall man to the stocky man, as if she was waiting her turn to speak. “My name is Salvador Roja.” The stocky man spoke first. He motioned to the small woman on the couch, “This is my wife, Lucy.”
“You own the pizzeria.” Isaac recognized the name instantly.
“That’s right.” Salvador nodded, “did you used to come here?”
“Well yeah, but, I know who your son his. He plays football for Franklin. My school’s rival.” He seemed pleased with himself but his face instantly went grim when a small squeak escaped Lucy’s mouth and she pursed her lips. Salvador placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“We have lost our son.” He looked down at his wife whose face rested on his hand.
“I’m uh, really sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Isaac turned his face down, embarrassed.
“It is alright, you couldn’t have known.” Lucy spoke finally, wiping her eyes on her hands. She also had an accent, but slightly lighter than her husband’s. “He was a good boy, I’m glad that you knew of him.”
“My name is Isaac, this is my sister, Veronica.” Veronica nodded a greeting.
“This is-“ Salvador began to introduce the tall man but he was cut off.
“I’m just Ben. Nothin’ fancy.” The tall man put his feet down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I rent this apartment from Sal, I managed his kitchen, now it’s a bathroom.” Ben looked at Sal and they both shrugged. “Sorry buddy.”
“Shit happens, yeah?” Sal responded, pleased with his quick wit.
Ben smiled, appreciating the humor, and gave him a thumbs up with one hand as he lit a cigarette with another. He got up from his lazy boy and retrieved an ashtray from the shelf under the wall mounted TV set. He sat back down, silent for a moment, staring at Isaac as if trying to figure him out. Isaac averted his intimidating stare. “Well, go on then. Let’s get the story swapping out of the way. It’s inevitable and I’d rather be depressed now than later.” Ben said, looking at Veronica. He leaned back in the lazy boy and propped his feet back up. Closing his eyes, he waited for someone to start telling their version of the same miserable tale that inevitably led them all to his apartment.
VIII
Sal (as he was called by friends) and Lucy lived with their son in Franklin Woods, an upscale community outside the city and not far from the beautiful Paradise Bay. He made a living flipping restaurants that were going out of business and growing them into something they never could have been without him. He could take any other man’s trash and turn it into his own treasure. He was a charismatic business man with three different degrees and Lucy was a pharmacist. Their son Marco was the model son; perfect grades, amazing athlete and helped out in the community. He was to graduate this year and go on to Florida State University on a full football scholarship. Salvador had been on his way home after stopping by to check on a few of his eateries when everything started going to shit. He made sure the places were secure, that there was nothing of importance to loot inside, he had no idea how long it would be until he came back once he left the crumbling city. His phone rang and Lucy was in a panic on the other end.
“People started attacking each other in the parking lot, I had to leave and now I can’t get home!” Sal pulled his phone back away from his ear and shook his head.
“Mama, lower your voice. Where are you right now?” Sal maneuvered through the city streets, dodging people and cars in his Lincoln Navigator as he spoke to his wife.
“I turned around before even getting on the highway when I noticed traffic wasn’t moving on the bridge. What am I supposed to do? Where are you?”
“Panicking is not going to help, especially if you are driving.” Sal slammed on his brakes. A man stopped dead in his tracks for a mere moment in front of the truck and briefly locked eyes with Sal. It looked as if the man was saying something to him but the screaming of two crazy eyed women interrupted him and he took off running again. Sal contemplated following them but figured he better let the police handle looters and started driving again.
“Salvador!” Lucy screamed through the phone, he had forgotten he was talking to her.
“Ok! Yeah! Listen, you’re going to end up hitting somebody, I don’t need my insurance premiums any higher than they are now.” He pulled up in front of Pisano’s Pizzeria and turned his Navigator off. The street seemed pretty clear in comparison to what he had just driven through. “I just got to the pizzeria. Meet me here, we’ll figure it out then.”
Sal opened the truck’s door and stepped out, looking around. People were running crazily down the other end of the street and Sal didn’t like the looks of it. He locked and set the alarm on his vehicle and hurried inside. A few other employees were holed up with Ben at the pizzeria when he arrived.
Lucy called her son frantically but was unable to get a call through as she broke every traffic law imaginable, getting to Pisano’s in record time. Her BMW ran up on the curb and smashed into a few garbage cans, sending them clattering in different directions. She nervously fumbled with gathering her things from the backseat and got out. Lucy didn’t even bother locking her 760Li. The air was alive with noise and a strange yet still man eerily watched her from the corner. She sprinted across the street and the running must have sparked the m
an’s attention because he was now snarling and rushing down the sidewalk in her direction. The door to the pizzeria burst open and Ben ushered her inside and into Sal’s arms. By the time Ben had bolted the heavy oak door shut the man was already pounding on it. Everyone inside starting screaming and Ben shouted for them all to “shut the fuck up.” He ran to the counter and pulled his magnum from under the register and started back toward the door. Sal thought about stopping him but let him go. He knew the door wouldn’t give, but what about the huge window when the crazy guy figured out he could just kick that in?
When Ben pulled the door open the man seemed to fly at him from the pavement, growling, teeth gnashing. Ben grabbed the man by the throat and threw him to the sidewalk, warning him to stay down. When the man didn’t listen and got back to his feet Ben shot him in the leg, but the man remained standing and again lunged at Ben, completely unfazed by the bullet hole in his leg. Ben had never been more shocked in his life, even after spending three years in the desert and nearly dying out there, he’d never seen a man take a bullet like that. Once more he grabbed the man and threw him to the ground, but this time he noticed the glaze over his eyes and the strange wound he had on his scalp, almost like a bite mark. The man attempted to get up again but Ben slammed his boot into his chest. The man writhed and growled under Ben’s weight, arms and legs flailing as he tried to throw him off. Ben leaned in to get a closer look at the bite on the guy’s scalp. A chunk of hair and flesh was missing, dried blood was crusted all around the wound and the wound itself appeared to be black in color. The smell emanating from the man was the smell of death; Ben was all too familiar with the smell and decided he’d seen enough. Without releasing the man from under his big, booted foot, he raised his gun and put a bullet in his head. He looked around, seeing if the noise had attracted any attention but luckily for him there seemed to be fire trucks with their sirens blaring on the next street over. He rushed back into the pizzeria after dragging the body around Sal’s Lincoln and leaving it in the street.