A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 2): Staring into the Abyss

by Santiago, A. J.

  “Please, help us!” she pleaded. “Please, stop!” She was being soaked from the spewing water hydrant.

  “I’m going to pull over and see what we can do. Anyway, it looks like most of the looting is taking place back there by the Alamo. I think we’ll be okay here.”

  Magda, cell phone up to her ear, said, “Yeah, let’s see if we can help her out. Fuck, I can’t get a signal! I keep getting a message saying that all networks are busy!”

  As Darrin brought the van to a stop, a crowd began to converge on them. He opened his door and quickly walked around to see if he could do anything to help out the injured, bloodied woman.

  “What happened?” he asked her.

  “Some people were trying to drag me out of my car and I tried to drive off, but I guess I lost control somehow. My baby is in her car seat, but I think she’s hurt.” The woman pointed to her car and began to sob loudly. “I think she’s hurt real bad.”

  “Yeah, some jerks tried to carjack her,” chimed a homeless bystander who was holding onto a dozen plastic shopping bags filled with who knew what. “They were going up and down the streets breaking windows and stealing stuff, and then they tried to steal this woman’s car there at the stop light.”

  Darrin looked over at the disheveled man and asked, “Where did they go?”

  “They headed over towards the mall and Alamo Plaza. The looked like those damn gang members who always cause problems down here.”

  “I think we ran into the same guys. They were trying to flip over our van.” Looking back at the woman, he said, “Okay, what’s wrong with your child?”

  “Please come look,” she pleaded with desperation in her voice. She turned to make her way back towards the damaged car with Darrin following her.

  As Magda jumped out of the van, someone from the crowd yelled, “Hey, it’s Magda Santos from the news!” Magda focused on following Darrin and didn’t respond to the call for her attention.

  As hard as he tried, Darrin couldn’t avoid getting drenched from the water that was shooting out from under the car—he was too focused on checking in on the child to worry about getting wet. Sitting on the rear seat in her child safety chair, the little girl’s face was covered in blood. The car door window next to her head was shattered and the door was crumpled inward. Backing away from the wreck, he reached into the neck of his shirt and drew it up to his face, using it to wipe away the water from his eyes.

  He looked at Magda and with a grim expression he said, “It doesn’t look good.”

  Not hearing what Darrin was saying, the panicked mother asked, “What did you say?”

  “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Hailey.”

  “Okay Hailey we gotta try to get your baby out of the car and maybe we can get her to the children’s hospital just down the street from here. Did you try calling nine one-one?”

  “I did, but the phones aren’t working.”

  Turning to the spectators, Darrin asked, “Can I get a hand here?”

  “Yeah buddy, I’ll help you out,” volunteered a distinguished looking man in a gray business suit. He took off his jacket, dropped it on the sidewalk and rolled up his sleeves. Just as he was about to step out onto the roadway, the roar of an explosion rattled the surrounding windows of the buildings on either side of the street. It was coming from the scene of the rioting and looting.

  “Shit, what was that?” Magda asked as she turned in the direction of the blast.

  “It’s those assholes,” answered the homeless man. “They’re blowing shit up. I’m outta here.”

  “Me too,” said another man. As the crowd began to dissipate, the businessman walked up next to Darrin.

  “Thanks for sticking around,” Darrin said. “Now, you’re probably going to get wet, but we have to see if we can get the little girl out of the car.” He then looked over at Magda and Hailey and asked, “What’s your little girl’s name? And how old is she?”

  “It’s Brianna, and she just fourteen months.” She began to make her way towards the car and Darrin yelled at Magda to have the distraught mother sit down on a nearby bus bench.

  Magda, taking ahold of the woman, said, “Here, let’s sit down on this bus bench. They’ll get her out in a second.” She gently led the stressed lady to the bench and sat her down. She then reached over and gingerly pulled back the woman’s hair to see what kind of injury she had.

  “I hit my head against the door when we crashed”

  “Yeah, you got a good cut up here. You could use some stitches I’m sure. Once Darrin gets Brianna out, we’ll take the two of you to the hospital.”

  “I’m fine, I just want to make sure my baby is okay.”

  As the two men approached the car, the middle-aged businessman asked, “Can you believe what’s going on? You think it’s really true…the disease?”

  “Well, something’s going on, that’s for sure.” Trying to keep his attention on the task at hand, Darrin refrained from making any further comments on the dire scenario that was consuming the country. “Okay, I’m going to take her whole car seat out. I’m not sure if she has any neck or head injuries, so I’ll need you to help me keep her as immobile as possible when I hand her out to you.”

  “You sure you don’t want to just take her out of her car seat?”

  “No, the car seat is this best way to keep her from being moved unnecessarily. It’s the best form of support we have for her neck.”

  “Okay. By the way, I’m Howard.”

  “Thanks, Howard, I’m Darrin.” Darrin, soaked down to his underwear and socks, opened the back door and crawled into the rear passenger area. He quickly surveyed the injured child and he tried to see if she was breathing. A faint rasping sound was coming from her mouth and he could see her chest moving up and down. He unbuckled the seat belt that secured the safety seat and he began to drag it across the cushion.

  “Okay, I’m bringing her out.” Slowly, he backed out of the car and carefully lifted the safety seat from the cushions. “Here, get ahold of the back side and keep her head from moving.”

  “Is she alive!” screamed Hailey.

  “Yeah, she’s alive,” Darrin said as he and Howard walked with the car seat between them. Attempting to keep the water off of the stricken child, Howard leaned forward to shield her.

  Hailey jumped to her feet and ran over to the two men. Magda followed her and said, “See, she’s alright.”

  “Let me see her!” Hailey cried. She tried to reach through the men to touch her child.

  “Try not to touch her,” Darrin warned. “We don’t know if her neck is injured.”

  “Hurry, let’s get her into the van,” Magda urged. Turning, she ran to open the side door of their vehicle.

  After getting Hailey and Brianna situated, Darrin turned to Howard. Both men were drenched and Howard’s undershirt was visible through his baby blue dress shirt. “Hey man, I really appreciate your help. What are you going to do now? Do you need a ride to anywhere? I don’t think you want to hang around here too much longer.”

  “I’m here on business, so I have a hotel just down the street. I’ve got a rental car there in the parking garage.”

  “Alright, man, you sure you don’t need a ride?”

  “Naw, I’m sure. I’m just gonna get my stuff and try to make my way to the airport and see if the airlines are still running. Denver’s a long way from here. I’d rather fly home than have to drive there.”

  “Ooh, that is a long way from here. Okay, be safe. Look us up when this is all over. We can have a beer and laugh about how we survived the end of the world.”

  “Sure thing, buddy,” Howard said chuckling He shook Darrin’s hand and then turned and sprinted across an empty plaza that flowed out from the historic San Fernando Cathedral. Darrin watched him as he rounded the corner of a building, disappearing from his sight.

  “Okay, let’s get to the hospital,” the nervous cameraman said as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “God, and I
got to get some dry clothes too!” He shifted into drive and began to make his towards the hospital.

  Magda held onto the Brianna’s car seat and tried to stabilize it as best as she could. She looked over at Hailey and asked, “What were you doing down here?”

  “We live over on Houston and Saint Mary’s. With the things I saw on the news, I decided that maybe we should try to get out of here and head to my sister’s house out in Castroville.”

  “Is it just you and your daughter?” Magda asked.

  “Yeah, just me and Brianna. Her father and I divorced last year.”

  “Sorry to hear that. My husband is out of town and is—”

  “What the hell?” Darrin said as he interrupted Magda. “What’s going on here?”

  “Here, hold onto the seat and don’t let it move,” Magda told Hailey. “Don’t let her head move.” After switching places with Hailey, Magda made her way to the front of the van to see what Darrin was talking about. What she saw made her shudder in horror.

  The high rise children’s hospital that they had been driving to was burning. Plumes of fire and smoke were billowing and flickering from a multitude of windows and the main entrance was belching out a raging inferno.

  “What happened?” Magda asked in a quivering voice. “What’s going on?”

  “This is not good,” Darrin said in disbelief. He angled himself to where he could get a better look at the building. “God, all those poor people in there.”

  As the van sat idle in the middle of the street, neither Magda nor Darrin saw what was taking place in the children’s park across from the hospital. They were simply too shocked and stunned to notice anything else.

  A sudden slap against Darrin’s door window immediately brought him from out of his daze, startling him to his senses. He turned in his seat, and to his shock, he saw a bloody palm smearing a dirty red film across the wind shield. A charred face then suddenly appeared in the driver side window and the hand curled up into a fist, smashing down against the glass.

  “Om my God, what is that!” Magda shrieked. “No, it can’t be! It’s those things!”

  Darrin was frozen with fear and couldn’t verbalize a response. A second person, a woman in a hospital robe, appeared just behind the charred face. Her face was blood-streaked, and in an explosion of shrieks and shrills, she flew into a rage, attacking the door and window with flailing fists. Her robe fell off of her and she was completely nude. Magda could see that a large portion of her right breast was mangled and she found herself thinking that the wound looked like something had been attempting to eat the woman.

  “Go!” Magda screamed at Darrin as she spun in her seat and placed her back against the front passenger door. “Drive!” She then saw that the entire park was full of people, and they were all running towards the van.

  “What’s going on?” Hailey screamed in panic.

  A second smash against Darrin’s window shattered it, and several flying shards cut across the left side of Magda’s face. Before Darrin could react, a pair of hands was reaching in through the window and they were grabbing onto his shirt sleeve and collar.

  “Shit!” Darrin screamed as the hands pulled him towards the window. A second set of hands reached in and grabbed him around his neck and head. Darrin fought desperately to break free, but his head was being pulled down and towards the now open window. The finger nails of his attackers were starting to rip deep tears across his face.

  Magda jumped from her seat and grabbed Darrin around his waist. She screamed and tried to pull him back away from the door, but she was overpowered as a third attacker joined in by grabbing onto one of Darrin’s floundering arms. He wailed in pain as one of the grasping hands latched onto his ear, pulling it off in a bloody mess.

  “Help me, Magda!” he cried as his head was pulled through the window. In one last act of desperation, she threw he leg over his and stepped down on the accelerator. As she slammed the gear shift into drive, the sudden lurch tossed her back onto the deck, and Darrin was pulled from out of the van and into the clutches of his attackers.

  With Magda sprawled out across the floor, the van rolled forward. She struggled to get back to her feet and she jumped into the driver’s seat. She looked in the outside mirror and saw the group of crazed people standing and kneeling over Darrin. She could hear his screams as others descended upon him, and in a matter of moments, she could no longer see him. A few of the attackers who couldn’t reach Darrin through the frenzied crowd now turned their attention to the van and began to run towards it.

  “I’m so sorry, Darrin!” Magda lamented as she slammed on the gas pedal. “God forgive me!” She sped off but she couldn’t see because she was blinded by her tears. She ran over the curb and was driving on the sidewalk, not seeing that a reanimated woman had staggered into her path.

  Magda hit the woman with the front grill of the van and the walking corpse was tossed against the windshield. The force of the hit caused the glass to crack and Magda slammed on the brakes. The woman was flung out into the street and Magda floored the accelerator again, aiming the van at the prostrate body. Magda could hear the sickening sound of the woman rolling under the carriage of the vehicle as she drove over her. After dragging it for a couple of seconds, the eviscerated corpse sprung free from under the van and Magda could see a bloody heap in her rearview mirror. She then turned the van around and headed east on Houston Street.

  Remembering that Hailey and Brianna were in the van, she turned to check on them and saw that Hailey was lying on her back in the corner of the van; the safety seat was lying on its side—Brianna still strapped into it.

  “Brianna!” Hailey screamed as she desperately reached for her daughter.

  “The police station…it’s right around the corner!” Magda yelled back to Hailey. “We’ll go there! Just hang on!”

  Magda turned right onto Dolorosa Street and made her way past the Market Square—a popular tourist attraction in better times. As she raced towards the police headquarters, she was greeted by a volley of bullets that tore into her van.

  The police station was a battle scene. Two patrol cars were blocking the main entrance to the building and a large, dark colored armored vehicle was sitting in the small plaza in front of the station. Bodies were scattered over the tile decorated court and Magda could see several cops kneeling behind the patrol cars. They were armed with rifles and they were shooting at a large crowd that was rushing the building.

  She slowed for a brief moment to see what was going on and she immediately noticed that several of the crowd were lumbering clumsily towards the officers while others were making a mad dash at the men. Just then, another stray bullet went through the side of her van and Magda realized that getting into the headquarters wasn’t going to happen.

  Flooring the gas pedal under her boot, she ducked her head as she sped past the embattled police station. “Hailey, are you alright?” After driving about a half a mile, she pulled up to an intersection that was clogged with a three car accident. She weaved her way around the clutter and debris as confused looking people—probably the occupants of the cars—looked at her.

  She made her way south down a large four lane street and she saw a small park that appeared to be empty. She jumped the curb, drove the van out into a grassy field, and with shaky hands, she shifted the news van into park.

  Turning around in her seat she asked, “Hailey, are you alright?” She saw that the young mother was crumpled in the back corner near the rear door. Magda slid off of her seat and quickly made her way towards the silent woman. “Hailey?”

  “No!” Magda cried. A bright red blotch was slowly spreading out across the front of her shirt. One of the stray bullets from the battle at the police station had pierced her chest, killing her instantly. Magda broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. She pressed the palms of her hands over her eyes in a feeble attempt to hold back her tears. She felt sick—revulsion taking her past her breaking point—and she shuddered as a wave of nausea ca
me over her. She gagged and fought back the bile rising in her throat.

  After a few moments of trying to regain her composure, a sudden and overwhelming wave of dread struck her. Oh my God, she’s going to come back to life!

  Petrified with fear, she kept her eyes fixed on the dead woman, half way expecting her to rise up and attack. Trembling, she glanced over at Brianna, and after drawing up whatever mettle she had left, she forced herself to warily move towards the child safety seat. She knelt down and saw the small girl—her head hanging limply to one side—and she realized that she too was dead.

  Okay, what do I do? I throw them out…both of them. I have no other choice.

  Magda opened the side door and grabbed ahold of Hailey’s ankles. She noticed that the dead mother was barefoot; her flip-flops had been thrown off during the wild ride, and as Magda dragged her to the door, she noticed that Hailey had just had a fresh pedicure. She choked back her tears and sobbed out, “I’m sorry.” She rolled her body out of the van and onto the green grass below.

  Magda then went and grabbed the safety seat with Brianna’s lifeless body, gently lowering it down next to Hailey. She tried to avoid looking at the child, but she couldn’t help to notice her animal print jumper and her tiny white sandals.

  As she pulled the door shut, she made an effort to do it as quietly as she could. After getting back behind the steering wheel, she broke down and starting crying again. She tried to clear her mind, struggling to comprehend what she had just gone through, but the whole experience was too much to understand, and in the end, all she could do was cry even more. And then she remembered about her husband.

  Tino, I need you! Where are you? I don’t even know if you’re okay.

  “Okay, Magda, you gotta get a grip on things,” she said out loud as she forced herself to stop crying. She dried her eyes, wiped the mucus away from her nose and eased the van into drive. She maneuvered her way back to the street and decided that she was going to try to make it back to her house. Quickly glancing down at the fuel gauge, she saw that she had half a tank of gas left. Looking to her right, back in the direction of the downtown, she could see smoke rising over the sky line.