by TW Brown
I began to scan the streets as I drove. There had to be something familiar sooner or later. Also, I was fairly confident that Sunnyside Road was to my right. If I could get to it, I was certain that I could find my way back to that veterinary hospital. While I had taken a hefty amount of supplies, I’d by no means emptied the place.
Of course that would mean circling back and past the church where Don Evans and his band of followers were no doubt already hearing of my escape. As that single thought flickered in the back of my mind, I felt the searing sting of guilt as it sliced into my conscience. The report of my escape (whether they believed me dead or not at this point did not matter) would mean that Ariel would be given to the zombies held in the basement.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling my throat close up around the words.
The outline of a large campus loomed ahead and I hoped to use this to get a better idea of where I was driving. Once again I was struck by how the stories never seemed to have its characters get lost. While I was a native son of Portland, Oregon, that by no means meant that I had a grasp on the entire city. There were many places that I had never been.
The sign on the reader board read: Clackamas High School. I knew of the school, but I don’t believe that I’d ever actually been there. I drove past the collection of buildings. The football stadium looked like perhaps some effort had been made to secure it. Signs of a nasty battle remained as a testament to the failure of that attempt.
I was also noticing that the undead were starting to become a bigger problem. I needed to get out of this once heavily populated suburban neighborhood. I hooked to the right at the next opportunity and found myself on Southeast 122nd Avenue. If my memory served me correctly, the veterinary hospital was in the hundred and sixty something range as far as streets were concerned. Don’s church stronghold was in the one-forties.
Something so simple just a few weeks ago was now potentially an epic adventure worthy of a Grecian odyssey. I wish I had the time to write it all down.
If this zombie thing ever eventually resolved itself somehow in the favor of humanity, it would make one hell of a story, I mused inwardly. The only problem I had was that I was becoming less and less of a hero with my actions. I’d willingly condemned three people to death so I could try to get supplies for a dog.
Was Don correct? Not about the whole race thing, but about how our culture had allowed meaningless stuff to take up too much room in our lives. When had the life of a dog, or any family pet for that matter, become more valuable than another human life?
I had to force down the sick feeling that grew inside me with exponential force as each second…each heartbeat that I pondered what I’d truly done began to manifest itself in my soul.
I was trying to deal with my guilt when a green road sign hanging from the defunct power line just to the side of a now useless traffic signal got my attention. I’d found Sunnyside Road. My destination was to my right. Almost smack in the middle was Don Evans and his band of racial zealots.
I decided that I would follow this street for a ways and then circle back to the veterinary hospital. After all, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. I wished that I knew where another one might be, but having lost all my stuff, I was sort of stuck. If I did happen across one, I would happily give it a try, but at this point, I was sort of limited unless I wanted to venture into the Southeast Portland neighborhood that I was more familiar with. Considering what I was encountering out here in the suburbs, I did not think that was a good choice.
As I drove, it allowed me to distract myself from my guilt while I took in more of the extent of the damage that had been done to the city and its surrounding neighborhoods.
The first thing I noticed was that, while I still caught glimpses of zombies here and there, I could now drive for good distance without seeing a single one. Also, there was a lot of loose garbage blowing around. I passed by houses that looked perfectly fine, then I would pass a few that had caught fire and been allowed to burn themselves out. I even passed a few that still smoldered.
I caught glimpses of hastily made signs that hung like so many useless banners. All of them making the same basic plea.
“HELP!”
Help had not made an appearance, and now those people were likely part of the shambling masses. I slowed once when I thought I heard actual shouts for help, but after idling for what seemed an eternity but had been less than a minute, I continued on my way.
The road made a bit of a dogleg to the right and I had to figure that it was bringing me closer to my goal. I’d passed a few side streets, but they all turned into little communities with brick or rock walls at their entrances with names like “Willow Creek”, “Eagle Glen” and “Vista Woods”.
The next road sign that I passed told me that this street had somehow become Southeast 129th Avenue. I was coming up on yet another junction and entrance to a subdivision when a figure erupted from the dense foliage and stumbled out onto the road. The figure tripped, rolled twice and landed on its back. I started to swerve, almost ready to write it off as just another zombie when it went from being flat on its back to vaulting to its feet like something out of a Bruce Lee movie.
My brain was screaming for me to step on the gas, but old habits and reflexes made me stomp on the brakes instead. The Buick squealed to a stop just about five yards short of the heavily garbed individual. There was something strangely familiar about this person.
The figure flipped up its visor on the riot helmet. “Evan? Evan, is that you?” the person asked, then cast a glance to her left, back the way she’d come before sprinting to me.
“Miranda?” I wasn’t trusting my memory to be certain that I had her name correct. It didn’t seem to matter as she reached the passenger side door and gave it a tug.
“Please let me in,” the woman said with a strained urgency to her voice.
I leaned over and flipped up the door lock. She wasted no time folding herself into the car and turning to me with what seemed to be fear in her eyes. With that helmet a bit too small, it was impossible to be absolutely certain, but her voice was more than making up for her smooshed facial features.
“Go! Go! Go!” she urged. “Get us the hell out of here now.”
I stomped on the gas and the Buick lurched forward. We were headed up a gradual incline and a bend in the road was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead. We covered over half the distance when I saw three figures come running out onto the road back by where I’d just picked up Miranda or whatever her name was.
I was still watching them in the rearview mirror when I saw a flash. A heartbeat later, the rear window of the car exploded inward.
“Holy crap, they’re shooting at us,” I yelped.
“Nothing gets past you,” the woman quipped.
I shot her a look. She was leaning back in her seat like nothing was wrong. I had no idea how she had suddenly become calm to the point of glib after being so frantic just seconds ago.
“You wanna tell me what that was about?” I asked as we rocketed through a set of S-curves that had me using most of both lanes as I drove well in excess of the posted twenty-five miles-per-hour limit declared on the sign we shot past.
“Pretty much why I declined your earlier offer,” she said cryptically.
I eased up on the gas and allowed the car to slow to a more reasonable speed. I kept shooting a glance at the rearview mirror, but there was no sign that we were being pursued by anything more than the occasional zombie that stumbled out into the street in our wake as the car continued to be the only real noise source in the area.
When I wasn’t actively looking behind us, I kept stealing glances at the woman in the passenger seat out of the corner of my eye. After all, the last one I’d rescued had pulled a gun on me. Of course, if this one did anything like that, something told me I would not fare as well if I tried to disarm her. She didn’t strike me as the type to hesitate in pulling the trigger. Nor would she be aiming an empty weapon.
&n
bsp; “I was taking a break in a house that I’d cleared out. They had food and water actually stacked by the front door like they’d been loading out when one of them obviously turned and did in the others.” She paused and I saw her shake her head like she was trying to clear it of a bad memory. “There was a kid…”
That statement hung in the air. Her calm demeanor was crumbling and being replaced by sadness, and uncertainty. I looked over and saw a single tear overwhelm the grime on her face as it sliced its way down her cheek.
“At first I thought it had managed to survive. Maybe all that dried blood was masking him. It was a stupid idea, but it was the only thing that made sense as to why he just sat on the floor and stared at me when I opened the door to his room.”
Again Miranda paused, but I wasn’t going to interrupt now. She obviously needed to get this out of her system. Once she was done, maybe then I would share some of what I’d seen.
“Then one of those things came crawling out from under the bed. It looked like the older brother, but I knew it for what it was and pulled my blade to end it before it could get me or that boy who was still just sitting on the floor, watching me, holding a toy truck in his hands like maybe I’d walked in while he was playing.” She took a deep breath and sniffed. “As soon as I drew my weapon, that kid on the floor came at me just like any other zombie. That was when I really took notice of him. I had somehow ignored his eyes. They told me what his actions didn’t. I drove my blade into one of those glazed orbs and he dropped. But right before he did, he made that damn baby cry sound. I know what he was, but that whole scene just seemed so wrong. Then I killed his brother.”
She finished that narrative and then took a deep breath like a huge boulder had just been rolled off her chest. I continued to drive in silence, and when I looked down, I was surprised to discover that I’d slowed to just over ten miles per hour.
“I cleared out a room, brought up some of the food and water, and then had probably the best meal I’d had in days.” She laughed at this bit. “I don’t think I’d eaten food out of a can in years before all this madness. Now I actually get excited when I come across canned food. Soup is like gold.” She shook her head again. “Anyway, I fell asleep after eating. I woke when I heard somebody moving around downstairs. I tried to slip out the window. It was fine until the damn gutter tore free and I landed on my ass.”
“And they just came after you?” I blurted. It wasn’t that I was shocked at the behavior exhibited by some of the men lurking about, but it just seemed more widespread than I would’ve imagined.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying. And one of them was making it very clear what they planned to do with me once they caught me.”
Had we really spiraled to these depths so fast? It seemed so unlikely, but what I was seeing with my own eyes was telling me otherwise.
“So how did you come about having a car? And what happened to your door?” she asked. She cocked her head and gave me a strange look. “And can you please tell me what in God’s name it is that you have around your neck?”
I was about to give her my story, but my eyes locked on something and I brought the car to a stop. Miranda started to protest until her eyes followed mine.
We’d reached a tee intersection. We sat at the junction of Southeast 122nd Avenue and Southeast King Road. I knew that I was probably not too far from some familiar territory, but that wasn’t what had me stopped. Sitting side-by-side was a Happy Valley Firehouse and police headquarters. I wasn’t thrilled or impressed by the firehouse, but my mind was racing with the potential of what we might find inside the police building.
I turned right and then let the Buick creep along the front of the building. There were a few zombies in the area, and all of them were turning towards us. That wasn’t great, but I was willing to bet that I would find some good stuff inside if it hadn’t already been ransacked.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Miranda asked as I pulled into the parking lot beside the big, white police station.
“You were mentioning how you now saw canned goods as gold,” I said, turning to her with a smile. “Can you even imagine what might be inside there? If it hasn’t been hit,” I gave the exterior of the building a glance, “and it doesn’t look like it has been. I am willing to bet there is an arsenal inside that place.”
“Are you actually suggesting that we walk into the police station and just take whatever weapons we see lying around?” Miranda asked, her voice dripping with doubt and skepticism.
“No,” I corrected. “I’m saying that we should go in there, find their weapons locker and take whatever we can get our hands on.” I paused to let the subtle differences in our statements sink in. “If we just grab what is lying about, we may only come away with a pistol or two. If we can locate their locker, I am willing to bet we find not only more firepower than we know what to do with, but also some body armor…” I pointed to the helmet that had her head in its vice-like grip. “Maybe even a helmet that fits.”
She seemed to ponder things for a moment before giving a slow nod. “That might not be the worst idea. And while we are there, perhaps we can locate the keys to a car with all its doors intact.”
I drove up to the entrance of the building, cutting across the manicured lawn to actually pull up right in front of the main entrance. To our right was an open expanse of field that gave us a clear view of anything coming from that way. To the left was the firehouse with an equally large and open field beyond it. Our only blind spot was right across the street—basically at our backs. That was an area that was tree-lined with houses at regular intervals and a turn-in to yet another neighborhood. Currently, there was absolutely nothing moving, at least as far as we could see.
I climbed out of the car and waited for Miranda to join me at the base of the steps that led up to the front door of this tiny little police station. I shot a look down the length of the building and saw that the parking lot was almost totally empty. I counted five cars scattered about with none of them parked next to the other.
“If there is anybody inside, and we can use that as an indicator…” I pointed to the cars, “…then we might have five zombies tops to deal with once we get inside.”
“And you plan on using your wit and charm to render them defenseless?” Miranda snorted.
At first I was puzzled. It took me a second to remember that I wasn’t carrying any sort of weapon. I opened my mouth to say something when she laughed and unsnapped a leather strap on her belt. She drew a knife that would’ve impressed the hell out of Carl. The blade was almost the length of my forearm.
“Before we go in there, let me get whatever that thing is off of you.”
“Did you have all this stuff just lying around your house?” I said as she made short work of the collar, demonstrating the knife’s razor sharpness when it cut through the strap with ease.
She stepped back and held out the blade to me. I accepted the weapon with a bit of awed reverence. Just looking at the blade was almost enough to cut me. I was willing to bet I could shave this scraggly beard that was starting to itch if there ever came a time when I did not have my mind occupied with a million other things.
“Not all of it,” Miranda said with a wink as she stepped up to the door and peered inside. “And you may want to have that knife ready.”
Before I could draw a blade, she grabbed the door and yanked it open. Fighting back the urge to gag on the thick stench that rolled out at us, I moved past her and met the first figure that was just stepping out into the narrow hallway from a room to the left of the doors. When his arms came up and he reached for me, I almost felt sorry for the guy.
I slapped away his cuffed hands and then stuck the knife into his eye. The ease in which it slid in and came back out was not lost on me, but I didn’t have time to marvel as three more of the walking dead emerged from the room at the far end of the hallway.
Once more, I was going to take on zombies that were cuffed. I hadn’t taken
this possibility into account when I’d counted the cars in the parking lot. When four more came on the heels of the other three, I heard Miranda curse under her breath.
“Maybe we should take a pass on this place,” I suggested as I wavered between advancing on the zombies or retreating back out the door.
“Are you nuts?” Miranda scoffed as she stepped over the first zombie I’d dropped and promptly ducked into the room that he’d just exited.
I didn’t have time to ask her what exactly she was doing, since it was obvious that she wasn’t helping me. If she was going to commit to this, then I guess I was going to do so as well. I started up the hall and had not gotten three steps when Miranda yelled at me to get back. I turned to see her emerging from the doorway she just vanished through. In her hands she had a black, pump-action shotgun.
I rushed back as she advanced, bringing the weapon up to her shoulder. She closed the distance, passing me to get to within the most lethal range of the weapon. I actually dropped the knife in my effort to try and cover my ears before she pulled the trigger. I was perhaps a second or two late as the loud boom of the weapon sounded and caused my ears to instantly begin ringing. I didn’t even hear the knife as it clattered onto the floor.
She adjusted her position and aim a few more times, firing for maximum effect and practically blowing entire heads off. The walls beyond her kill zone were now gooped with brain, bone, and dark fluid that ran with the consistency of maple syrup.
When the last zombie fell, I counted nine bodies. Only one ended up being a police officer. It also looked like he might be the one who brought the infection inside. He was the one who was the most gore-covered out of the bunch. He was also the only one of the bunch that Miranda took the time to walk up to and stick in the temple with one of her numerous blades.
The smell of spent gunpowder and zombie stench finally won out and I had to stagger back to the front door, throw it open, and then heave over the railing that bordered the porch. When I walked back in, I had to wade past the carnage to the main room in back where I found Miranda. I discovered her in a small room just off what I had to assume was the booking area. It was sort of difficult to tell, but all the busted furniture looked like it had once been a series of desks and chairs. Of course, now it was splintered wood and bits of metal.