by Bell, A. E.
She overheard two of the soldiers talking about a quarantine placed on all Seattle hospitals per the CDC’s recommendation. One of them told the other that it was only a matter of time before they put a quarantine on the entire city. Evie went inside the restroom and made a quick call to Creed. She asked, “Are you at the hospital?”
He replied, “They’ve blocked off the main parking lot. I’m sitting at the service entrance.”
Someone knocked on the bathroom door. Evie whispered to Creed, “I’ll get there somehow.” She started walking around the hospital trying to find the damned service entrance. She asked the security guard where to find the service entrance. She knew he was too dumb to know why she was asking. He told her that it was around the corner and through the big metal doors and onto a service bay.
By the time that she found her way to the service entrance more soldiers had arrived, and they were standing at all the exits including the service entrance. She rounded the corner near the ER and heard people screaming. She opened the door and saw the patient care tech chowing down on the soldier that she had just talked to 30 minutes prior. This thing that used to be a girl had completely transformed into something monstrous. Her eyes were completely glazed over, her skin was pale almost green, and you could see some of her blackened blood vessels. The soldier’s blood was dripping out of her mouth, and pieces of torn flesh were between her teeth. Evie yelled out, “What the fuck?” People were hysterical inside the ER. They were running chaotically in all directions.
That thing grabbed a little girl from her mother’s arms. The mother tried to pry her daughter away from it, but it seemed to have more strength in death than she did in life. The little girl was crying and screaming, “Momma, please help me. I’m afraid. Help me, momma. I don’t want to die.” It took a chunk out of the girl’s face. One of the police officers drew his gun on the creature and shot it in the head.
The mom grabbed her daughter into her arms and held her. She was yelling, “Somebody, please help my daughter. What the hell is wrong with you people? She needs help.” The police officer and a nurse ran to the girl and her mother. The nurse was providing care to the young girl, and the officer was trying to calm the mother.
It was at that moment that Evie made the hardest decision of her entire life. She chose life, she chose her family, she chose to walk away from all these people that needed her so dearly, and run the fuck away. Evie searched her mind and couldn’t come up with a way to get out of the building. She decided to go upstairs and try to get a bird’s eye view from above. First, she needed to get her go bag. Luckily, the second floor was not as heavily guarded as the first, so she was able to snoop about without prying eyes.
She walked cautiously around while looking out the windows. One of the windows overlooked a section of the first floor that extended out beyond the rest of the building. The rooftop had an air conditioning unit on it. She knew if there was an air conditioner up there then there had to be a way to get out there to service it. She remembered that years ago, she had seen a maintenance man go through a window to get onto the roof of a hospital she used to work at. She felt around all the windows until she found one that had a locking mechanism. She took out her multi-tool and went to work on the lock with a small flathead screwdriver. She was finally able to turn the lock and get the window open.
She climbed out the window one leg at a time. She ran over to the edge and saw the RV parked about 50 yards away. She called Creed, “I need you to back that bitch up as close to the roof as you can.”
He looked in the rearview mirror and saw his wife standing on the edge waving at him. He said, “Jesus Christ woman, what the fuck are you doing on the roof?”
He backed up the RV to the side of the building. She tried to gather herself. She hated heights, and the only thing worse than standing on a building was the thought of jumping off one. She kept reminding herself that what was downstairs was much scarier than the task at hand. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck!” She took a leap of faith, literally.
Chapter 3
Her jump was anything but graceful. She rolled off the top of the RV, onto the hood, then fell onto the ground. When she landed, she was staring straight up at a 2005 Minnie Winnie. Creed assisted his wife to her feet. Evie looked up at her 6’2” tall knight in shining armor. She peered into his piercing blue eyes for a few seconds. She said, “Damn that’s gonna leave a mark!”
He fussed at her for being so reckless, “You couldn’t have found an easier way to get out. You aren’t any good to this family if you’re dead.”
She said, “If there was a safer way out, I would’ve chosen it. You don’t understand what was going on in that building. People were being ripped to shreds by dead people that came back to life.”
He asked, “What do you mean? You aren’t making sense. What do you mean they were ripping them to shreds? Are you trying to tell me that the dead are rising and eating people?”
Evie replied, “Yes, honey that’s exactly what I’m fucking saying. Now, drive us away from this God-forsaken city.”
As they drove around the corner, they could see savage creatures attacking the soldiers at the front entrance. Creed couldn’t believe his eyes.
Evie yelled, “Fuck, they’ve gotten out.”
Creed attempted to reassure her that they were safe, “We’re driving away from this place. It’s all going to be okay.”
Evie said, “You don’t understand there were people with the same symptoms at three other hospitals in the city. If this is happening at all the other facilities, then it’s just a matter of time before Seattle is overrun. We will die if we don’t find our way out soon.”
He replied, “Okay, okay, I got it. I will get us out of here. When have I ever let you down?” She knew he was right. He was always there for them. He would die for her and the kids.
Sylvie and Oliver were in the back of the RV, they had heard all of what their mother had said and witnessed the terrifying sights out front of the hospital, and it shook them. For years, they had made fun of their parents for thinking that the end of the world was coming. They had protested when their mom and dad decided to take them on the road and start to homeschool them. Sylvie was trying to get Oliver to calm down, he was frantic. As the big sister, Sylvie always watched out for Oliver She whispered, “Mom and dad are going to get us out of here. Just ask mom.”
He asked, “Mom are we gonna be alright?”
Evie turned around and spoke calmly, “I hope so, your father and I will do everything we can to make sure we get through this. You all just sit quietly so that we can figure this all out.”
Evie was digging around in a tote that sat between the front seats and pulled out a book that had maps of the state of Washington. She also turned on the GPS. They had not been in Seattle long enough to learn their way around. As they were driving across Seattle, they started seeing people being mauled in the streets by these ungodly creatures. Evie muttered, “It’s funny, I thought if we saw any crazy shit here, it would be a vampire.”
Creed responded, “Even though I appreciate your humor, it’s probably not the right time.”
She said, “Fine, you’re right. We need to get to Interstate 90. We’ll decide how to get home from there. Kentucky is a long way off, but if this shit spreads, I would rather be in our cabin near all the things we know. Hopefully, if we get out of the city, we will be safe.”
They saw more and more of the infected shambling out in the street, attacking people. They passed by at least four mangled corpses lying on the ground in the past few blocks. People were running for their lives. One lady tripped right next to the road, and another driver didn’t even slow down, he just plowed right into her. No sooner did she hit the pavement, two of the infected shuffled over and started chowing down on her.
Evie handed Sylvie her twenty gauge Mossberg. At the ripe old age of 13, Sylvie had been target shooting for six years and hunted with her dad several times. She started hunting squirrel and rabbit whe
n she was 10 and deer when she was 12. She gave Oliver a Walther P22. He was only ten, but he had started shooting when he was seven years old. She knew he could handle the smaller caliber pistol.
Creed said, “Just remember, don’t point the gun at anything you don’t plan on killing and no matter what, the gun is always loaded.” Evie and Creed had been teaching firearms safety to the kids since before they would even let them shoot. It was important to them that both of their kids knew how to take care of themselves if they ever needed to. Evie made sure that her and Creed’s Sig 9mms were both ready to go as well. The one thing they always did was make sure that they could protect their family, especially with traveling to unknown places.
They hoped the GPS was telling them the right way. The electronic female voice said, “Turn right onto Yesler Way.”
Evie saw a Gas n Go up ahead, so she told Creed, “Pull over at that gas station. You get some gas cans and fill up the tank and the cans, I’m going to go to the ATM to get cash.” Meanwhile, she went to the ATM and removed the daily limit of money. He filled up the gas tank and two 5-gallon gas cans. As they were pulling out of the gas station, they heard gunshots. Evie turned to look, and she saw two men inside the gas station with guns pointed at the cashier. She freaked the fuck out and yelled, “Damn that was a close one. We aren’t stopping again until we are safely away from this hellhole.” They drove a little further, and the GPS told them to merge onto Interstate 5. Traffic was beginning to get ridiculous. There were so many people leaving the city. It was like a mass Exodus. In some areas, it was bumper to bumper.
Creed said, “You do realize that we just left your fucking car sitting in the parking lot at the hospital.”
She replied, “Yep, I can always fly back out here and get it when this all this shit dies down.”
She asked Creed, “Do you think it would be better to take the interstate or eventually find some old country roads when we get away from the city? There might be less traffic that way.”
He said, “I don’t know woman, you have always been the one that navigates for us. You know my sense of directions sucks.”
She laughed and said, “You’re right, but I wasn’t asking for a sense of direction, just a sense of what would be quicker and safer to drive on.”
Evie heard the kids in the back whimpering, so she went back to check on them. As terrified as she was, she could only imagine what was going through their heads. Oliver laid his head in his mother’s lap. She gently patted him on the head and attempted to reassure him, “Sweetheart, it’s going to be okay. Just stay strong.”
He meekly said, “I don’t know if I can.” She empathized, hell at this point she didn’t know if she could, but they had no choice.
She kissed him on the side of the head and said, “Why don’t y’all play your video games.”
She made her way up front and whispered to Creed, “The kids are terrified.”
He said, “Can you blame them? We have never seen anything this horrible before. Who could’ve prepared for this?” Creed slammed on the brakes. He could hear brakes screeching behind him and people honking their horns. He asked, “What the fuck is that in the middle of the road?”
Appallingly she replied, “Oh my God, it’s an infected eating a dog. Just keep driving, we should be hitting the city limits soon. Hopefully, this infection won’t be outside of Seattle.” Creed veered on the shoulder of the road to avoid the Infected. Evie asked, “Why didn’t you just run over the thing? It’s not even human anymore.”
Creed said, “What if we get in an accident out here? It’s not about whether they are human or not. It’s about making it home in one piece without turning into one of those things”.
Traffic came to a near halt. Motorcycles were weaving in and out of traffic and on the shoulder. That was one negative to taking the big RV, but at least the family could be a little more comfortable and all stick together. Evie looked up in the air and saw military helicopters headed towards the center of the city. There was a line of 5-ton military trucks headed the same direction. The traffic going the opposite direction flowed quickly. Everybody was fleeing. She wondered how many soldiers were going to go to Seattle.
Evie looked online to look up traffic reports. It looked like all roads out of the city were backed up. There were reports of people being pulled out of their windows and devoured by the infected. The government was instructing people to remain in their homes if they have not already evacuated. There was to be a mandatory 2000 curfew, and a 5-mile radius was being blocked off, no one could travel in or out of that perimeter. She told Creed, “Shit, that’s scary as hell, we made it out just in time. I don’t see any reports of infection from other cities or states. Maybe it will end there. Maybe we really will be okay.”
He agreed with her, placed his hand on hers and said, “As long as we are together, we will make it through.”
Chapter 4
Evie said, “Damn we are idiots, we should turn on our CB radio, we will get more information that way than I’ll get on my stupid phone.” He agreed and turned it on. He turned it down so that the kids wouldn’t hear every gory detail.
Over the radio, they heard, “Breaker, breaker, I just ran over a creeper eating Bambi.”
Another voice replied, “Dude, they’re all over the place.”
A woman’s voice said, “Is there any news out of Oregon?”
A man with a deep raspy voice that sounded like he smoked for years replied, “Yes there are zombies there also.”
Creed and Evie didn’t speak for over an hour. She just stared out the window, listening to the people on the CB talking about how bad things were. He concentrated on the road, between the infected and people driving like morons, he was terrified that he might them get stranded. If he stopped, he wanted it to be because they were safe not because he made some idiot driving mistake. Creed broke the silence, “Can we please talk about the hospital now?”
She asked, “What exactly do you want to know?”
He scoffed, “You know what I’m asking. How do you think all this happened? Why are there dead people eating other people? How many people were infected when you left?”
She replied apprehensively, “It all started with one patient and his wife, he came in first, and then a little while later she came in. Both of them died. We thought that they had some type of meningitis. When the man died, we took him to the morgue, and before long he had changed and was eating people. I have no idea how meningitis could have caused someone to eat another person. The man was dead and then he came back to FUCKING life. As far as how many were infected, we lost count at twenty-four.”
Creed asked, “What the hell is meningitis?”
She chuckled because he was always asking her about medical terms, “It’s swelling of the tissue around the brain and spinal cord. A virus or bacteria can cause it. The fact that it has caused all of this is scary as hell. I’ve never heard of anything like this before.”
Traffic came to a grinding stop. They hadn’t seen any infected in over 30 minutes but being in a traffic jam was frightening. Creed put his hand on Evie’s leg and asked, “Why don’t you close your eyes and take a nap, you worked all night? Besides, I might need you to drive tonight if we can’t find someplace safe to stop.”
She placed her hand on his and smiled at him softly. Her eyes became heavy, she eventually couldn’t fight it any longer. It wasn’t a peaceful sleep, Evie kept dreaming about what happened at the hospital. No matter how hard she tried to change her dream, she couldn’t. Every time it ended with her getting gorged on by an infected. She jerked herself awake.
Creed said, “That didn’t take long.”
She yawned, “Yeah, I’d rather be awake then relive that nightmare. This looks like the same place we were when I fell asleep.”
He sighed, “That’s because it is. We’ve been stuck here for fifteen minutes. I don’t know what the problem is up there.”
All the sudden they started inching forward one
car length at a time. “Finally!”, She said in an annoyed tone, “We won’t get anywhere fast like this. It’ll be night before we have the outskirts of Seattle in our rearview mirror.”
Traffic remained slow for a full hour, and then they started seeing cars coming from the opposite direction in a steady stream. Creed noticed that the flow of traffic on their side increased at the same time. He became worried, “I think people are turning around and going the other direction. Why are all these people turning around.”
Evie said, “Hell if I know. Maybe they got tired of waiting.”
Creed shook his head nervously, “I think we should turn around. This can’t be good news.”
Evie replied, “Just go to the next exit, there is no way in hell that I am turning around.”
About 10 minutes later they were able to see the next exit, it was about half a mile up the road. People were frantically making u-turns in the median. As they approached the exit, they could see why people were turning around. Military vehicles were blocking the interstate and turning people away.
Evie tried to make sense of it, “They won’t let anyone in or out of the downtown area. These people are going to wind up trapped in between.”