by Mark Tufo
“Especially with this one,” Gem said, bouncing Trina on her knee.
We all got to work. Soon, all of our weapons carried the weight of full magazines.
And we had plenty of ammo and firepower to spare.
We left the police station without incident at around 4:30 in the morning. We made it to the Suburban without encountering any people or any infecteds, and I had them all get inside the SUV while I checked on Jamie.
My gun at ready, I found Jamie still in her cocoon, undisturbed. I thought again about her hunger. She wasn’t moaning now. I placed my hand on the bundle and said “Sis, if I can somehow wake you from this nightmare, I will. I promise you.” I got back in the driver’s seat. I was still wide awake.
After stopping at a gas station that clearly still had power, and being surprised that my swipe credit card still activated the pump, I got back in and started the engine.
I told Hemp what the situation was as we rolled along Thomasville Road, AKA Interstate 61, heading north. Gem volunteered to sit in the back seat with Trina, while Hemp sat in front.
“I want to warn you, Flex,” said Hemp. “I’ll talk about this with you, fully realizing it’s sensitive. When I refer to your sister, I am going use the same terminology and analyses that I would with regard to any of the infected, so please, do your best to forget that she is so closely related. It’s not my intention to offend.”
“I got it,” I said. “Understood.”
“Okay, the first thing I want to tell you is that the likelihood that there will be a cure anytime soon for such a widespread, fast-moving disease – we’ll call it that for now for lack of a better term – is almost nil.”
He paused for a moment, as though to allow it to sink into my thick brain. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, so it was probably smart of him. I said nothing, but nodded at him.
“Okay, now, think odds. Of the people who are capable of finding the cure to this, scientists such as myself – and many of them far smarter than me, I might add – a large portion are inevitably becoming infected. It’s the odds playing out, which means there is at least a 50/50 chance that the person who was going to discover the cure for this, if one can be found, is one of the infected.”
Gem added, “And judging from what we’ve run into already, I’d say it’s much greater odds than 50/50. I’d put it at closer to 90/10. And that’s conservative. We’ve literally run into nobody alive who was calling for help but you.”
Thomasville Road turned into Interstate 319. Along the way we came across several of the dead-but-not-dead things, but we encountered no living human beings. This was dashing our hopes, encounter by encounter. By the time we passed, they were too far behind us to be a threat. Most were . . . eating, and a little distracted.
“I don’t know about leaving them all alive. They’d kill any of us, so aren’t they the enemy?” Gem looked at me. “I’m sorry, Flex. But –”
“Gem, you don’t have to walk on eggshells with me. But I don’t want to call them zombies, or creatures or monsters, or anything like it. How about . . . let’s call them abnormals for now.”
Hemp nodded. “Abnormals. That works. And Flex, let me share with you that I think it’s good we have one of them subdued. The only way a cure of any kind will be found is if they can be analyzed, examined.”
“I don’t want her hurt in any way, Hemp. Not one hair. I’m worried about her hunger. She could –”
I stopped talking. I wasn’t sure she could die. I didn’t know enough. I looked at Hemp. “Can she die?”
“She can be killed, as you know already, with trauma to the head – most likely the brain. But as for starvation? It’s too soon. They are clearly ravenous. This is what drives them. And that’s important for you to remember about your sister. This is not a vindictive or vengeful thing, what they’re doing. They are hungry, and that’s all they are.”
I nodded. “Wolves and bears can’t be blamed for killing, either. It’s a survival instinct. But they kill just the same, and when their populations get too high, it’s hunting season. Gem’s right.” I felt her hand on my shoulder. I was glad for it. What I said next, I didn’t want to say. But I knew it was true.
“We’ve got to kill them all.”
But when we reached the state line, that seemed next to impossible. We needed fuel again, saw a Texaco sign brightly lit, and had gotten off at the first exit inside Georgia.
At least fifty of them blocked the road, some hunched over bodies, feasting. Others moving toward our truck. Some moved slowly, lackadaisically, but others, if it were possible, seemed excited at the prospect of us, and moved at a faster clip. I hoped it was just my imagination.
“Holy fuck,” said Gem.
“You said another really bad word, Gemmy.”
“Baby, you get on the floor. Now.”
“Get the 100-rounders,” I said. “We’re going to need them.”
Hemp already had one in each hand and Gem’s was leaning against her door. With the abnormals twenty-five feet from the Suburban, we opened the doors and stepped into our biggest battle yet.
“Where the fuck did they all come from?” I called out, and Gem, already firing into the group, answered.
“Not sure babe, but I plan to send as many as I can to Hell!” She took aim and blasted the heads off of three of them that were within twenty feet.
Hemp did know his weapons. He charged forward toward them for a good, predictable shot, and in six short bursts, took seven of them down. For my part, I’d taken five out, and based on our first estimate, we should’ve had right around thirty-five to go. We were wrong. There were dozens of them outside of our line of fire, making their way toward us along the shoulder behind the many cars that either crashed or had been hastily parked there. In my peripheral vision, I could see a few of them flanking us, and that didn’t make any sense at all for things with just one emotion – hunger.
“Hemp, do you see what’s happening?” I ran back to the truck and yanked open the door. “Trina, no matter what you hear, you keep your head down, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Uncle Flexy,” she answered from under her comforter.
“Okay, sweetheart.” I pulled the key and leaned over and pushed the lock down on the passenger side, then locked the driver’s door and slammed it. I wanted to leave the rear doors open for quick access to the other weapons and ammo in case we needed them.
“Hemp, what do you think?” I called. Gem was focused. I glanced at her every now and then, in between shots.
“I think I’m glad we got these high-capacity magazines,” he said. “It’s going to be close.”
“Gem, watch! There’s two on your right!” I had my share of them working their way on my left, too, so took careful aim in the lightening sky and brought down six more in a spray of crimson that painted the gravel red.
We were in an isosceles triangle formation with Hemp out front, Gem on the right side of the Suburban, and me on the left. Hemp was using his M960 efficiently, and with minimal use of rounds, he was taking them out down the middle, leaving the side trackers to us. There was a car just to Gem’s right, and that’s how they got so close to her.
Gem turned and blew the heads completely off the two closest when they were just feet away from her. The light breeze blew the blood spray back toward her and she turned away momentarily to keep it out of her face. As she did so, she saw two more behind her. I had ducked down low to see beneath the Suburban, and saw their legs moving toward her. I heard her gun click.
“Run toward Hemp!” I shouted at Gem, and dropped to my stomach on the pavement. I fired a long burst, turning the creatures’ legs into stumps. Then I ran around the truck and turned their gnashing faces and heads into pulp. “That’s the fucking way we do it, asshole!” I shouted. This fucker had almost gotten the jump on my woman, and that shit was NOT acceptable.
“Gem!” She turned toward me, gratitude on her face. I threw my gun to her and she deftly caught it. In one swift motion s
he turned and took out no fewer than ten of the slow walkers on her right. I was back at the car, yanking the rear door open to grab another fully loaded rifle. This was one of the newest machine guns in the mix, A Daewoo K7 from the early 2000’s. It only had a 32 round magazine on it, so I set it to the three-round burst mode. With speed, I could take out two or three of them per burst.
I slammed the door in time to turn and find one of them almost right behind me. Behind him were four more, coming out of the ditch from behind an old Nissan Sentra. I shot him in the mouth, and his head broke into two sloppy halves that slid down his body. As he fell, the others came into my sights, and I used two more quick bursts to take them down.
One of them could have been no older than sixteen years. I stared at the body on the ground for a moment. Somebody’s son. Maybe they’d been on their way down to Orlando to see Disney World for the first time.
But this was no longer that family. These were not people now, and it was becoming clearer to me with every one of them I . . . murdered.
Stop that shit, Flex. Stop it.
Subconsciously I heard the gunfire all around me grow more and more infrequent. I shook off my heavy thoughts and ran around the rear of the trailer, scanned the freeway exit we’d driven up as far as I could see, then ran around the other side of the Suburban where Gem was in the process of shooting what used to be a woman wearing a “I’m With Stupid” shirt featuring an arrow pointing up. Stupid went down in a pool of muck.
“How we doin’, guys?” Gem called, her eyes peeled for movement, her head moving side to side as she focused on the fading shadows around her.
I respected that woman more than ever. I never knew what was inside her, her strength, the pure will she possessed. I knew she had all the things I wanted, but I had no idea she also had what I needed. Everything I needed. There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but we hadn’t had the time since this whole thing began. When we got back to my house, I’d make the time.
“Good,” Hemp said. “I’m thinking . . . almost afraid to say it, but I’m thinking we’ve got them.”
I checked the area behind the cars again, and walked forward. Hemp followed while Gem stayed near the Suburban and peered inside to check on Trina. Hemp and I scouted about fifty yards or so out in front of our vehicle. We both got to our knees and searched under the cars. All the bodies we encountered were either half-eaten human beings or abnormals with serious – and I mean deadly serious – head trauma.
“Hemp,” I said, pointing at a Toyota Highlander that was rocking back and forth. I used hand motions to him as we separated and approached the vehicle from two sides. I saw the cause of the rocking almost immediately. Feet stuck out of the rear passenger side door. We’d been unable to see it as we walked by earlier on the other side of a crashed minivan.
I walked slowly, gun held at ready, and moved closer so I could see what was happening inside. When I finally could see, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.
It looked like a man in the throes of a fight with a polar bearskin rug. He moaned and thrashed, and I stood there for a moment in shock at the sight. But if he was alive, I needed to get to him. I leaned my gun against the van and reached down and grabbed both his ankles. Before I realized that his skin mashed like putty in my grip, I was pulling him out of the SUV. When his body rolled over as he slid off the seat and onto the ground, I saw his gnashing, bloody teeth, and massive bite marks in his vein-riddled face.
Faster than I could have imagined possible, he leaned forward, his hand snatching for my wrist, and he had me. His grip was much stronger than I could have imagined, and he was also far more flexible, bending almost in half to bring his horrifying face to where his hand held me. His mouth stretched open, his nose wrinkled and his lidless eyes grew wide as he prepared to take a bite of me.
An explosion rang out beside my ear, and I felt the burn of hot powder, followed by a high-pitched ringing, like a fucking tuning fork was embedded in my brain.
The hand loosened, and I fell back hard. I recall thinking I was going to hit my head on the pavement and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
It was the last thing I remember until I felt the wet towel on my face.
Only it wasn’t a towel.
“Flex. Flex, baby, wake up.”
It was . . . could it be? Gem’s voice?
“C’mon, baby. You’re the one who’s always on a time schedule. All your structure and bullshit. We gotta go.”
Something wet slid across my mouth and cheek. Was Gem licking me? I tried to open my eyes, and found they worked. Light flooded into them, and I saw a white and pink blur over me. I squeezed them closed again, flushing away the haze, and opened them. Another lick. A big one.
“Jesus, you two, get that thing away from me!” I wasn’t even sure what it was yet, but it was licking me.
“C’mon, now,” said Hemp’s voice.
I opened my eyes again, and this time I saw Hemp pulling the collar of a giant white dog with blood matted in the fur on its chin and all along its front legs and chest.
“Is he okay?” I asked. “Where the hell did he come from?”
Gem answered. “Well, a couple of things first. He’s a she, and you saved her, Flex. Damned zombie was – sorry, I mean abnormal – was trying to eat her for breakfast.”
Cobwebs still abounded in my head. “Shit, that was the rug? I didn’t know what I was seeing! I thought the guy was freaking out, trying to bury himself under a big fur rug or something. When I grabbed his legs, it felt wrong, but . . . fucknuts!”
“Fucknuts?” Hemp said, amused. “This is what you come up with after almost being partially eaten?”
Gem looked at Hemp and smiled. “It’s an inside joke. It’s a pretty universal exclamation, actually.”
“The thing was gnawing on this big girl’s leg, and she was taking off a good portion of his face,” Hemp said.
“And you were letting her lick me? What if she’s infected?”
Hemp might as well have called me a moron. His face went absolutely sarcastic, and the only thing he left out was rolling his eyes. “Flex. We’ve driven across north Florida and did you see one zombie – shit – abnormal dog? Did you see any dogs feasting on human flesh the entire way? This tells me – and granted, I’m only a scientist who specializes in epidemics – that it doesn’t spread to dogs. Perhaps other animals, but not canines. You’ll be fine.”
I sat up and stretched out my arms. “How’s Trina?”
Gem held out her hand to me and I took it. “She’s great. I fed her a few handfuls of Cheerios and some of the fruit rollups you got. Then I gave her a Benadryl, and she’s back out.”
“Did she see any of –”
“No,” Gem said. I rolled up a blanket in the side window put the sunshade in the windshield. She’s okay. And I want to take this girl with us, too.”
“What the hell is it?” I stared at the dog. “She’s big, and fat as hell.”
Hemp laughed. “She’s a Great Pyrenees, and she’s pregnant.”
I brushed off my pants and looked from Hemp to Gem to the giant blood red and white cotton ball looking up at me, panting and smiling. “Well, if we aren’t turning into one big fucking happy family.”
“I’ll drive,” Gem said. “You look like you could use a can of chili and a nap.”
I didn’t argue.
Chapter 221
We made it to the CDC in Atlanta well into the morning. Our encounters with others, either alive or otherwise, was limited. Nothing seemed to make sense. Visible people on the streets were almost non-existent, aside from the abnormals – it was as though the survivors were holing up somewhere, avoiding the creatures that seemed to have only one purpose.
The guard gate at the entrance to the Center for Disease Control complex of buildings was far more fortified than the flimsy bar we’d breached to enter the parking lot at the police station back in Tallahassee. As we approached the barrier and small building, we saw a man in
side, slumped over his keyboard, the back of his head and neck raw meat and being worried by a swarm of flies. Hemp and I got out of the truck and cautiously approached the open door. One of the abnormals was on the ground with a hole in the back of its skull, apparently caught in the act of feasting on the guard.
“Wonder if the head shot was lucky, or from experience,” Hemp pondered.
“Bothers me that the radio is dark now,” I said. It had been nothing but static and canned music from automated stations for the last two hours. “That means that as far as these radio towers can transmit, life has changed.”
A sound came in the distance. A high-pitched, yet deep shriek.
“What the fuck is that?” I asked, and Hemp answered, the engineer that he was.
“Airliner!” he shouted.
It grew louder and louder as Hemp and I turned and looked all around us. The deep, rumbling sound became ear-shattering, a deafening roar. We instinctively ducked down and ran back to the truck, our knees bent and our eyes scanning the sky. Over the horizon from behind the gate entrance, an enormous Japan Air passenger plane came into view, no higher than half a mile off the ground, losing altitude fast. The trajectory had it coming right over the top of us, but we had no idea how fast it was dropping.
“What the fuck?” yelled Gem through the open window. She had no view of the sky from inside the Suburban, but turned in her seat and saw the plane looming larger than life through the rear window, and heading straight for the truck.
“Jesus Christ!” she cried, and instinctively threw herself over Trina as they both tucked down, pressing their bodies into the seat. The enormous Boeing 777, now no more than five hundred feet above, thundered directly overhead, beginning to angle sharply to the left. The left wing cut through the top of the guard building we were just in, and it shattered into a million pieces that blew into the sky, mostly following the trajectory of the plane itself.