The Infected (Book 3): Nightfall

by Joseph Zuko

  “What was that?” yelled Tina.

  Jim moved out onto the balcony and it was much brighter than it was the last time he had stepped outside. An orange and yellow glow filled the air. He leaned over the rail again and looked down the back of the building to see where the light was coming from. Heat blasted Jim’s face like a furnace. The smell of smoke fused with the stench of the infected was intense. It was forty degrees hotter outside than it was four hours ago.

  The next building over was set ablaze!

  He couldn’t see what started it or what made the loud explosion. Most of the neighbors had propane barbeques on their back porches. It could have been one of the tanks. There was no way of knowing. The explosion had caught a tree that sat between the two buildings on fire and a dozen infected were lit up like Tiki torches. The breeze caught a few embers and bits of burning debris were drifting their way. The infected torches stumbled and brought the cursed fire even closer. Every mobile body joined Jim on the balcony. They watched as the fire crept like a demon across the tree and onto their building. The group was speechless. After only a few moments out on the balcony it was already too hot to stay out there and watch. They had to move fast.

  “We have to pack our shit and go!” Jim left the rail and headed back inside. Everyone reentered the apartment and scrambled in a mad dash.

  Cliff shook Morgan awake, “Morgan!”

  Her old eyes popped open, “What Clifford?”

  “Building’s on fire! We have to move!”

  “Horse shit,” Morgan exclaimed. Then she noticed everyone packing up to leave. “Get the girls safe first! Don’t worry about me!”

  “Alright!” Cliff bolted down the hall after Tina.

  The parents headed to their children’s bedroom. They flipped on the bedroom light and the girls let out a groan.

  “Get up girls, now! We have to go!” Tina pulled the blanket off of Eve, “Get dressed and help me with your sisters!”

  “What time is it? I’m sleepy!” Eve rolled over to her stomach and pulled her pillow over her head to protect her eyes from the bright light.

  Tina ripped the pillow off of her baby, “The apartment is on fire! We have to go now!”

  Cliff moved quickly and got Brea up out of bed. It was like dressing a limp and heavy doll. There was no way to wake her, the kid could sleep through anything. He found her an outfit and shoes and got her sleeping body dressed.

  Tina helped Alex into her clothes as Eve dressed herself.

  “Where are we going, Mama?” Eve asked as she pulled a sweatshirt over her head.

  “I don’t know!” Tina yelled. She couldn’t help herself. It was all too much. The dread of leaving their home in the middle of the night, losing all of their possessions, their food and heading out into the violent, deadly wasteland that was Vancouver was more than she could bear. Tina had watched a few hours worth of videos online about house fires. It was another obsession and a major fear of hers. She gauged they had thirty minutes if they were lucky before the whole place burned to the ground. It meant they had fifteen to vacate the place with their lives. Fifteen minutes to pack what they could and load the van with a parking lot full of biters. It took a minute to make it down the flight of stairs, drop off something in the van and race back up the steps. Plus they had to get Morgan down the steps.

  SHIT FUCK!!!!

  “We follow Jim!” Cliff finally spoke.

  “And then what?” Tina’s voice screeched with panic.

  “Hope that his mother-in-law’s place is safe! That’s all we can do!”

  They had all three girls dressed and now they needed to get themselves ready. They ripped on their clothes lightning fast. Cliff whipped the police belt around his waist. Frank had helped him load it and its two extra clips. Tina tucked Morgan’s revolver into her belt. The two of them filled a suitcase with some extra clothes for the two of them and the girls.

  “What about the food?” Tina asked as she slipped into a leather jacket.

  “We have to leave it!”

  At the same time Cliff and Tina got themselves ready, Jim and his crew grabbed their gear.

  “Let’s load out the guns, clear the lot and then come back for Devon. Then we’ll get whatever else we have time for!” Jim said as he slid on his leather jacket. He quickly worked the Bert and Ernie dolls into his backpack, pulled it onto his body and secured it tight. He got his handgun’s holster placed on his belt and filled it with a pistol. Jim tucked his spear in between his backpack and his back and picked up his assault rifle.

  Sara pulled one of the duffle bags full of guns and ammo over her shoulder and fit her bat into the bag. She placed her Glock in its holster and picked up her shotgun. Sara was ready to hit the road.

  Frank fastened his shoulder harness that held his Berettas to his torso, he got his SKS slung over his shoulder along with his regular duffle bag. He muscled the new bag with the hunting rifle and the extra ammo that they got at the gun store onto his other shoulder. It was as much as he could carry.

  Another explosion blasted into the night’s sky. It launched burning debris onto the balcony of Cliff and Tina’s apartment. The little storage shed that connected to the back of the apartment caught on fire. It was now spreading on both sides of the building.

  Cliff raced down the hall and finished getting his jacket on, “We gotta take down the barricade!” He grabbed the saw that hung by the front door. He flew out onto the landing and began to chop at the barricade. It was the first time Cliff got to swing the saw at a solid object and it worked well. He chopped at the braces that held the wood wall into place. It pulverized the chunks of lumber but it was taking too long. Tina gathered the girls and their bags at the front door. Right behind them stood Jim’s crew. Sara pushed past Tina and racked her shotgun.

  “Step back!” She yelled at Cliff.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Sara cycled through the shells and punched three monster holes into the barricade. It was enough to loosen the wall. Cliff stomped his boot into the wall and sent it tumbling down the flight of stairs. Cliff led the way. He moved the length of lumber and plywood up off the stairs and cleared the path to the vehicles.

  A flaming zombie surprised him at the bottom of the steps. Cliff wasn’t just a strike throwing machine on his softball league, he was one of the homerun kings. He clutched the saw with both hands and swung it with everything he had. The saw ripped into its torched face. It was no Samurai sword. It didn’t possess a sharp enough edge to slice through bone, but it demolished the zombie’s face. It caved in its ugly mug and sent its body to the ground with a loud thud.

  The parking lot was always pretty well lit with exterior lights, but tonight with the fire raging only fifty yards away, it was almost as bright as day.

  Cliff cut down another monster as the three humans armed with guns flanked his sides. They unleashed a fury of lead onto the encroaching horde and opened up the area around the two cars. Cliff popped the lock on his van and waved Tina and the girls down.

  Jim unlocked the PT Cruiser. He opened the back hatch and the two car seats fell to the ground. He kicked them out of his way and Sara and Frank dropped off the extra duffle bags into the back.

  Sara reloaded her shotgun, “Go get Devon. I’ll keep the lot clear!”

  Tina and Cliff buckled their children into their seats and tossed the luggage into the back of the van.

  “I’ll be right back with Morgan!” Cliff clicked the last buckle on Brea’s belt.

  “What about her wheelchair?” Tina slammed her side door shut.

  “We don’t have space for it!” Cliff pulled his side shut and the girls were safe.

  The men charged back up the flight of stairs as Sara and Tina watched each other’s backs. They smoked any zombie that got close.

  Upstairs in the living room, pockets of fire had begun to poke through the walls of the apartment. It was amazing how fast it spread. The other astonishing thing was that the place was filled with a ton of smoke, but none of th
e alarms had gone off. Jim and Karen seemed to set the alarm off every time they cooked a pizza. Here was a real life threatening fire and nothing. Not a peep.

  Morgan waited for Cliff at the front door. He swooped his arms down and around her frail little body and hoisted her up out of the chair.

  “Let’s go, Mom!” He hustled out the front door. Morgan held her son’s neck tight and pressed her face to his chest. He could feel her shaking. She had never held him that tight before.

  The heat in the living room was intense. It was like walking into an oven. The smoke alarms began to blast and that woke Devon. His eyes opened in time to see Jim and Frank racing towards him.

  “Why’s it so hot in here? What the hell is going on?” Devon reached for Jim’s arms. The cobwebs in Devon’s mind had cleared enough for him to comprehend what was taking place. “God Damn! What did you dudes do to the apartment?”

  “Sorry about this!” Frank circled his arms around the young man’s legs. Jim and Frank nodded at each other and they lifted Devon off the counter at the same time. Devon carried on like a cat with its tail stuck in a closed door.

  In the parking lot, Tina and Sara blasted the heads off a dozen infected creepers. They weren’t the only people racing to their cars, but they were the heaviest armed. Families fled their homes like rats on a sinking ship. Tina had to watch as her neighbors, who were packing nothing but steak knives and brooms, tried to escape. Their flimsy weapons couldn’t protect them and they were quickly gobbled up by the hungry horde. It was absolute chaos.

  Sara finished off a little twerp of a zombie. The blast of the shotgun sent its tiny chewed up body into the side of some neighbor’s sedan. It left a smear four-feet wide on the doors and set off the car’s alarm.

  It was nearly impossible to hear over the ear piercing alarm.

  “Behind you!” Tina called out.

  Sara spun, blasted a round into an infected skull. She counted her shots and it was empty. Sara tossed the gun into the back of the PT Cruiser. She loved how the shotgun didn’t need precise aiming, but hated its kick. It was like an asshole jock was playing slug-bug and punching her in the shoulder with everything he could muster. Sara switched to the Glock, zeroed in on the next row of zombies and popped out their infected zombie brains with a few easy pulls of the trigger.

  Cliff stomped down the steps with Morgan in his arms, “Get in the van!” he called to his wife.

  Tina put her last round of .38 into the skull of a crawling zombie that pulled its way over to the van.

  Sara finished off one full magazine and switched to her back up. Cliff opened the van’s side door and dropped off Morgan in the center row. A fast moving monster emerged from the darkness behind him. It headed for the dead center of Cliff’s back. He didn’t see or hear it. Sara took two large steps to help close the gap as she slid the mag into the butt of her gun.

  Tina saw it bearing down on her husband, “CLI-”

  He had just set Morgan down on the seat when he felt the fingertips brush his back.

  POP! POP! POP! POP!

  Sara sent her nine-millimeter rounds into the side of the zombie’s skull. The momentum of her shots caused the dead body to change course and it crashed into the back of the van. Cliff flinched and ducked down. The loud blast of Sara’s gun shaved off a few years of his life. He spun around in time to see the body fall off the back of the van and land with a thud on the asphalt.

  “Holy shit!” Cliff rubbed at his buzzed scalp. “Thank you!”

  Frank and Jim descended the last of the steps with Devon in tow.

  “No worries,” Sara was rattled, but she didn’t show it.

  Cliff called across the lot towards Jim, “I’ll follow you!” He popped open the driver’s side door.

  Sara moved to open the backdoor of the PT Cruiser.

  “The place is on the other side of 192nd right behind the QFC!” Jim yelled back over his shoulder. They tried as gently as they could to place Devon down in the backseat, but the young man was in all kinds of agony and he was letting everyone know it. They got him set and slammed his door shut. Jim pulled the spear from his back and tossed it into his ride. Frank let out a loud whistle and pointed out ahead of them.

  Another godforsaken horde stood between them and their exit. The three of them stepped in front of the PT Cruiser and opened fire. The zombies were just far enough away from the flames that they were harder to see in the dark. They kept their guns trained on the center mass that blocked the main way out. Frank clicked empty and he flipped over to his second magazine. Jim and Sara clicked empty on their guns.

  “Get in!” Jim bark as he dropped his rifle off in his car and pulled his pistol. Sara raced around to her side of the Cruiser and jumped into the back seat next to Devon.

  Red seeped through the bandage. “FUCK!” she cursed in Devon’s face.

  “I know! It hurts like hell!” He tried to keep pressure on the wound, but it hurt to touch it. Sara didn’t have a problem putting pressure on it and she placed both hands onto the top of his thigh. He cried out.

  “Hey!” she slapped him across the cheek to get his attention, “Man up! I don’t want you screaming in my ear all the way there!”

  Devon stopped and chewed at his bottom lip. The slap was kind of a dick move on Sara’s part, but it worked.

  Outside the car Frank pulled both of his Berettas once his SKS clicked empty. The two men squeezed through all forty plus rounds and the lot was as clear as it was going to get. Only a couple of stragglers remained. Jim would have to risk the radiator in the PT Cruiser and make a break for it.

  A pack of zombies had surrounded the back of Cliff’s van. They punched at the windows and tried to get at the girls. The van’s engine revved and he was ready to burn rubber.

  “That’s it! Time to move!” Frank pulled his side door open and hopped in.

  Jim yanked on the door knob and looked back at the burning building behind him.

  There it goes. Jim thought.

  The apartment he hated these last few years was about to be ravaged by an unstoppable fire, along with all of his possessions. He was too tired and beat down by the day to mutter out anything other than, “Fuck!”

  CHAPTER 15

  Karen had been laying in the bed for hours. As tired as she was she could not get her brain to turn off. Her thoughts kept replaying the day. The fight with Steve in the apartment, the injury to her wrist, the fact that she had left Valerie in the back of the Dodge as she ran away. The way the gun felt in her hand as she pulled the trigger to finish off her own mother. She brooded over where the hell Jim could be. Karen needed a distraction. She slipped her cell out of her pocket and swiped it on. The battery was down to sixty percent and she had left the charger at the apartment. She tried to call Jim, but there was no getting through. The phone said all of the circuits were busy and to try again later. She clicked on the Facebook app. No one had made any updates in hours. Karen’s online friends and family that stretched across the nation were all saying the same thing.

  “I can’t get anyone on the phone at the police station! Is there a way to contact them online?”

  “Please help me. I’m trapped and my husband tried to kill me!!!”

  “My son has been bit! Has anyone heard what to do? Is there a cure???”

  “No one’s answering at the school. Did they get the kids out safely??”

  Her news feed went on and on. Every one of them were confused, panicked and facing death. This was not helping her get to sleep. It was making it worse. She turned off the app and then she opened her photos. Karen’s phone was full to the brim with photos and videos. It was so full she had to constantly delete the old ones to take any new photos. She thumbed through photo after photo of the two girls looking adorable. There was a photo of Jim holding Valerie when she was a few months old. It was their first time taking the baby to a restaurant. The photo brought a smile to her face. She kept looking. There was a shot of Jim and her at a Halloween party. They wer
e dressed like Macho Man Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan. There was a Christmas pic of the whole family with Santa at the local Macy’s. She clicked on a video of the family singing happy birthday to Robin when she turned one. The baby looked terrified and confused. She clicked on another video of a drunk Jim riding a mechanical bull. The iron beast turned, spun around, bucked and in an instant Jim was on his back laughing. The next photo was of a monster, dark purple bruise the size of a grapefruit that was on Jim’s inner thigh from the bull ride. There were forty pictures of Jim and Karen out on date nights. She loved to take a picture of them reaching across the dinner table and holding each other’s hands, their fancy cocktails sitting decoratively in the background. Seeing the photos of the two of them together and happy helped to calm her. She was no longer focusing on the horrible day. Instead she was dreaming about the wonderful past. She thumbed through two hundred photos that spanned the last four years. Each one filling her heart with love and warmth, replacing all of her negative thoughts with pure ones and she was ready to fall asleep.

  Karen woke to the sound of Robin crying. She felt like she had just closed her eyes and now she had to get up. This wasn’t a shock. Robin had been an amazingly easy kid to potty train and she was not one to pee the bed. Instead, the little one would partially wake up, sit on her knees and cry until someone took her to the bathroom. Karen was pretty used to waking up in the middle of the night and making this run to the toilet with Robin. It happened almost every night. Karen scooped up her baby and carried her to the master bathroom. When Karen placed the wobble legged child down on the floor to get her little underwear to her ankles, Robin looked comical. She shook and gyrated like this was her first time standing on her own. Karen had to keep Robin’s ginger noggin between her thighs as she set the still sleeping kid down on the toilet. She once made the mistake of walking away mid-stream and Robin toppled forward off the throne. She fell, face first and landed hard on the bathroom floor. Karen felt horrible and from that day forward made sure she was there to brace her until the end.