The First 30 Days: A Zombie Novel

by Lora Powell

  Hissing, I ducked down and pulled myself the rest of the way out of the hole.

  Precious minutes passed as I clawed the hole bigger. Ignoring the stinging on my back, I crawled through to the other side. Reaching back out, I snagged the strap of my bag and pulled it through. I didn't have much of value in there, but I wanted to keep it within reach anyway. Whining, Rex paced on the other side of the fence before stopping at the hole.

  I didn't have time to coax the dog through, nor could I afford the noise. With a last glance back at him, I turned and jogged the short distance to the cage.

  Their huddled shapes formed ahead of me in the darkness. Too stressed to sleep, they were sitting together, slumped with exhaustion but still alert. When they caught sight of something running their way in the dark, they snapped to attention as much as their condition allowed.

  I heard someone whisper zombie as I was taking the last few steps to them.

  "That's the second time someone's thought I was dead. Should I be offended?" I tried to joke as I reached the gate.

  "Bri!"

  "How'd you get here?"

  "What are you doing? Get out of here!"

  Everyone started talking at once, but I ignored them and reached for the latch. Holding my breath, I hoped that I hadn't been wrong about there being no lock. If the door was locked, I had no idea what I was going to do.

  I released the breath when the latch lifted easily. The screech of the hinges made me cringe as I pushed the door open.

  "You didn't think I'd let a bunch of crazy people take you and do nothing, did you?" I dropped to the ground next to Fallon and began cutting at the plastic tie used to bind her. "We have to hurry. The guards will be coming back soon."

  The ties had been put on tight and I ended up cutting her as I tried to get the knife through them in the dark. I mumbled an apology, but she told me to just get them off any way I could. Her wrists were already bloody from struggling to get free.

  I finally cut through the tie and when Fallon didn't immediately get up, I realized her ankles were tied too. I was starting to see why the strangers had been confident enough to leave the door unlocked.

  Moving on to Devon, I gave the teen a tight lipped smile as I worked to free his feet. By the time I freed his hands, I'd figured out the best way to cut through the ties and was able to pick up the pace. Our dwindling time was an oppressive weight trying to crush me as I tried to keep calm enough to function.

  When I cut through the tie around Shawn's wrists, he pulled me into a hard hug. "You should have run the other way."

  I stole a second to lean into the embrace. I hadn't missed the fact that his nose was just a little crooked and a nasty cut marred his cheek. Blood from both had dried on his face, making him look even worse. I had come far too close to losing the most important person in my life, and the reality was just now starting to sink in.

  Steadying myself, I kept going, and within a few seconds, the last of the group was climbing unsteadily to their feet. "We have to go now," I started for the gate but pulled up abruptly.

  The guard's flashlights were working their way along the fence, far too near to the hole.

  "What's wrong?" Shawn leaned close to my back.

  "They're too close. We aren't all going to make it out in time. They are going to find the hole."

  Whirling around, I tried to come up with another way out of the compound. My eyes went to the vague shapes of the vehicles lined up not too far away. "This way," I darted towards the van.

  If we were lucky, the keys would still be in it. And if not, maybe we could hide there until we had a chance to run for the fence.

  FORTY-TWO-DAY 22

  "What's that over there?"

  I heard the words that I had been dreading as I darted around the end of the van. Scooting along it's familiar side, I made room for the others. Shawn and Fallon were right behind me, but it was several very long seconds before Devon limped around the end of the van. Behind him, Maya had stayed behind with Bill, who was listing sideways and having obvious difficulty staying upright.

  "Something's dug a hole under the fence!"

  "What?" There was a moment of silence as the second guard must have walked closer to investigate. "What the hell?"

  Crouched behind the van, we stayed still and silent. In what was becoming a habit, I sent a quick prayer to whoever might be listening, asking for the time we needed to escape back under the fence.

  "Something's moving out there," the first guard sounded worried. "I think I heard a growl."

  It struck me that Rex was still out there, somewhere, at the same time that the second guard exclaimed, "It's a dog!"

  "I didn't think there'd be anything like a dog left alive out there. What's it doing?"

  "I think he wants in." A pause. "Do you think that dog dug this hole?"

  I turned my head to the left and found Shawn next to me, watching me intently. I stared back, suddenly wishing that we had time for me to say a few things that had been on my mind lately, but I'd kept to myself. So we sat there, listening to the pair of guards try to decide if they needed to wake Mack up, or if they thought that a dog could have created the hole under the fence.

  "We have to tell him. He'll have both of our heads if he finds out we found something like this and didn't wake him up."

  "You're right." The second guard sounded less than thrilled at the prospect of waking up their leader. "I'll go get him. You stay here and keep an eye out for trouble."

  Footsteps swished through the taller grass, coming our way. I did my best to shrink down behind the van. I had to bite back a noise when I rubbed the cuts to my back on the filthy side of the vehicle, but the guard walked right on past where the six of us hid.

  "We have to get out of here before that maniac finds us," Devon whispered.

  He had a point. Two armed guards were beyond us to fight in our current condition, and the entire camp was about to be woken up. For now, all they knew was that there was a hole under the fence that may, or may not, have been made by a dog. But as soon as someone thought to check the cage, they were going to know for sure that the dog didn't do it. Steeling my nerves, I eased up to look into the front seat of the van.

  I had watched earlier as a pair of men systematically emptied our van of our belongings. I was hoping that, like with the door on the cage, they had been lax with security regarding the vehicles.

  Someone seemed to be smiling down on us at that moment. The moonlight glinted off of a familiar set of keys, lying on the front seat.

  "The keys are in the van," I whispered excitedly.

  I had everyone's attention.

  "Let's go, then. That gate didn't look like it would stop a car if you hit it hard enough." Bill groaned as he hauled himself back to his feet.

  The door slid open and everyone began piling into the van, but I held back. Looking over the hood, I tried to make out the fence in the dark, but it was too far away. "I can't go yet."

  "What?" Shawn hesitated with one foot still on the grass.

  "Rex is still on the other side of the fence. He wouldn't come through the hole with me."

  "Bri, he's a dog. We have to get out of here before they all wake up," Maya looked out at me from where she had taken the driver's seat.

  "I can't." I tried to convey with my eyes just how serious I was. "I might not have even made it here to get you out, if it wasn't for him. I can't just leave him."

  Five pairs of eyes looked at me like I was crazy, but the one person who I had learned I would always be able to count on came through once again. "Ok. Let's go get the dog."

  Maya sighed, "We will wait for you as long as we can."

  Sneaking back through the night, towards the remaining guard, seemed like a foolish thing to be doing. Sweat trickled down my neck and I struggled to keep my breath from turning into loud gasps. I'd switched my knife for the machete, and the handle felt like it was going to slip through my sweaty grasp. Creeping along next to me, Shawn now held the
knife with a look of determination.

  We hadn't really had time to come up with a plan. He had hurriedly whispered that we would split up before we reached the guard, one approaching from one side, and the other from behind him. Hopefully we would catch the guy off guard and be able to get the gun away from him before either of us got shot. Then I would get Rex through the hole by whatever means necessary, and we would run for the van.

  In theory, it should work, but there were a lot of variables we had no control over. Just before we made it close enough to begin to make out the guard in the dark, we split. Going right, I swung in a wide arc, staying out of view, until I finally encountered the fence. I had lost sight of Shawn, and worried that I was not moving through the dark as fast as he was. If one of us made it to the guard too far before the other, that person was going to be in real trouble. After all, we were bringing knives to a gun fight.

  I picked up my pace a fraction.

  "Dog, what are you looking at?"

  I froze. It hadn't occurred to me that Rex was going to give our approach away. Of course, he was going to know that we were out there, and was going to react. I just hoped that he was looking at me instead of Shawn. If anyone was going to get shot over our bid to rescue Rex, I did not want it to be him.

  A strange sense of both relief and adrenaline fueled anxiety hit me as Rex melted out of the darkness, just on the other side of the fence. The guard was going to be looking my way.

  I took one step forward, and was stopped again.

  "Stop!" Who's out there?" The guard's outline appeared as he moved towards me.

  I threw my hands up, machete still clutched in a death grip, and hoped that I wasn't about to find out what it felt like to get shot.

  "Stop, stay where you are."

  The guard advanced. On the other side of the chain link, Rex started barking viciously and jumping at the fence. I kept my focus on the gun, trying to decipher if he was going to shoot.

  The guard had come within a few feet of me, when movement behind him in the darkness turned into a familiar face. The guard crumpled to the ground, leaving me facing Shawn, holding a good sized rock that he had just used to hit the guard.

  "Get the dog and let's get out of here."

  He didn't have to tell me twice. Sprinting the short distance to the hole, I bent down and coaxed, "Rex. Come on boy. Come here, through the hole."

  Rex whined and crouched just on the other side, obviously thinking about crawling through. A commotion behind me had me looking away from the dog and over my shoulder. I couldn't see what was going on, and I jumped to my feet.

  Someone came barreling out of the shadows and ran headlong into me, sending the both of us to the ground in a heap. I yelped as my back made contact with the ground hard, but didn't have time to think about the pain because the man who had jumped me immediately started trying to pin my hands with his own.

  "It's a girl. Not one of the ones from the cage," the guy called over his shoulder. He managed to get a hold of my hand with the machete before I could swing the weapon at him.

  Over my own panicked breathing, I registered the sound of fighting not far away. Rex was barking frantically and the fence rattled as he threw himself against it. From out of the darkness, a voice that I recognized as Mack's said, "Tom, stop fooling around and get her under control."

  "I'm trying."

  I looked at the face of my attacker for the first time, and saw the swollen eye and bruised face of the guard who had been on the front gate during the day. Grappling with me for control of the machete, he dug a knee into my abdomen, driving all of the air out of my lungs. My vision swam and I almost missed when someone grabbed Tom and ripped him off of me.

  I laid there, semi stunned, and listened to someone cursing colorfully. When I heard a voice yell, "Just shoot him!" I forced myself to move. Struggling upright, I found Shawn on top of Tom, his hands wrapped around his throat.

  Two more men, Mack and the other guard, appeared. The guard aimed his gun at Shawn, but seemed to be having trouble finding an angle that wouldn't be likely to hit Tom. I lurched to my feet.

  I took one drunken step toward the guard. Seeing that I was up, he swung his aim my way.

  A flash of dark fur sprinted past me and straight into the guard. Snarling, the dog latched onto his arm and refused to let go.

  Mack cursed again when he saw the dog hanging from the guard's arm. Turning, he kicked at Rex, but I knew by now that nothing was going to get that dog to let go before he was ready.

  Distracted by his attempt to kick the dog, Mack missed my lunge in his direction. I didn't think, just acted.

  The machete cut deep into his arm. A warm spray of blood covered my neck and chest as I pulled the weapon free. The shocked look in his eyes, as he stared first at me, then the wound that was pouring blood with every pulse of his heart, almost made me feel bad for him. Almost.

  "We've gotta go!" Shawn grabbed for my arm as he ran past me, toward where Maya had just started the van. Drawn by the noise, more people were coming out of the buildings, their flashlights giving them away.

  "Rex!" I shrieked at the dog as we ran.

  The van started to roll slowly through the grass, angling toward the gate. Someone inside threw open the sliding door and we ran for it.

  Rex jumped into the van and I threw myself inside after him. Diving in behind me, Shawn jerked the door closed just as the first of the bullets hit the vehicle.

  FORTY-THREE-DAY 22

  The sound of a window shattering had me diving for the floor of the van. Maya floored it, and the tires spun on the grass before biting hold. The vehicle lurched forward and bounced roughly over the uneven ground.

  More gunfire and shouting followed us. I kept my head down in fear of catching a bullet. When the windshield spider webbed from a bullet coming from ahead of us, I knew the guard posted at the gate had started to fire. Maya kept her foot pressed to the floor and we flew past the guard and through the gate. The chain link didn't even slow the van down.

  Gravel pinged off the underside of the van. When several seconds passed without the sound of bullets flying through the air, I dared to sit cautiously upright again.

  The trees flew by in the darkness. Maya hadn't turned on the headlights, and it seemed she was keeping the vehicle on the road by sheer force of will. Nothing else explained how we didn't end up in a fiery crash as we flew along the dark, unfamiliar road. At the last second, I thought I recognized where we were.

  "Turn here! Left!"

  She wrenched the wheel and we somehow made the turn, tires sliding in the dirt. Turning around in my seat, I checked for the pursuit that I was sure couldn't be far behind, but the road behind us remained dark and empty.

  My eyes travelled to the two people in the back seat. Fallon and Devon had sat up and looked shell shocked, huddled in the back seat. Sunburned, filthy and exhausted, other than the obvious paleness of Devon's face, they looked ok. I turned back around.

  "Is everyone ok?"

  Next to me, Shawn was sitting upright, watching behind us for any sign of the strange group. It was shadowy inside the van, but I could still see that his face, which had already looked like he'd been hit a few too many times, was worse after our fight with the guards. But he was alert and I didn't see any signs of the kind of injury that time wouldn't take care of.

  "I'm good," Maya answered me briefly as she concentrated on getting us out of there in one piece.

  "I'm ok," Bill's voice was weak. From what I had seen of his condition before, he looked like he had lost a lot of blood. When we were far enough away, I was going to have to see what I could do for him, but without our medical bag, I didn't begin to know what I could do.

  When I said so, Bill replied, "Don't worry about me. We just need to get as far away from here, as fast as we can."

  The van never slowed down as we dashed for freedom. I did my best to recognize the turns and guide us back to the highway, but I didn't heave a sigh of relief until I ca
ught sight of the gas station. My fear that we would be lost in the winding back roads did not come to pass.

  We flew on by and I felt a twinge of remorse for Carrie. She deserved better than to be left lying in that building, but we couldn't stop. It would take time to bury her body. Time that we didn't have.

  A zombie was wandering on the on ramp that we took to get back to the highway. Swerving slightly, Maya clipped it with the side of the van. I watched behind us as the zombie spun and rolled along the pavement. That was when I recognized that the sun was starting to come up. I could see the zombie tumbling through the pre dawn gloom.

  Everyone was silent. The cuts to my back burned and I flexed my shoulders, trying to find a more comfortable position. All I succeeded in doing was sending pain shooting down my back. Giving up, I leaned slightly forward to keep from touching the back of my seat. When we stopped, I was going to have to ask someone to take a look, but for now, I didn't want to cause anyone more worry. There were two other members of our little group who were more in need of care than me.

  When the engine of the van started to make alarming noises, probably in protest of the speed that it was being pushed, Maya finally allowed our speed to drop a little. I didn't know why the other group was not following us, but it seemed like we had actually managed to make our escape. Nothing but the occasional zombie moved on the deserted stretch of highway that we had been driving.

  A hand eased itself into my own, breaking me away from staring out the window blankly while my mind raced. Looking over, I smiled weakly at Shawn. He had finally relaxed into his seat and I wondered for how long he had been watching me.

  The sun had climbed completely into the sky. It looked like it was going to be another blisteringly hot, sunny day. I could finally get a clear view of his face and I held back a cringe. Black bruises had circled his eyes, his nose was still a little off center, and the cut to his cheek probably could have used a stitch or two if going to the ER was still a possibility. But he was alive, and the small smile that turned up one corner of his mouth had never looked better.