by Morris, Jacy
Murph looked into his brown paper bag with one last forlorn look, and then grabbed out a small Ziploc baggie of nuclear orange Doritos.
****
The tables in the cafeteria were white, and looked like they had been purchased from a high school. They were the types of tables that had benches attached, and if extra space were needed in the cafeteria, they could be folded up and rolled into the corner. But no extra space was needed that day. The Chief stood between all of the tables. Murph sat on one, wondering what exactly was going on.
"I suppose you all been listening to the news," he started.
Murph smiled. "You mean all that bullshit they been talkin' 'bout the dead coming to life?"
The Chief looked at him, dark brown eyes burning into Murph's green eyes. Murph swiped at an imaginary itch on the back of his neck, blissfully breaking eye contact with the Chief. The stocky brown foreman spoke again, "I know. I know. It all sounds made up. It sounds like it ain't real. Well, I got some news for you. It is real."
The other workers laughed nervously. Skinny Tom, covered in coal dust and grease, said, "C'mon, Chief. Stop pulling our legs."
Murph knew it was real. As soon as he said it, Murph knew that the Chief was speaking the truth. The Chief didn't have time for bullshit. He didn't play jokes. The next time he laughed would be the first.
"We got word from town. Things are going down. Things like what the radio says is happening. I called you guys in here because we have a decision to make." The Chief looked around the room, his eyes boring into each one of the men and women who were assembled.
Murph's mind wandered. He had never been very good at staying focused on someone talking. Murph imagined an army of coal marching down a conveyor belt, rough-edged raw chunks of coal, marching right into a burning inferno to be burnt at a thousand degrees. There was a connection there... something deep. Something smart, but he couldn't quite grasp it.
"You there? Murph?"
Murph was jolted out of his own mind by the Chief's deep voice. "Huh?"
"Jesus," Skinny Tom spat. "Pay attention, Murph. We ain't on no holiday."
The Chief continued where he left off, but Murph was lost now. He paid attention to his words, hoping that he would be able to glean the gist of what he had missed when he was spacing out. "Now, I know some of you got families back in the town. I can't ask you to stay here and keep the fire going for people in Portland while your own families are at risk. But I can't have all of you go. We got a job to do, and we got to do it."
Skinny Tom and a few of the other men stood up. "What are you asking us?" Skinny Tom said, a suspicious look on his face.
The Chief wiped his hands across his face. "This is hard. I know it is. And I want you to know that I am asking; I'm not telling. I need volunteers to keep the fire lit."
Skinny Tom's jaw dropped open, and to Murph he looked like one of those ventriloquist dummies without a ventriloquist at the helm. "You want us to stay here while our families are fighting for their lives? I got a daughter and a wife, man. I ain't sittin' in no power plant to keep the beer cold in Portland while my family is out there. You got a lot of nerve."
"I'll stay," Murph said. It was as if the entire room had been a balloon filled to bursting with tension, but with Murph's words, it all seemed to leak out.
The Chief walked over to him, and patted him on the shoulder with his broad hand. "Thank you, Murph."
Murph didn't know why The Chief seemed so emotional. It wasn't even the end of his shift, and he had nowhere to be anyway. Murph looked down and pulled open the Ziploc bag full of Doritos. He crunched away as the men and women around him argued over whether they should stay or not. In the end, they all decided to leave. It was only Murph and the Chief, and Murph would have left too if he had any place else to be.
Skinny Tom and the others grabbed their coats and rushed out the door, promises on their lips to return once their families were safe. Murph watched as they disappeared, keys jingling in their hands, and wondered if he would ever see them again.
Chapter 9: Rescue
Two blocks into their flight, Rudy knew he wasn't going to be able to keep up the pace. His weight was too much; even walking exerted a massive strain on the frame of his body. Usually, when he moved about, he walked at a leisurely pace, one that would keep him from wheezing and sweating too much. He would always sweat. Three-hundred pound men sweat when they rolled over in bed.
Chloe set the pace while Amanda clung to his side. If it wasn't for the adrenaline coursing through his veins and the hungry eyes that were locked onto him, he would have sat down on the curb to cry. But he could feel the eyes and see the dead honing in on him. He didn't want to be eaten. It was a shocking thing to think. If he had told the idea casually to someone a few days ago, they would have looked at him like he was crazy. But that was his situation, he either needed to move his bulk and carry it through the city, or he could sit on the ground and be eaten. So he lengthened his stride and swallowed his pride, panting heavily to keep up with Chloe.
At least the view was nice. Chloe was dressed in a nice pair of form-fitting jeans, her platinum blonde hair catching the sunlight underneath the trees. They walked through the Park Blocks, a strip of blocks situated between 9th and 8th Ave, or SW Park Ave as some clever planner had decided to call the streets. Why that person couldn't figure out two different names to call the streets was a mystery for the ages. The Park Blocks were a twelve-block stretch through the city. So far they had traversed three of them.
The dead were everywhere, which was alarming. Rudy looked longingly at the buildings around them, any one of them perfect for hiding out in, but Chloe walked, as if driven, her rear end jiggling slightly with each step. Sweat dripped into Rudy's eye.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
Without even looking over her shoulder, "We need to find help. We need to find others, and we're not going to find them here."
"Shouldn't we get a car or something?"
Chloe laughed, throwing her head back. "Didn't you guys listen to the radio?"
"I don't listen to the radio. It's just hipster crap and forgettable pop songs," Amanda said.
"Well, you should try it sometime. If you had listened to the radio, you would know that all of the roads out of here are fucked."
Rudy wheezed as he spoke, trying to alternate breathing with speaking, "What do you mean?"
"While we were hiding in our apartments, people were trying to get out of the city. They created a traffic jam that locked up the highways... apparently the highways are worse than the actual city," Chloe said.
Rudy took this knowledge in. No way out, no escape. A helicopter roared overhead. Rudy looked up and watched it fly through the air. The sound of a minigun firing hit his ears. "Yeah!" he yelled. "Kick some ass!"
His voice echoed through the Park Blocks as the helicopter moved out of sight behind some tall buildings. Rudy wheezed and pulled his asthma inhaler from his pocket. He put it to his lips and pressed down on the canister, but nothing happened. He pressed it down one more time, but again, nothing happened. Panic welled inside his chest.
"It's not working," he whined, his chest tightening with each breath.
The creatures around them seemed closer than ever. Amanda steadied him as his face turned red. Chloe looked at Rudy with annoyance on her face.
"Come on, there's a Walgreen's a few blocks down," she said.
Rudy walked with Amanda supporting him as he struggled for breath. Fear danced around the edge of his mind. He didn't want to be eaten. The thought ran through his head over and over. The blocks, which were half the size of your average city block thanks to the ingenious planning of the city's founders, seemed to go on for miles. Rudy's throat was getting tighter and tighter, and he could barely walk.
His vision became spotty, and at one point Chloe walked back to him and snatched the sword from his hand. The dead were gaining ground on them. Their pace was no longer quick enough to avoid them.
"Hurry up or I'm going to leave your ass," Chloe spat.
Amanda whispered into his ear, her breath hot and comforting, "I really hate that, bitch."
Rudy didn't have the breath to respond. He focused on Chloe's backside, following it as the vision around the edge of his eyes darkened and spots swam in front of him. He watched, gasping for air, as Chloe swung the blade at a limping man, his stomach torn apart and guts trailing between his legs. His head rolled off, and the body slumped to the ground.
Amanda and Rudy had to skirt around it, as Rudy no longer had the strength to lift his legs more than an inch or two off the ground. Then they were there, in front of a plain storefront, plastered in the white and red logo of Walgreen's. Rudy focused on the swooping script. The glass to the front of the store was already busted, and they shuffled inside, well aware that they had gathered a crowd of followers.
Chloe ran through the store, jumping over displays that had been knocked to the ground. Rudy and Amanda followed at a slower pace, losing sight of Chloe's bobbing platinum hair. They heard Chloe banging on something, and then there was a gunshot, followed quickly by another gunshot.
"Oh shit," Amanda said. Rudy would have agreed with her if he could speak, but his face was red and it felt like a sumo wrestler was sitting on his chest, preventing him from grabbing a full breath. Even sliding his feet along was too much for him. They heard the broken glass being crunched and kicked by shambling feet behind them. Rudy forced his body to move, and they emerged into the back of the store where the pharmacy was.
Chloe was behind the counter, rummaging around, picking up boxes, reading them, and tossing them on the ground. "I can't find it. What am I looking for?"
"Ass..." he gasped, unable to form the words. "Asthalin." Rudy collapsed onto the ground behind the busted door of the pharmacy. Amanda stepped over his body and began searching the pharmacy shelves, looking for something that said Asthalin. Chloe shoved the door closed and sat Rudy against the door.
"Don't let anyone in," she said, a serious look on her face.
From his spot on the floor, Rudy could see through the wire meshed windows of the pharmacy's counter. Underneath the noise created by Chloe and Amanda's discarding of boxes, he could hear their moans and their shuffling footsteps as they got closer. Even if they managed to find his medication, they would be trapped in the pharmacy. He had likely gotten everyone killed. They could have easily left him behind. He wouldn't have blamed them. He was dead weight. Worse, he was dead weight with an asthma problem and a top speed of three miles per hour, which he could only sustain for half an hour.
Amanda was there, pulling something out of a white box. Asthalin. She held the inhaler to his mouth, and he wrapped his thick lips around the light blue inhaler, thanking Amanda with his eyes. He inhaled the medicine, and he felt the change immediately. He sat on the floor, gasping and sucking up as much air as he could as an unseen force behind him tried to push the door open. Rudy wedged his feet against the counter, and used all of his weight to keep the door closed.
His back vibrated with the banging of the dead upon the door. From his spot on the floor, he could see more of the dead banging on the glass of the pharmacy. Death was here, looking for a way to get in.
"Shit," Chloe said. "I knew I should have ditched you guys when I had the chance."
"I'm glad you didn't," Rudy said, sincerity feeling weird on the tip of his usually acid tongue.
Chloe just glared at him and began looking around the pharmacy. Amanda knelt next to Rudy. "We're going to be alright, don't worry about her. They have to get tired sometime right?"
Rudy said nothing. He concentrated on breathing, deep, even breaths. Chloe kicked the boxes on the floor as she stalked back and forth, looking out through the wire-mesh windows. She was furious. Rudy could see the rage rising in her. Her beauty melted away, replaced by an ugly creature, a hateful, spiteful thing full of anger. Suddenly, he could not see the beauty in her. Who was this woman? Who was this raging entity that stalked through the pharmacy, swearing, shouting, and knocking medications onto the floor?
When she pulled her gun from the back of her jeans, Rudy instinctively put his hands to his ears. Amanda did the same. Chloe fired through the wire-meshed window. On the other side, a man with no shirt on stopped banging on the glass. A hole in the glass lined up with the hole in his head, and his face squeaked as it slid down the glass.
Chloe didn't stop there. She fired again and again, emptying her gun into the mass on the other side of the window. When she was done, there were nine holes in the window, and several of the creatures were on the floor. But still there were more of them. Rudy removed his hands from his ears and asked, "Are you satisfied?"
Chloe shot him a murderous glare, but before she could answer, more shots rang throughout the store, but they weren't from Chloe's gun. It hung limp at her side. "Get down!" Rudy yelled, but Chloe stood there, looking like the world's most beautiful mannequin. Shots ripped through the windows, and blood plastered the glass, making it hard to see. Amanda fell into Rudy's arms, and he squeezed her tight, jamming his legs against the counter of the pharmacy to help keep the door closed, while their ears rang from all the gunfire. It seemed to last an eternity.
When it was done, Chloe began to yell, "In here!"
Over the ringing in his head, Rudy could hear bootsteps and shouting voices. As Amanda unfurled herself from his arms, Rudy couldn't help but wish that the people outside would go away.
"You alright in there?" a male voice asked.
"Yeah. We're okay, now that you guys are here," Chloe replied.
Amanda helped Rudy to his feet, grunting at the strain. His hand lingered in hers for a second, and then it was gone, the softness still hanging on his fingertips. The door slid open behind them, and several corpses sprawled onto the floor, the non-animated kind of corpses. They were Rudy's favorite.
They shambled out of the pharmacy, Amanda handing him a couple more boxes of his Asthalin. He shoved them in his bag as the men outside told them to line up against the wall. Rudy did as he was told, along with Amanda and Chloe.
One of the men came over and took Chloe's gun from her. "Look what we've got here," the man said to another soldier.
"Search 'em," the man said. He was clearly the one in charge.
Rudy saw the soldier who had taken Chloe's gun run his hands over his body, lingering in the places that Rudy wanted to linger in. Jealousy rose in him before it was followed by a softer anger. It was a strange cocktail. When the soldier was finished, he patted down Rudy, and then Amanda. His hands lingered on her as well, and for some reason, Rudy found himself equally enraged, if not more so.
"They're clean," the soldier announced, smiling slyly at the other soldiers.
The man in charge spoke with a plain voice. "Don't you know you people are supposed to stay inside?"
"Our building was going to burn down around us," Rudy started before the man in charge cut him off.
"Looting is a capital offense during martial law." He squatted on the ground and picked up Rudy's backpack. He unzipped it and pulled out the plain white boxes that contained his medications. He held the offending items up.
"I was going to die," he complained. "The glass was already broken."
The soldier put the medicine back in the bag, zipped it up, and tossed it at his feet. "Yeah, desperate times and all that. The fact is, you're lucky we found you. You can relax. We're not going to arrest you. In fact, you're saved."
They stopped leaning on the wall and turned around to look at their saviors. "What do you mean?" Chloe asked.
"We're setting up a rescue center. We'll take you there."
Rudy felt his heart leap in his chest. A rescue center! Some place guarded by soldiers. They were saved. No more running. No more fearing for their lives.
The soldiers surrounded them. The man in charge said, "Let's get them to the trucks," and then they made for the exits. Rudy watched as the soldiers pocketed items from the store
, so Rudy did the same, grabbing a bag of chips, some exotic flavor of Cheetos. Amanda grabbed a warm six-pack of beer off of a shelf, and stuffed it into her backpack. One of the soldiers looked at her, disapproval in his eyes.
"What? I'm in college," she said, as if that would explain it all.
"Can I get my gun back?" Chloe asked as they approached the broken glass that now served as the Walgreen's main entrance.
The man in charge spun around, walking backwards, and said, "You won't need it where you're going." As he stepped out into the sun, ashy brown hands clamped around his throat, and the ghastly face of one of the dead appeared, snaking a bite out of the man's cheek before anyone could do anything.
The soldiers were slow to react, their rifle straps catching on their soldiers, panic in their movements. The man in charge attempted to push away the creature that bit him, but another appeared, sinking its teeth into the meat of his arm. He screamed, and gunshots rang out in the hot air of the day. The first creature went down in a heap, and the man in charge pushed the second one to the ground, cursing under his breath. It was a little girl, her dress covered in blood that had dried brown. She looked up at the man in charge, and she snarled at him, bits of his flesh caught in her braces.
The girl rose to her feet, hungry for more. The soldiers didn't know what to do. They were waiting for a command from the man in charge, but he gave none. He seemed confused, content with looking at the blood that ran down his arm. He dabbed at the bite on his cheek, wincing in pain.
The girl reached her arms out to him, and the man in charge shoved her away, almost without thinking. Chloe was the first to speak, "Shoot it," she said. Rudy looked at the faces of the soldiers around him, young men, not much older than himself. They looked at each other, wondering which one of them was made of tough enough stuff to gun down a little girl in the streets of Portland.