The Longest Road (Book 3): The Other Side

by A. S. Thompson

  Agent Kim shook his head in disagreement. “Homes? Maybe as last resort. The closest homes are blocks away and all we have right now are a couple of mop-turned spears.”

  Matty had been half-listening, half-mentally wandering. His eyes drifted around the room until it came to a poster. It showed sign-ups for a half-dozen school sports and informed those interested to see Coach Garrison at the PE office in the back of the school.

  “Uh guys," Matty said, pointing to the poster. “I think I have a solution.”

  ***

  The back door of the school creaked open. Kim, Charlie, Alissa, and Matty hugged the brick walls and moved as soundlessly as the soft rain that fell from the dark sky. A minute later, Kim arrived at the PE office door and readied his spear.

  “Keep your head on a swivel. We don’t know what’s in there.”

  Alissa noticed Matty anxiously shift his body, so she asked, “Want me to go in front of you?”

  “Yes, please,” Matty replied, grateful.

  “Alright here we go.”

  Kim held up his index finger, then middle and finally the ring finger. Alissa pulled open the door and Kim cocked his armed back ready to jab but nothing leapt from the shadows.

  “Lights are out,” Alissa said, flipping the switches up and down.

  Using a bulky flashlight found in the principal’s office, Kim illuminated the interior. The light wasn't much as the D batteries were ancient. “Stay close.”

  The lobby was small and the carpet was relatively clean. Directly ahead was a large glass window that looked into a room marked “Coach Garrison’s Office.”

  Kim shined the light into the office. “Clear.”

  “Ya, but do you smell that?” Alissa asked, pinching her nose, gagging from the awful stench.

  “I do, but it’s not coming from inside the office.”

  “I think I found my weapon of choice,” Matty said, pointing through the glass. Mounted on the wall, in its own hard plastic case, was a paddle used undoubtedly in corporal punishment. Quarter-sized holes were drilled into the middle, while the blackened oak showed telltale signs of schoolchildren beatings.

  Kim tried the round knob, but it wouldn’t turn. “It’ll have to wait ‘til later, Matty.” Then he turned his light to the right. There were two open hallways: one marked boys, and the other marked girls.

  “Let’s try the lockers.”

  “Why?” Matty immediately protested. “There’s not gonna be any weapons in there. We should go to the equipment room on the other side.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, Matty, but I’d rather not get snuck up on.”

  “Here, give me the light, David,” Alissa suggested. “That way, you can react better if you need to.”

  Kim and company tiptoed into the boy’s room first. Lockers, some open some closed, lined the rectangular walls while a long wooden bench was bolted to the floor in the middle. The flashlight revealed blood smears on the white tile, and Kim followed the trail around the corner.

  To their collective surprise and relief, however, there was no threat in the empty shower room.

  Next, the group backtracked to the girl’s locker room. At the entrance, they could smell a more pungent scent of human decay. They gripped their weapons tighter, expecting to go into battle at any second.

  “I thought girls were supposed to be cleaner,” Matty joked for his own unease, but the lighthearted attempt was a failure.

  The design of the room was the same as the boy’s but reversed. More blood smears could be seen amidst the grime and piles of soiled clothing.

  With each step into the room, the smell of rot and decay amplified exponentially. Kim pointed the tip of his spear toward the shower room and paced nearer.

  Once again, they rounded the blind corner, and once again, they were relieved- to an extent. While no infected were present, they did discover the reason for the horrible stench.

  Huddled under the showers was a cluster of twelve children- what was left of them. Their small bodies had been ripped apart and black lines from dried blood poured into the drain in the center. Thousands of dead flies peppered the mangled corpses while only a few living buzzed over the rot.

  The smell coupled with the sight caused Matty to immediately throw up what little contents he had in his stomach. Alissa gagged and almost overcame the urge to vomit, but she eventually followed Matty. Kim caught himself before joining the others.

  Charlie, however, appeared the least affected. He simply pinched his nostrils and turned away.

  “Dude, how are you not blowing chunks?” Matty asked, wiping his mouth.

  “War,” he replied simply. “It doesn’t bring me any happiness to admit, but I’ve seen something similar once. Something worse.”

  In the main lobby, the three men and one woman regained their composure. Matty and Alissa wiped the mucus from their lips and spat the last bit of disgust from their mouths.

  “Keep it down, guys,” Kim whispered, but it was too late.

  Their coughing and complaints had stirred commotion in the equipment room.

  “What was that?” asked Matty.

  “Sounded like a crate or a box hit the ground,” Charlie answered in a low tone.

  Agent Kim put a finger to his lips, then pointed to the blue colored single door. He crept slowly over and shined the flashlight through the window in the upper middle.

  There was nothing to be spotted as visibility was minimal, so Kim waved the others around him in a huddle formation and said, “Alright, there’s definitely something in there. Since Charlie and I are the only ones with weapons, I’ll go in first. Alissa, if you don’t mind, come in after me. I’ll need you to hold the light.”

  “You got it.”

  “Charlie, follow her and break off left. Matty, stick close to him.”

  Using his sleeve, Matty wiped his tongue, presumably, until he could no longer taste the putrid stench. He extended a thumbs-up in confirmation.

  “Alright, here we go,” Kim said, turning the round knob.

  The door swung inward with almost no creaking. Directly ahead were metal lockers. Some were closed while others had jerseys and various sporting equipment hanging from them. By the time Charlie crossed the threshold, their search for the source of the mysterious sound was over.

  Hunched over, but still over six-feet tall, was a man wearing a white collared shirt. Large sections of the fabric were stained by crusted black blood. When the man whipped its head toward the flashlight, the group noticed a metal whistle dangling around its neck.

  The beast hustled around the Equipment Return desk, revealing thigh-high shorts and long socks. But the amusing sight did not retain its amusement for long, as Coach Garrison moved with a ferocious intent to kill.

  Kim reacted to the impending threat but was unable to accurately deliver the lethal strike as intended. The tip of the spear pierced the coach’s ribcage under the right pectoral.

  There was a sound of bone cracking but the spear did not fully penetrate the breast plate. While it created some separation, the strike created a bigger problem.

  As Coach Garrison continued to drive his two hundred-fifty pound momentum forward, he successfully pushed the group back into one another. The rounded backside of Kim’s spear thrust into Alissa’s gut, causing her to drop the flashlight and lose her balance. As a result, Charlie and Matty were pinned behind Alissa, thereby halting any offensive action on their part.

  “Come on, guys, push!” Kim lowered his weight and drove forward hoping to free his companions, but as the battle ensued, yet another problem exacerbated the unfavorable situation- Coach Garrison was not alone.

  Dragging her broken leg from the equipment cage in the back was the assistant coach. Embroidered on the woman’s white collared shirt was the name Ms. Clipton.

  “Shit!” Kim cursed. “On three, everyone push as hard as you can! Three!”

  Muscles bulging, the men and woman drove forward with enough force to propel the coach backward
. Stumbling, Garrison tripped over an orange soccer cone, and as his body fell, the backside of his head smacked against the wooden desk.

  “Charlie, take the woman! Alissa, you’re with me!”

  “Matty!” Charlie yelled as he banged his spear on the lockers; the noise captured Ms. Clipton’s attention. "I'm gonna stick her with this. Then you come up behind me and beat the shit out her head withthat!"

  Matty identified the metal baseball bat just as Charlie drove his spear into the woman’s stomach.

  Ms. Clipton was forced back into the drywall where her impaled body was stuck like a tack. Despite her immobilization, she curled her fingers into claws and swiped at Charlie’s face.

  “Now, Matty, now!”

  With a horizontal swing, Matty struck Ms. Clipton’s temple once, causing a large gash to form. The second strike, more of a chopping motion, cracked the side of her skull, but it was the third that was the most powerful- and the most devastating.

  “Y-ahh!” Matty grunted as he swung like a baseball player.

  The contact caused Coach Clipton’s head to whip around, snapping the spine. Her body drooped, but the spear continued to support the dead weight.

  “Damn,” Charlie muttered wide-eyed. “Who are you and what did you do with Matty?”

  Matty’s breathing was labored and shallow. His gaze fixated on the woman he had beaten to death. After three delayed blinks, he looked at Charlie, then the bat. His hands were shaking so violently it caused the rubber grip to slide from his fingers. He looked over at a vanity mirror hanging in a nearby locker. The light was dim, but Matty didn’t appear to recognize himself.

  “Status?” Kim shouted from the other side of the room.

  Charlie alone hustled over and observed the aftermath of Coach Garrison’s demise. Alissa was just then releasing the coach’s legs, while Kim abandoned his spear. The end was sticking through Coach Garrison’s mouth and driven into the squishy rubberized flooring.

  “We’re all good. You guys?”

  “Ya, we’re good,” Alissa replied for her team. “I held down his legs. David stepped on his chest and well, finished him off like that.”

  “Where’s Matty? Is he alright?”

  “Ya, he’s fine. You shoulda seen him,” Charlie said nodding over to the computer hacker. Matty’s daze had ended and he was now slumped against the wall, running both hands through his hair. “Guy was like a Viking or something.”

  Alissa retrieved the flashlight, scanned the equipment room in the back and whispered, “All clear in the cage room.”

  Charlie and Kim met her at the Equipment Return desk and stared at the bounty of their efforts.

  "It's not an armory,” Kim said, browsing, “but there’s a decent selection weapons.”

  “Pads and gloves we can use for protection too," Alissa pointed out.

  “What are we waiting for? Let’s gear up and get moving.”

  1433 hours

  Covered awkwardly in pads and clothing fit for teenagers, the three men and lone woman pedaled past less-mobile infected. They followed Kim's predetermined path down specific streets until they came to a bridge on the outskirts of town. While the two lane highway resumed on the other side, part of it diverted left where the pavement ended upon entering private property labeled, “Franklin Excavations, Limited.”

  “Looks like we might have a winner,” Charlie said, dismounting. A section of gravel had been kicked away and replaced by mud, and stamped into the mud were fresh tire tracks.

  “It’s a good sign, but let’s not get our hopes up,” Kim said, eyes narrowing. “Let’s get these bikes off the road. If the bandits are hiding out back here, I don’t want to alert anyone who might be coming or going.”

  A minute into their trek, the gravel had been overtaken by mud too sludgy to walk through. So, they cut through the surrounding forest, and not long after, the group arrived at the destination, ducking quickly behind trees and thick brush to avoid detection.

  “Looks like Matty got it right," Kim whispered, peeking over the browning leaves.

  "And looks like this is where all the school buses went,” added Alissa.

  Twenty-five feet ahead, a chain fence was reinforced by school busses on the inside. The Dodge Ram that had been used in the robbery was parked amidst various construction, mining and drilling equipment. A pair of men were shivering inside the truck’s cab, listening to music that resonated outside the flame-red exterior.

  Cigar smoke from a third man rose up and above a sign that read, “Milton’s Silver Mine.” Beard dominated by white whiskers, he was older than the twenty-somethings in the car. He sat on folding chair near the front of the mine. An aluminum awning kept him dry, while a large peacoat with the collar popped up kept him warm.

  Kim withdrew from the bushes and met the others. "The fence is nothing that we can't get past. It is barbed at the top, but we could get over it. Hard part is doing it without getting spotted by any one of those three guys.”

  "We might be able to come in at an angle so the two in the car don’t see us, but Whitebeard at the mouth of the mine has a pretty unobstructed view. He could shoot us with that rifle across his legs or retreat back inside. Either way, we can kiss our stuff goodbye, eh.”

  "So how do we get inside without being noticed, when it looks like there’s always someone watching the front?" asked Alissa.

  "That’s the million dollar question.”

  Matty pulled his jacket tighter around his body. “It’s freezing balls out here. It’s wet and muddy and-”

  “Matty,” Kim hissed, “Try to keep the complaints internalized, okay?”

  “Well we aren’t getting much done out here. Why don’t we go back and plan?”

  “I’m with Alissa,” Matty nodded anxiously.

  “We can’t waste any more time.”

  “I don’t like it either, David, but going in there halfcocked could get us killed. Without guns, our bats may as well be sticks. Way I see it, we need to figure out a way to sneak past those lookouts or take them all out, from a distance, at the same time. Either way, we need a plan.”

  Kim frowned and let out a low growl.

  ***

  Ally was next to Dylan's side, wiping her brother's face with a moist towel. “Stay with us, Dyl. You’re strong. You always have been…”

  The silence in the room facilitated memories of the past. How Dylan kept her safe ever since she was a young girl. From boys, from the hurt of their parent’s painful divorce, from everything, even the outbreak.

  Her mind replayed a particular memory of the day she waited in the never-ending crowd outside the World Health Organization in Vancouver. How, despite orders from his commanding officer, Dylan snuck Ally past the Canadian Army's perimeter and into the WHO as a VIP. How she should have been one of the thousands that perished when the infected swept through.

  “You’re not allowed to die on me,” she said volume increasing as anger replaced the hurt. Tears began to trickle from her red eyes. “You hear me? Damnit, Dylan, you better not die on me. I told you not to go on the attack. You promised me everything would be alright. So you make good and stay with us.”

  She was wiping her cheeks when Meghan came running down the hall shouting, "I think your friend is here!"

  "W-what? Who? The men are back already? It hasn’t even been an hour-"

  Meghan coughed and cleared her throat but the raspiness remained. "No, a boy! I was up on the roof getting some fresh air and I saw him. Come quick!"

  Meghan led Ally through the same emergency exit the group used to get to the PE office. She continued right, around the building, while Ally limped and whispered anxious questions.

  "Was there a woman with him? Which way did he go?"

  "I only saw him. I didn't see a woman."

  The stone pathway entered a small staff parking lot that was enclosed by a high rod fence.

  Ally looked around, but was unable to spot Christopher. "I thought you said he came this way?"
>
  “I could have sworn he did."

  Just then, a boy appeared out of nowhere. Fifty feet behind him was a gang of infected.

  "Chris!" Ally screamed, rushing toward him.

  “Ally!”

  “Chris, don’t look back! Just climb!”

  Christopher put up one foot for leverage but instinctively glanced back. The combination of slick metal and a lack of focus caused his foot to slip. “It’s too wet!”

  “Use my hands!” Ally exclaimed, extending her arms through the bars. Meghan did the same but higher.

  "Reach, Chris!" Ally called out "Reach for the top bar!"

  “Come on, you can do it!” Meghan encouraged.

  Chris reached up, but his fingers were an inch short from the top bar. “It’s too high!”

  “Reach, Chris! You have to!”

  “Reach now!”

  Chris tried again. This time, his small fingers wrapped around the top bar and he pulled his body up. He squirmed and wiggled, almost slipping and falling backward, but managed to lift himself up and over just as the infected hit the iron bars.

  He awkwardly dropped down eight feet, where the girls caught him.

  “Shh, it’s okay, Chris. You’re safe now,” Ally said, cradling him. “Where’s your mom? Is she alright?”

  The answer turned Ally’s stomach.

  "They got her. They got Mom."

  "We should really get inside,” Meghan insisted as sensitively as she could. “There's only a few here, but more will come."

  ***

  Ally used a dry towel and wiped Chris' face. His clothes were soaking wet and his body was in a constant state of shivering.

  Ally wrapped him in a blanket, and said, “Sorry, Chris. I’d offer you some food but we don’t have any.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not very hungry anyway,” he replied, teeth clattering.

  “Chris, I know this isn’t going to be easy and I’m sorry, but I need to know. What happened?”

  After a long moment, Chris found the courage to explain. “We-we got to the motel and Mom led us into an office. She locked the door behind us, but those things hit the windows. I heard the glass break, and Mom took us into the back room. We were about to go through that door but...I don’t really remember what happened, but those things found us and Mom pushed me through and closed the door behind me. She told me to run. I heard her scream...”