by TW Brown
“You didn’t know she was pregnant?” April gasped. “Oh my God, Juan. I am so sorry.”
He was sure that he could grieve later, but at the moment, all he truly cared about was that Mackenzie was okay. The woman with April was talking, and something she said brought Juan back to the situation at hand.
“…if not, we might suffer some needless casualties.” The woman wiped her hands with a wet towel and stared at Juan expectantly.
He really did not like how everybody had turned him into some sort of leader. Didn’t they know who he was? How about what you were, a voice in his head said with an accusatory tone. A street thug, a druggie, a thief…and so many other things—too many to mention—had filled a few pages worth of his “rap sheet” before the world had pressed a gigantic reset button.
“If not what?” Juan made himself ask.
“We need to find out some things like known allergies, medical conditions, and blood types,” the woman repeated. Juan expected her to be angry at having to repeat herself, but she had simply glanced at April with some sort of sad look and nodded. “It’s not like we can just rush to the hospital if something goes wrong. If we are going to set up here, then we need to get people like April and anybody else with her skills to start teaching others.”
Juan glanced at April with a raised eyebrow. “What kind of people are you?”
“I was an EMT,” April said. Something in her tone told Juan that perhaps this bit of information had been relayed to him before.
“I understand that you are going across the river,” the woman resumed control of the conversation. “Perhaps while you are there, you can see if you can find some blood type testing kits.”
“And what do they look like?” Juan asked.
“They usually come in a box that says ‘Blood type testing kit’ I would imagine,” the woman made a slight laugh as if she had said something witty.
Juan scowled. “Maybe you should come with me, I might not remember…what did you say your name was?”
“I’m Jeannie Simons,” the woman said with less laughter in her voice. “And maybe I could write it down for you if you need something to help you remember.”
Juan was not always the most observant guy, but he knew fear when he saw and heard it. This woman wanted nothing to do with going on a run. Well, he could worry about that later. He wanted to see Mackenzie.
“So can I see her?” Juan started towards the door, not really caring what the answer might be if it was anything that would delay his seeing her for himself.
He opened the door and stepped into the room. It had a funny smell that he didn’t place right away. Then his eyes found the bucket covered with a bloody towel in the corner.
He faltered just a bit as he stepped up beside the bed and took Mackenzie’s hands in his. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, and even though she was unusually pale, she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“How are you feeling?” The moment that he asked the question, he wished that he could suck the words back into his mouth.
“Tired,” was her whispered response. She opened her eyes and he could tell that she had been crying.
“You want me to stay here beside you for a while?” Juan looked around for a chair to pull up beside the bed and was more than a little flustered to discover that there was no such thing in their bedroom.
“I want you to go with Frank and try to find that girl,” Mackenzie replied. “But I do have a favor that I want to ask you first.”
“Name it,” Juan said with a severity that caught him by surprise. He had always figured that it was easy to say you would do anything for somebody, but at that very moment, he understood that, for the first time in his life, he was with somebody that he could say those words and literally mean it.
“I want you to take the baby and bury her beside my mom.” A single tear welled up in Mackenzie’s left eye, bloomed, and then spilled down her cheek.
“It was a girl?” Juan whispered. He felt his chest tighten. Mackenzie’s hands squeezed his.
“Do you…do…” her voice faltered as a few more tears joined the first.
“We could name her Maggie…sorta like your mom, but not quite,” Juan offered.
“That would be nice,” Mackenzie sighed and closed her eyes.
Juan struggled with the question that would not go away. “How long have you known?” he finally asked.
“Just a few days. I found out while you were out on that last run.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to make it a perfect moment.” Mackenzie started to cry.
“Maybe I should stay—” Juan started.
“No!” Mackenzie insisted. “That girl is out there alone. You need to go help her if you can.”
Juan nodded his head. He glanced over at the bucket covered by a bloody towel. He would bury little Maggie. First, he would find something more suitable to place her in besides that bucket. Then…he would go find the missing girl and the idiot boys who took off to find her.
***
Chad felt like his legs were going to burst into flames. It was as if he could feel each fiber of each muscle, and they were all burning like a firecracker fuse. He kept reminding himself of what it was they were hoping to obtain and why.
Michael seemed to be doing just fine up ahead. At the moment, if for no other reason than the way he continued to lead the four of them along like it was nothing more than a walk in the park; he hated Michael Clark.
They had left before dawn this morning. He’d had just as soon left the day it was decided. Ronni hadn’t spoken to him once in the three days that Michael got everything ready. It would be him, Michael, Scott, and a lady named Trina. Chad had made the mistake of asking if it were short for Katrina like the hurricane. Apparently she had a few years to get tired of answering with a polite “no” to that question. Oh sure, the answer was still basically the same, there just happened to be a few expletives before and after the actual answer.
Chad didn’t much like Trina either, and it had nothing to do with her less-than-positive reaction to his ‘Katrina’ question. She was gliding along beside Michael—laughing and talking! He could barely get enough oxygen in his lungs to breathe, much less carry on a conversation. It seems that Trina had been an employee at the Yosemite Village luxury hotel as a hiking guide in the spring and summer; and as a ski-trail guide in the winter and fall.
When Michael signaled for the first break, Scott came to a stop beside where Chad was sitting down on a fallen tree that he had brushed clear of snow. He gave a tired sigh and took a seat on a space after snapping off a few remaining branches.
“How you holding up?” Scott said. It was accompanied by a groan as he reached over his shoulders to pull his pack off.
“About the same as you by the sounds of it,” Chad said with a sarcastic chuckle.
A nerve-jangling titter came from where Trina sat beside Michael sharing a canteen. Chad glanced over and did his best not to extend a particular finger in response to her way-too-enthusiastic wave.
“I should have let Brett make this trip,” Scott said after a long pull from his own canteen. “Old age, a bum knee from my high school football days, and the fact that I really hate snow all add up to me wondering what the hell I was thinking.”
“So, have you been noticing all the zombies trapped in the snow like it is quicksand?” Chad asked after they had both popped open one of the precious cans of chili that had been spared for them to take on the trip and scooped out a few spoonfuls.
“Makes you wonder how they keep showing up at our camp,” Scott said with a nod.
“They never need to rest,” Chad said with a shrug. “Eventually, the right combination of jerking around probably frees them up. As for the herds, I think they are almost like a snow plow.”
Scott considered the information and finally nodded. “Well, according to the Michael De Sade and Suzi Chapstick, we should reach the snow line before da
rk.”
“That’s good, because I don’t think I could deal with another day on skis,” Chad said. “When I used to go cross country skiing, it was for a few hours tops…we’ve been going for at least ten hours with minimal breaks, and honestly, these little breaks for some cold, canned chili ain’t putting all that much energy back in the tank, if you know what I’m saying.”
Yes, Scott nodded, he did know what Chad was saying. He had been fighting cramps for the past couple of hours. Not for the first time, he envied Brett for being left behind. Of course, Chad had asked the man to keep an eye on his daughter. And while Ronni could be a handful, keeping tabs on her seemed infinitely preferable to this trip.
As if on cue, Trina and Mike stood and gave the signal to get moving. Chad and Scott shared a miserable look and pushed themselves up to their feet. A few minutes later, the foursome were back on the trail, gliding along at a brisk pace. Occasionally, they would cruise past a zombie buried to its waist, chest, or even to its neck.
A few hours into the next leg, it was Chad who signaled for a stop. Michael and Trina both looked at him like he’d just let one go in church.
“Is anybody else noticing the fact that we are seeing more and more zombies as we go along?” he asked. This received blank stares form the ‘dynamic duo’ as he’d begun to refer to them in his mind. Thankfully, Scott came to his aid.
“I’d guess that we have passed a couple hundred in the past hour…more than we saw the whole rest of the day combined.”
“Maybe there were just as many, but maybe they were all completely buried under the snow,” Trina said with a shrug, clearly not grasping the seriousness of her own statement.
“You better pray that isn’t the case,” Scott shot back.
“In any case,” Chad piped in, “we need to be vigilant from here forward. I say we pair up. One person keep eyes up, the other scanning the ground ahead.”
“I will pair with Scott,” Michael said. He shot a look at Chad that, if he didn’t know better, he would swear conveyed the message, ‘she’s your problem now.’
It took a few minutes to get moving, but eventually the foursome were gliding along the snow. Some time that afternoon, they came to the top of a small rise. From this point on, it would be a long and winding run downhill. Chad had learned how to smile and nod a lot as Trina droned on about a particular tree or a rock formation. He began to realize that Michael and she had not been engaging in some sort of friendly banter; no, Trina was still in guide mode.
Oddly enough, it was Trina that shot out ahead of the group and then came to a skidding halt across what was probably the road underneath all the snow. She flipped up her goggles and the three men saw the fear in her eyes.
Trina pointed down and to their left. Chad, Scott, and Michael looked down the embankment to the switchback. Packed shoulder to shoulder and stretching down and all the way around the next curve was a herd of undead.
“There has to be hundreds…thousands of them,” Scott breathed.
“What do we do now?” Chad asked, glancing at Michael. “I’m not too familiar with the area, but I’d wager that they are using the same road that we drove up when we came here. As far as I know, that is the only way up or down the mountain.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Michael said in a voice barley above a whisper. “We have to go down. If not…everybody is going to starve to death.”
“They might not be there when we get back,” Scott spat. “There is no way in hell that we could fight off that group.”
“What makes you so sure they will end up in Yosemite Village?” Trina asked.
“Where else would they end up?” Chad retorted. “Like I said, I don’t know the area, but I don’t recall any turnoffs or forks on the trip up here.”
Trina’s face scrunched in deep thought. She didn’t need to speak to relate her deductions; it was all over her face. The steep incline leading down to the next relatively flat area would shame any ski resort’s “Double Black Diamond” run. Looking down, Chad could almost swear that the face of the mountainside curved inward at one point.
“But we can’t go back…not empty handed,” she insisted as the men began to turn their skis back the way they’d come.
“And how would you suggest we get around that!” Scott snapped, his arm flailing wildly in the general direction of the oncoming mob. From below, the volume rose on the moans of the undead as they locked in on a new stimulus.
“You three go back,” Michael said. “I will try to find a spot and wait them out. Once they have passed, I will head down the mountain and find supplies.”
“You think that is a good idea?” Chad asked.
“Nope,” Michael shook his head. “But I also don’t envy what lies in store for you guys either. You have to go back and tell everybody that a wave of zombies is coming…and then wait for them to arrive and hope you can fend them off.”
“Well we can’t stand around any more and talk about it,” Scott said, pointing to the first of the zombies rounding the distant corner about a half mile down the way.
As Chad, Scott, and Trina began the grueling trip back up the hill and towards Yosemite Village with the sounds of the dead growing louder, Chad began to wonder if there was any point in fighting to survive. The only thing he could come up with was enough to make him push on well into the night; he even urged the other two on well after dark.
He had to get back to Ronni.
***
Vix climbed up onto the car and spun around quickly but carefully. It wouldn’t do her any good to fall at the moment. The blue-gray face was at the perfect level and distance. As it opened its mouth to let loose with that horrible baby cry sound, she kicked it right in the teeth with her steel-toed boot. The head snapped back and the creature stumbled. Unslinging the spike-tipped pole from her shoulder, she brought it around and drove the point directly into the thing’s eye socket just as it brought its head back to try and snap at her.
A few lanes over, Gemma was on top of a blue van. A group of five of those cursed things had her circled, but she was making steady work of them. They’d thought that the road had been clear when they set across it. And it had been for the most part. Then Gemma had spotted that Dasani truck and squealed with delight.
This was the equivalent to discovering an oasis in the middle of the desert. The sliding door was open wide, revealing stacked cases of the bottled water. While it was obvious that others had taken the time to help themselves, there was still more than enough.
Vix had climbed inside and was handing a case down to Gemma when she saw the first head come bobbing along behind another nearby vehicle. And it wasn’t like the cars were bumper-to-bumper here. Vix had seen more than one zombie movie where the freeways were stuffed with miles long traffic snarls. She hadn’t entirely understood that image. Sure, there might be a few tie-ups where people had tried to flee and ended up smashing into each other, but she didn’t think that many people would be out on the roads after the first few days.
It was while Vix was busy pulling out a case and handing it to Gemma that they both heard the most chilling sound imaginable in the post-apocalyptic world: a baby’s cry. Gemma dropped the case she’d been handed and almost broke her leg scrambling back from the truck.
As Vix hustled out, she saw five of the cursed things coming up out of the drainage ditch that ran alongside the M3. She wasn’t too worried; five of them were manageable even if she’d been alone. Then that sound came again…from the other side if the M3. At least three dozen more were coming up. She would have a talk later with Gemma about being a bit quieter when they were travelling.
Snapping back to the here-and-now, Vix scanned the area to make sure that there were no other immediate threats. She did see a few shadows bobbing in the distance back the way they’d come, but nothing they couldn’t out run once they cleared up things here.
Vix moved around the boot of one of those expensive sports cars that her husband always said that men b
ought when they “lacked the necessary equipment to satisfy their women.” She peeked inside and was able to glimpse a hand clutching a bottle of pills.
“Took the easy way,” she muttered as she moved in behind the last few zombies that were trying their best to get at Gemma up on top of that van.
She paused, unable to keep from wincing. Two of the undead were children. So far, she had managed to avoid killing any little ones. She’d gotten used to killing zombies. It was the first few that she’d struggled with simply because they were familiar faces. However—and she credited this to all those books and movies that she loved so much—she knew very well that a person could not hesitate when dealing with the undead or you would join their ranks.
As a gift one year, her husband had managed to contact one of the cover artists who did the work for one of her favorite series of zombie books. For Valentine’s Day, he presented her with a framed picture of her as a zombie. He’d been a very lucky man that evening. That was as close as she cared to ever come to being a zombie.
She moved quietly. If she could keep from being noticed, then perhaps she could take down at least one of the child-zombies without having to see its face. Taking a few steps forward and raising her blade, Vix paused. There was something about these two zombies that didn’t seem right.
She watched them for a few seconds before she realized that they were hanging back from the others. They had moved just outside of Gemma’s range and seemed to be more intent on observing than getting in there and trying their hand at the futile exercise of reaching for Gemma. It was as if they knew that they could not reach her, and what’s more, if they tried, they would meet the same fate as their cohorts.
But that’s silly, Vix thought. Zombies don’t reason or think or do anything else except try to eat people. At least that had been her view until now. Vix glanced up at Gemma, who seemed to be unconcerned with her situation at the moment. That was fine, that meant that there was no reason to rush in and attack at the moment. She could afford to watch for a few seconds longer.