The Reanimates (Book 3): The Escape

by J. Rudolph

Between all the road blocks and dead, the night was fast approaching. We were nowhere near the docks, but we had to stop. We found a fire department that had the doors left open and we decided to use the bays to park our horses in. Once inside, we ran the manual release for the roll up doors and shut ourselves in for the night. We searched the building for the dead and found a few stragglers inside that we disposed of. At least we had some sort of shelter for the night.

  The next morning marked the start of our last day in New York, and our last day in the United States. The ship was scheduled for the morning after and we had to make it across the city in the next 24 hours. We weren't sure how we were going to pull this off, but we had to.

  We made the hard decision to leave the wagons behind. We were close to our destination, and we weren't going to need everything anymore; however, we were going to close the firehouse doors just as insurance in the event we somehow didn't get on the boat. We decided to pack up the bare essentials into the feed trailer and go with those. We had four horses, so we were going to use three of them as scout horses with DaWayne, Matt, and Lucas as the riders, and have the other pull the trailer. All of the supplies in the trailer were bagged up in twelve back packs, one for each person, in case things grew hairy and we needed to dump the trailer.

  It felt dangerous being so exposed. We were wandering the streets of New York, the biggest hot zone, with no shielding from the dead. We wore the leather jackets we brought along with us, some found in the houses of Wilsall, others acquired in trades before we left. We put them on despite the late June heat to protect ourselves from contact with zombies, theorizing we would be safer with the thicker layers. We hadn't worn them since that cold storm a while back, and none of us were happy about wearing them now. All of us wore a head wrap to keep our hair out of grabby hands and to keep sweat against our heads to keep us cooler, and every once in a while we added water to it to get more relief from the heat. Our shirts also were doused under the jackets and while it felt nice, it didn't really do much to cool us down. Heat stroke was a huge risk and it was the second to last thing we needed. The absolute last thing we needed was a swarm of zombies, and every passing moment, we were closer to that happening.

  We were fresh meat. We were fresh meat that willingly walked into the lion's den wearing pork chops and 'eat me' signs written in bacon. We might as well have been banging coconuts together to announce our arrival with the horses.

  The guys on the horses fanned out to see if there was a less congested path, and while we didn't ever go very far away from them, we were always in fear that the next blind corner they turned was going to be the last time we saw them. Matt and Lucas came back to the group with intense faces. They said that there was no way to move around the packs that they found. When DaWayne made his way back to us he said that there were more than a couple of zombies in his route, but after hearing what Matt and Lucas had to say, it was at least a chance. We talked about the risks, and talked about staying together as a group. This was scary.

  We took that chance. We came so far and we weren't going to be able to go back, no matter what. There wasn't really another option.

  I kept reminding myself that there really wasn't an alternative when the snarling monsters closed in on us. There wasn't an option when we needed to distract them by letting the horses go.

  We weren't being stealth as we trekked through the concrete jungle and the sounds of the hoof beats echoed against the buildings. If we let the horses go, they would make noises in other directions and maybe we would have a chance to slip by. We took our bags out of the trailer and put them on, then unhooked the horse from the trailer. We all said goodbye to our horses and sent them in opposite directions, and I felt sick knowing that they would be pursued by the dead. Right before we let them go I told them to run fast, and I prayed that they would. I hated feeling like I was offering them up as bait, because I knew that was exactly what I was doing. I wanted to convince myself that we all had better chances apart, they weren't being weighed down and forced to go slow for us, and we weren't going to be as obvious. When we didn't hear them anymore, we started walking, with DaWayne in the lead as he took us down the path that he found the most hopeful.

  It was DaWayne that took the risk of scouting ahead, checking the blind corners as the rest of us stayed on point checking for threats that were possibly coming up from the other sides. The kids stayed inside the circle created by the adults that were on guard. We had our crossbows out and our guns in easy reach, ready for the horde of undead if they were to become too close. We crept along in silence. We made it several blocks undetected before we came to a dead end in the road. We were going to be able to slide through a pair of tall buildings, but we had no idea what we were going to encounter as we did. DaWayne jogged ahead of the group and turned to give us a smile right before we came to the end of the alley.

  He stepped up to the end of the building and leaned to check the path.

  It was not clear. There were a few zombies that were standing right against the building, and as soon as he leaned in to check if there was a clear path, they grabbed him. From our perspective, he was jerked away from the alley quickly, and before he could fire off the crossbow in his hands, he yelled out in pain. Trent and Matt took off running to where DaWayne was, discarding the bows for their guns that would fire faster, and soon were opening up fire on the zombies that were tearing him up.

  I was running right behind them, and as I ran, I pulled off my backpack and grabbed the first thing that I could find to try to stanch the blood that was pouring from the bite in the right side of DaWayne's shoulder. When he was tangled up with the zombies, his unzipped jacket was pulled off of him, leaving him exposed to the gnashing teeth which then gained purchase in his flesh. His eyes were wide in pain and fear as I pressed a tank top against the hole that was left by the serious bite. I looked over the rest of him and saw that there was another deep wound on his left forearm that went to the bone and another that was in his side. He was bleeding to death in front of me as he groaned in pain.

  Through clenched teeth, DaWayne groaned, "Let go." I shook my head vehemently, my brain instantly remembered when Joey told me the same thing in the complex, and I didn't want to lose him the same way. "Please, Cali. Please. It hurts. Let go so I'll bleed to death faster."

  I watched DaWayne grow up in the years that we lived in the complex before the zombies came. I watched him turn into a man that would protect his friends at all costs, a man that fell in love with his wife, and go through hell when he lost her. I promised his mother and his father that I would watch out for him and keep him safe and instead, I was sitting on the dirty New York roads after he was torn apart by a bunch of zombies.

  I took a deep breath, and realized that no matter what, he was going to turn into a zombie. He was bit and no matter what, he was going to turn; whether I prolonged his life right now, or if I let go. Having finally reached that realization, I let go of the pressure I put on his wound and grabbed his right hand.

  "Aww, DaWayne. This wasn't supposed to happen." I held on to him tightly as he gripped my hand back.

  "I'm sorry, Cali. I should have looked closer."

  "No hon, I shouldn't have let you get so far ahead."

  "Tell my mom I'm sorry. Tell her I love her." He groaned as he tried to lift his head to get more comfortable. "Part of me really wishes she was here. I'm a grown man who wants my mom." His breaths came faster and he started to whimper. "I wanted to go to Ireland, but now, all I want is to be home."

  DaWayne's eyes grew distant and he looked like he was going to pass out, but right before he did, he whispered, "Am I going to see Shayla and Charity now?"

  "Yeah, baby, you're going to see them really soon."

  "Good. I miss them." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and his lids closed. His hand went weak in mine and he stopped breathing.

  I stood back up from where I was crouched down next to DaWayne. My head was spinni
ng as I stumbled backwards from his body. I knew what was next, that he was going to reanimate and I needed to put him down, but I could hardly stand the idea. I had watched this boy turn into a man; he had become my friend. I couldn’t get myself to do what needed to be done. My eyes were blinded by the tears that were streaming out of them and my breaths came in quick jagged gasps. I stumbled as I stepped backwards and tripped over the zombie that was lying on the ground behind me with a bullet hole between its eyes. Trent caught me before I fell and I felt his arms wrap around me.

  Matt was on the ground next to DaWayne with his knife out. In a low voice, I barely made out the words, "I'm sorry kid," as he covered up DaWayne's face with the discarded shirt on the ground. He pushed the knife through the temple of DaWayne's head, making sure that he wouldn't come back as a monster.

  We didn't have any time to mourn the loss of our friend. The smell of blood combined with the sounds of gunfire drew the zombies to our location. I pulled the hem of my shirt up over my face and wiped the tears and snot off before I tried to look for my back pack. Drew handed it to me and I took it from him. I wrapped my arms around my son and the flood of tears started again. He reminded me that we needed to go and I nodded. After a quick head count we all started a light run while we could.

  Night was falling and we needed to find shelter. We found a sign that said we were still one more mile from the dock. A mile wasn't far, but traveling in the dark wasn't a safe idea. There was a gas station that had roll up doors, with one of the doors half way open. We decided that was the best place we could come across and we ducked inside, clearing it quickly. Once we were sure there were no zombies inside, we rolled the door all the way down and found a metal chunk to wedge in the track so it would stay shut. The room was dark. Very little of the last daylight passed through the grimy windows, so we pulled our flashlights out to see if there was anything left in the gas station's convenience store. There was warm soda and stale potato chips, so we ate them in the stuffy room. We talked about the days where the chips weren't stale and the sodas were so cold it made our throats hurt. We tried to remember the good times from the past and we talked about stupid things like slushed ice to distract from the hurt of the losses.

  We fell asleep to the sounds of the dead wandering aimlessly outside. None of us slept well. We all kept waiting for the dead to find us, but they never did.

  When the morning came, we packed up to reach the ship. We made it all the way to New York, and today was ship out day. All we needed to do was make it one more mile. It's always the last mile that was the hardest, and we knew that we still had a long way to go.

  We had company. The dead that we heard outside during the night didn't go away when the sun came up. We made a lot of racket rolling up the door and that caught their attention. We were careful as we left, and traveled in a tight group. We followed the signs carefully and kept up the pace. We were painfully aware of the fact that we were surrounded and were running out of options.

  There was a warehouse in front of us and we saw that there were windows on the second story of the building that had a makeshift bridge from them to the building that was next to it. If we took the roofs, we could make it that last block we needed to get to the docks.

  It seemed like the zombies were linked in with our plan, and they were bearing down on us. We didn't have a lot of time to reach the building before we were cut off. Jackson and Justin both grabbed a hold of Abigail so they could help her move faster. Liam and Raine grabbed hands as well, and we all took off running. We fired at the zombies that were getting close. We finally were near to the door, and of course, it was locked.

  Matt fired his gun at the locks and Trent threw himself at the door to break it open, and it finally swung free. Lucas and Matt were helping push people inside as the dead closed in on the group. We pushed everyone in, but since we had to break the door open, there was no way to secure it once we were through. Matt leaned against it, struggling to keep it shut, and his sons ran to him to help him block the entry. Lucas and Lacey ran to see how to get to the windows, while Trent and I made a lap around the warehouse to make sure we were alone. We caught a break there; the only company in the building was rats. We stripped our jackets off in response to the heat of the enclosed space and tied the sleeves on our backpacks so they were handy later when we were near the docks.

  Lacey and Lucas found a metal staircase that lead to a loft where the windows were. They yelled out that they found it and we all ran up the stairs. Matt hollered to his boys to get up to the loft, and that he would join them in just a second. They argued for a second, the boys weren't keen on the idea of leaving their dad alone, but finally they took off and ran up the metal stairs. The window was a little taller than we had figured, and it led to a ledge where the bridge made with several 2×4s was resting. Lucas hoisted himself up through the window first and went across the boards to make sure it was safe, and we started pushing people out as soon as he made it across safely.

  The only reason the zombies didn't make their way into the building earlier was that there were three men holding it shut. Now that Justin and Jackson were making their way up the stairs, there wasn't enough strength to stop the hungry dead from entering. Matt was fighting to keep the door as shut as possible, but he was losing his battle.

  Jackson yelled out that he was coming back and Matt screamed at him. "Don't you dare, young man! Your mother would kill me if I put you in danger, so for her, you better get up those stairs right now and honor her memory by helping get the rest of the group out!"

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the door swung open. The zombies were on Matt in an instant and they started to tear into him. Trent, Drew, and I were firing on the zombies, and I aimed to take Matt out of his misery. We yelled at the twins to climb out of the window and help the girls. They stumbled out, and followed directions, through gasping tears. Justin was pausing every now and then to fire on the zombies that were piling through the opening and up the stairs to where we were, until Trent yelled at him.

  We were nearly out of bullets and we had to go. The entire loft swayed with the zombies as they shambled up the stairs. They stumbled, but made it up to where we were, and they were headed for us. We were almost out. It was just Trent, Drew, and I left on the loft. Trent and I grabbed Drew and we pushed him up to the window to help him out.

  Drew was just about through when an intense, crushing pain started in my calf. The cramping pain nearly made me fall over and when I looked down at the source of the pain, I found a hungry mouth round the muscle. There was a mini zombie attached to me, a young boy who still retained the appearance of being Asian. Part of me wanted to believe that this was a feral child and not a zombie. He had only a slight wound on his hand, one that was small enough to have been caused by an animal, but another look into his face with the tight dead skin and those clouded dead eyes, ripped any hope that I was going to be okay. I was bit by a mini zombie who couldn't be more than ten-years-old and wore a dirty shirt that said I love The Yankees. My eyes grew wide with horror, and I stifled the panicked scream that wanted to fly out of my mouth. I was going to help Trent up, and not scare the crap out of my kid before I died. I looked up at Trent, hoping that he hadn't seen what just happened quite yet, but he had. He fired at the zombie attached to me and it let go. Trent reached for me to see if I was okay.

  "You're wearing jeans. Maybe the teeth didn't break your skin." His voice was a half prayer, half hope, but it wasn't going to help. My skin had been broken; I could feel the blood running down my leg. My face said that it was a lost cause, but he still had to look.

  The other zombies had reached the platform. I fired at the closest ones. I looked behind Trent and watched as a zombie tripped over the corpse that I had just shot, tumbling next to Trent, putting it right at prime biting height. Before I could line up the shot, it bared its teeth and leaned in for the bite, right into Trent's left arm. I fired at it, with a deafening crack, taking it down. It was too li
ttle, too late, and my slowness just cost my husband his life.

  My husband and I were both bit. We were both going to die. The thought was like a deeply seated splinter in my heart; it hurt and stabbed further with every beat. Drew was going to be an orphan.

  "Check your gun, Trent." I whispered. I found that my own was down to its last, and Trent had only two left himself. "I love you, baby." Tears were streaming down my face. I clutched my arms around his neck, and held onto him as though we were drowning and he was my lifesaver. I felt the platform shake and thud again with the sounds of uncoordinated feet as they pounded up the wobbly metal stairs. I looked over to the stairs and confirmed that we didn't have much longer until there were more coming up; more than we had bullets to manage.

  "At least we got Drew out, right?" Trent murmured in my ear.

  "We did. Trent, baby, I don't want to be torn apart by those things, and I don't want you to be either. We can't join the others, because we will kill them, or they'll have the burden of having to kill us, and that will be done in front of Drew, and I don't want him to see that. We don't have enough bullets to fight off the ones coming to let nature run its course." Tears were streaming down my face. I looked at the gun next to me. "We have enough bullets in our guns for one thing. I promised you, and you promised me that we wouldn't let the other turn. It's time for us to keep that promise. Together."

  "We'll have to count to three, and there can't be any backing out." Trent replied.

  "No backing out."

  I lifted my gun to my husband's temple, as he did the same to mine. I forced a smile as I looked into my husband, my best friend's eyes one more time.

  They say that your life flashes before your eyes as you die, and I found that it really did. My final mental movie of my life was full of joy. Flashes of Drew's birth, my wedding, camping with my family, graduating nursing school, all of the moments of joy I had were front and center. There was no sadness in my movie, and I had a life well-lived and well-loved swirling in my head. All those pieces gave me strength. Heaven couldn't be much different than these swirls in my head.