“He knows what he’s doing, Morris. Just like he is aware of the risks involved,” Rachel said, trying her best to convince him of that. “That’s his weapon and he’ll need it more than we will if he’s going out there alone. But like I just said, that’s his choice not ours.”
“I don’t give a flying shit what he is aware of or not! If he leaves… that rifle stays here with us!” Morris stated in a louder voice.
I stood there watching them fight until I had had enough of their drama and cut in. “I don’t need permission from either of you to leave this house, first of all,” I said loudly. “And as far as this rifle staying anywhere but with me, that’s not even worth a discussion. It comes with me wherever I go!” I turned and moved away before either of them could muster a single reply or rebuttal to my statement.
Morris followed me to the door, guessing I was just going to exit through it like there was no one outside. I tried pressing my ear to the cold wood to get a better mental image of what lie on the opposite side, although Morris’ voice stopped that from happening.
He put a hand on my left shoulder and pried down hard as he spoke; trying what little patients I had left. “I said you aren’t going anywhere without us!”
Playtime was over with and my patience was non-existent anymore. I spun, and using the leverage of the solid door, pushed as hard as I could, breaking his death grip from my shoulder and bounding him across the living room. He tripped over the coffee table and fell to the floor. My short rifle was up and at the ready, my voice boomed louder than the growing storm. “Touch me again and see what happens to you! I dare you!” My voice exploded. “I saved your ass; it wasn’t the other way around, dickhead! Had you left me the fuck alone like I told you to several times, then you’d be safe with your buddies and not in the situation you are now. This is your fault, not mine!” My voice was growing along with my anger. “You ever put your hands on me again or think you can push me around like those dumbasses at the school, I’ll show you what pain is really all about!” I popped three rounds that skimmed so close to his flattened body that he could feel the concussion off of each piece of lead.
Rachel remained quiet and as still as the dead, figuring that when I was finished with Morris I may turn my last ounce of rage towards her.
Morris stared at me from the floor, neither trying to get to his feet or engage me in further conversation. I guess he was positive that I wasn’t playing around anymore and I’d shoot him if he attempted to touch me again and not the floor.
“I didn’t plan any of this,” I said aloud. “All I wanted was my son, and then to be left alone. That was it! How hard is that to understand?”
“I… I, was looking out for my people,” Morris stated.
I pointed at Morris. “You and that sick fuck, Smith, started this the moment I awoke in that classroom. Did you expect me to just give up and let you experiment on me as well? You wasted time – valuable time – that I could have used to locate and get my kid before he got further and further away. Now he could be anywhere and surrounded by people that want to hurt him or possibly neglecting him to feed their own wants and needs.” The rage I had felt that day was coming back to me like a long dead memory. It’s clenched fists, swollen with rigor mortis, unable to release what it held so tightly. “But let’s not pretend anymore, shall we. He’s dead isn’t he? Killed by that sick, worthless bastard you helped protect… which makes you just as sick and worthless as he was. It also makes you just as guilty,” I added.
I could see Morris’ eyes darting around the room, possibly looking for a quick way out or perhaps something he could use to defend himself against my ever growing hate.
“Maybe we should all just take a breath here?” Rachel suggested. Her subtle plea only drew my emotions to her, along with a gun barrel.
“There’s no way you can stand there and tell me you weren’t aware of what was going on in that school and expect me to believe you!” I told her.
“I wasn’t!” She sharply cut back.
“Bullshit!” I shouted to her. “That’s why you didn’t shoot me a few hours ago, because you saw me as your only way out of that place and away from him,” I said pointing at Morris once more. “The guilt you felt for not doing anything to save any of those people is eating at you like a cancer… slowly consuming you from the inside, so much so that you were willing to run away with the bad guy, thinking the pain will die! Well, it won’t!”
I wasn’t holding anything back this time. For so long I had simply existed, conformed to those around me, kept my mouth shut, and tried to blend in and stay under the radar. I was nothing special – I never had been – and I knew that free of any doubt. But now, after the last nine days, I could not stand by and just exist. I mattered weather anyone was willing to accept that or not.
The anger was coming on.
The back door suddenly burst open and halted the anger from erupting. The scamper of dangerous running feet filled the lumbering silence. Rachel spun to see two runners headed straight for her. She yanked her pistol and fired a volley of rounds at them while Morris darted toward and up the stairs to the second floor, never takin g even a split second to look at Rachel or I to make sure we were behind him.
What a coward! My mind shouted, followed by my own words telling Rachel to retreat to the stairs and follow Morris. She turned and ducked as she spun and saw me coming into her position with the short rifle raring to go. She had managed to get one of the runners in the head, putting it down for good, while the second had taken a few rounds into the right leg, knocking it off balance. It thrashed about on the kitchen floor trying its damndest to get to its feet and continue the attack. A single round from my weapon ceased all of its attempts.
“Go, get moving!” I shouted to Rachel, who had stopped at the base of the stairs to look in my direction. She hadn’t scurried up them like Morris selfishly had; in fact, she had stopped to make sure I was following.
There was a loud jolt at the front door, as the unseen intruder had failed to break through the door in a single strike like the runners at the rear of the house had. I somehow knew that going out the front door, a few seconds prior, would have been a mistake. Now I was more than happy that Morris had made his move and pissed me off, because if he hadn’t and I would have walked out that door. My mind stopped me from thinking any further into what could have been. I had a major problem in front of me to deal with and thinking about shit that didn’t happen held no resolution to my fixed and centered problem.
A large group of undead shuffled into the kitchen, but I didn’t pop any of them. There was no need to, as they were no more a threat to me than a mouse hidden under the couch just to my right. I did, however, put three rounds through the front door as I made my way across the living room toward the stairs. Anything on the opposite side had a bad day quickly.
At the top of the stairs I took up a firing position and crouched to get well placed shots off when the undead or runners came into view. The more I could kill at the bottom of the stairs meant the less we would have to deal with reaching the second floor, and in the tight spaces of the second floor, maneuvering was going to be tricky.
“We’re running out of places to run!” Rachel announced.
“I know that, so if you have an idea, now would be the perfect time to share it with the rest of us,” I replied, never taking my eyes off the stairs below me, as it wouldn’t take a runner long to bound up the flight at me. “Where’s Morris?”
Rachel cleared the first room to the left and moved into the hallway to hear my question. She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know!”
“Find him!” I told her, knowing good and well that he was hiding somewhere and given the spiral decline of our safety, I was also sure that he would make a move and try to procure a weapon. I couldn’t let that happen. The outcome to such an event, without a shadow of a doubt, would be disastrous to Rachel and I.
Rachel moved to the second door and kicked it open to find Morris t
rying to get a stuck window open. He threw his head toward the sound of the door hitting the wall, expecting a dozen or so runners to be on him, but instead found Rachel. “Oh thank god, it’s you,” he blurted in an unconvincing tone that Rachel saw right through.
“Going somewhere?” She asked him.
“I was looking for a way out of this place… for all of us,” he lied.
“Did you find him?” I asked from the top of the stairs.
She took her eyes off of him for a split second, as she backed to the door and looked my way to answer. “Yeah, I got him. He was trying to escape through a window, unfortunately for him though, it was stuck,” her voice poured out to me.
The sound of something large, and very fast, colliding with the walls screamed louder than a gunshot in close proximity and I threw my head in its direction to see Morris holding Rachel against the damaged wall trying to overpower and take her pistol away. There was also the sound of dozens of footsteps below me, loose items on a bookshelf being disturbed and falling to the floor, all of which were funneling toward the stairs. I had only a few seconds to act before Rachel or I was dead.
“Let her go, Morris or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”
Morris thrust Rachel’s pistol in my direction and fired a single round. It hit me high in the chest and since I was still crouching, the energy from the bullet spun me and I tumbled down the stairs toward the shuffling sounds of death. I could feel and see myself rolling down the stairs and tried my best to stop my advance; however, flailing my arms and legs out to stabilize and stop my fall could easily break an arm or a leg and that was not what I needed to have happen now or anytime in the near future. I had to stop myself, yet without actually doing anything to stop; I was at the full mercy of gravity. My head caught the wall and I could feel my body beginning to fade away. I had to stay conscious, and then again, maybe it was best this way. Maybe breaking my neck on the way down was for the best? I’d never feel them rip me apart. I’d probably never get to see them do such a thing to me.
Everything suddenly stopped and became peaceful and quiet.
Rachel screamed at the sight and Morris was able to yank the pistol from her hands, but in that very moment she was able to push him away and ran for the stairs.
Morris stepped out of the room and fired. The bullet hit Rachel from behind and knocked her to the floor, where she came to rest at the top of the stairs. The constant barrage of sound radiating up from the first floor kept him from approaching and finishing her. He knew the undead would do that for him and he turned and made his way down the hallway to the last room on the left, slamming and locking the door behind him. Two large windows were streaked with falling rain and he made his way toward them, flipped the locking latch at the top and pushed the right window upward. It traveled within the track smoothly as a smile raced across Morris’ face.
The backyard was empty of anything other than grass and another privacy fence. Falling rain pounded the roof right outside of the window and whipping wind cut through two small trees near a shed at the back of the yard.
I lay there at the bottom of the stairs afraid to move and find that I had broken a leg or even my back, scared that I would find myself paralyzed from the neck down. That would have been the dinner bell ringing for them to devour me in that instant. I could feel a growing pain in my right side near my abdomen, yet I remained perfectly still. The single gunshot that had followed the one that put me where I now was, told me that Rachel had met a fate much quicker than mine. Morris had gained control of her weapon and used it. By now, if he had made it out, he’d be long gone. The undead shuffled around me, paying absolutely no attention to the fact that I was just feet from them. I still didn’t know why they were not interested in me… let me rephrase that. I didn’t fully understand why they were not interested in me, although since all of this started, I didn’t have a clue what the hell was really going on. So why should I understand anything now?
My thoughts were abruptly interrupted when I felt something touch my leg and turned my eyes to see one of the undead trying to file past me. Even though I was as still as the dead, I tried even harder not to move or even breath, thinking that it would notice me. But if you are already holding your breath and not moving a single muscle, how do you become even more still? I knew that Rachel was upstairs somewhere and if by some miracle Morris had not killed her, the undead strolling past me would.
I didn’t owe her anything and it wasn’t like she had saved my life in any way, so I had no real motive to try and stop them from getting to her. But in that sense I would be no different than Morris, and I really hated that guy. I had to do something to stop them, even if it meant risking my life in the process. It wasn’t about ‘if I should,’ but more of ‘how do I do that?’
I wiggled my toes on both feet and even though I could not see them move, I could however feel them moving which told me my spinal cord was still intact. Next I tried moving my left arm, and then my right arm – all in such a slight manner that none of the undead or hidden runners would notice me moving. The last thing I needed was to get jumped when I wasn’t sure if I could move, let alone fight.
A grunt, like that of a dog before it would growl, flourished from the nothingness and I moved my eyes to see a runner push two undead out of the way and head straight for me. It was sniffing the air, no doubt following the scent back to its origins, which was me. There was about fifteen feet between us and it was closing that gap quickly, so I had to stop it or at least slow it down while I got to my feet. Fighting for your life while lying on your back was not the best of tactics, although I’m sure it was doable, I wasn’t about to push my luck and try it now.
My Beretta, still lying in the middle of the road several blocks away, would have come in handy at this moment in time, yet it wasn’t even an option anymore. I’d have to get my rifle out from under me if I was going to have any real chance of making it through this one.
The runner zeroed in on me and shot across the room in a full sprint. If I was going to do something, now was the time to start. I rolled to my left and pain shot through my body as if I had been shot by an unheard bullet. My eyes shot to the top of the stairs expecting to see Morris firing another bullet at me. There was no one there other than the motionless body of Rachel.
The runner was now even closer.
I rolled once more and sucked the pain up as it throbbed through me. A little pain now meant I’d live much longer, so I worked through the pain. I found the stock of my short rifle and jerked hard on it. The rifle moved out from under me and I pushed hard with my legs to get into a sitting position against the wall, scurrying the weapon to my shoulder as the runner bore down on me.
Shit! This is going to be close! My mind screamed as I fumbled the safety off and tried to aim. The weapon fired in full auto, dispatching the runner only feet from me, as well as two undead. Suddenly though, every undead in the living room turned toward me and was aware that I was not one of them. The situation went from bad to worse in the course of only ten seconds.
“Time to go,” I said aloud.
I got to my feet in a great deal of pain and began climbing the stairs as the undead filtered in behind me. When I reached the top of the stairs, I could see a blood stain on Rachel’s right shoulder and I grabbed and rolled her over. She was still breathing, which tore a small chunk of anxiety from my shoulders.
I pointed the weapon at the closest room; the one Morris had been trying to flee from and unloaded the remaining rounds in the magazine. Shell casings ejected in quick secession, punching small holes through the wall and hopefully through Morris, if he was still within the confines of the house. The empty mag fell to the carpeted floor and I quickly loaded another, holding the weapon with my right hand while my left hand lightly slapped Rachel’s face. I couldn’t carry her and fight at the same time, so I needed her to wake up and help me to help her.
“Rachel, wake up! I need you to wake up… they’re coming!” I shouted to her, t
aking a moment to blast two undead as they came up the stairs. Their bodies crumpled and fell, knocking several other undead down the stairs with them. “Get up, dammit!”
Slowly she opened her eyes and cringed in pain, grabbing her wounded shoulder.
“Glad to see you are still with me,” I told her, trying to lighten the mood.
“That son of a bitch shot me,” she stated. “He shot me in the back.”
I got a closer look at her wound as she got to her feet and presented her back to me. From what I could tell – I’m no doctor by any means here – the bullet entered near the rear of her armpit and exited through the front in the same location, which meant she was in no real immediate danger. There was the possibility of her bleeding to death on me, although it didn’t sound that likely to me with further inspection. “You’re gonna have to tie that arm off to stop the bleeding. We are far from out of here and there’s a shitload of those things trying to come up here.”
She grabbed my knife and swiftly started cutting the sleeve of her shirt off. Once she had accomplished that, she wrapped it around the wound and took a few deep breaths, as the pain would careen through her whole body when she tied the make shift tourniquet off.
I sent three undead down the stairs, and then quickly grabbed the material. “On three, okay?” She nodded to me with a look of anticipation alight in her eyes, but it wasn’t something she wanted.
“One… two…” I energetically tugged hard on opposite ends of the sleeve, which closed around her shoulder with vice like grip. She howled loud enough to be heard at least thirty miles away.
“Oh, you bastard!” She spat. “You worthless son of a bitch!”
“Sorry, but I had to do it before three to take your mind off of what was coming,” I told her. “If I’d of waited it would have been worse… trust me on this.”
She glared at me for a moment until she realized that I was right. If I had waited till three to tug on the sleeve, the anticipation of knowing pain was coming would have magnified two or three times over. But by tugging when I hit two, she wasn’t ready for the pain and had no time for the anticipation to blossom before pain coursed through her. “Yeah, and you probably enjoyed every bit of that,” she said snidely.
Day One (Book 3): Alone Page 18