Westport (Grays Harbor Series Book 1)

by James Bierce

  Larry stands on the sidewalk outside the doors and takes a look inside, making sure that at least the lobby is clear. After he's relatively certain that it is, he pulls out his radio and switches it back on. "Beth, are you still there?"

  'Yes, I'm still here. Where are you?"

  "I'm right outside the hospital. I'll see you in a few minutes, okay?"

  "Okay, what about Jake?"

  "Don't waste your battery, we'll talk when I get there. Room one-twenty-seven, right?"

  "Right."

  He glances down at his watch, which reads almost 10AM. He left the store over two hours ago, which is actually making decent time, but it also doesn't give them a lot of time to search for Jake before the sun goes down.

  As soon as he steps over the threshold and into the main lobby, he can instantly hear the sounds of people moving in the corridors all around him. Their raspy breathing and coughing are the loudest, but its the faint sound of slow footsteps that bothers him the most. He's never seen them active in the daytime before, but then again, he's never seen them in a darkened building either. He shines his flashlight at the signs visible at the beginning of each hallway, finding that room one-twenty-seven is to his left.

  As he walks farther into the building and away from the daylight, he moves his flashlight cautiously around, making sure that nobody gets close to him, his gun at his side in the other hand. Every corridor that he passes by has at least a dozen people standing near the end, and some of the spaces appear to be half-full. The floors are slimy and sticky under his feet, but Larry purposely doesn't look down to find out what's causing it — he'd rather not know. Finally, after making it nearly halfway down the hallway, he reaches the room number that Beth gave him. He taps lightly on the window three times, then shines the light onto his face to make it easier to recognize him. Just as he hears the door click and begin to open, he hears another sound coming from farther down the hallway — the sound of clumsy footsteps walking quickly across the linoleum.

  "Beth, come on! Somebody is coming..."

  The door opens and Beth steps out, tears running down her face. "Who is it?"

  He shines the light in the direction of the noise, and sees a man in a ripped and tattered suit walking straight toward them, both of his eyes bloodshot and bright red. When the light hits him he nearly falls to the floor, then manages to get to his feet again, shielding his face with his arm as he starts to inch forward once again.

  "Does your light work?" asks Larry.

  "Yes." Beth answers, quickly turning it on.

  "Aim it toward the lobby, make sure nobody is in the way. I have to keep mine on this guy."

  She moves the beam of her light toward the lobby as he asked, seeing nothing but the bloodstained floor she saw the night before. "It looks clear."

  Both of them start walking down the hallway as quickly as they can, the sounds of footsteps heard all around them. They become even more active once the man following them starts screaming. Larry is forced to walk almost backward, keeping his light directly on the man, and making sure he doesn't start to gain on them. Then right before they reach the end of the hall, Beth pushes against him, stopping both of them.

  "Wait!"

  "What's wrong?"

  "There's somebody in the lobby, they're standing right in front of the door."

  "Keep moving, I'll take care of them."

  As they move farther into the lobby, and the light level begins to grow, the man following them slows down, then starts to make his way around the edge of the room where the shadows are the heaviest. Larry turns around and faces the man standing in the doorway, aiming his gun directly at the back of the man's head — then watches as the man calmly walks outside and turns the corner, never bothering to look back.

  While still keeping an eye on the man with the bloodshot eyes, Larry nudges Beth through the doorway, and the two of them step out onto the sidewalk and into the safety of daylight — or at least what's left of it. Between the smoke and the black clouds rolling in from the ocean, the skies are beginning to darken considerably.

  "Where'd he go?" Beth asks.

  "Who?"

  "That guy that just left. I don't see him anywhere."

  Larry takes a quick glance around, not seeing a trace of anybody, then turns back around and closes both of the hospital doors, tying them together with a short piece of rope that he pulls out of his coat.

  "What about Jake?" she asks frantically, finally noticing what he's doing.

  "Beth, if he's in there, there's no way we're getting to him. I'm sorry."

  She looks stunned, and heartbroken, but when she looks back through the lobby doors and into the dark room beyond, she sees dozens of people flooding into the lobby from every direction — all of them heading straight toward the doors.

  Larry puts his flashlight back into his bag, but keeps his gun in his right hand as he crosses the street and heads toward the harbor.

  "We have to get across the bridge before sunset." he tells his sister, who's following right behind him, still in shock.

  "Why can't we wait around here for a couple of days? Jake might still be in there."

  "We can't stay here, its just too dangerous."

  As they pass by an abandoned building, one of many that were empty long before the viral outbreak, something catches Beth's attention in the window. She sees a woman facing her, and for a moment she assumes the woman is inside the old storefront where its still dark — and then she realizes that its merely a reflection, that the woman is actually outside, standing on the other side of the street from them.

  "Larry, there's a woman in the street over there..."

  He looks over at her, making sure that she doesn't start following them — then he looks back up the hill in the direction of the hospital. A few other people are walking down the middle of the road, but none of them seem to be paying any attention to him and Beth.

  "We need to stop somewhere for just a minute." says Beth quietly.

  "We don't have time."

  "Its on the way. Jake and I spent the first night there, and if there's even the slightest chance he made it back...

  "Okay, okay, we'll check it out — but just for a minute."

  Only a few blocks farther down the hill, the skies open up and begin pouring rain down on them, turning the street gutters into small streams — and while the rain serves to partially clear the air of the horrible smoke, the sound of it falling loudly onto the cars and puddles also limits their ability to hear anything that might be around them. Every block they pass, watching their every step to prevent a fall or twisted ankle, they see more and more people coming out of the buildings and alleyways and onto the streets. A few of them glance in their direction, but most look unaware that they even exist.

  "They seem kind of quiet." Larry says, as he watches a woman hitting her fist weakly against a storefront window.

  "Its early, I'm surprised any of them are even out. The worst ones always come out after dark."

  Larry then realizes that he really doesn't know that much about them — he only took watch for a single night while they were in Sequim. Not long after his shift started, he looked through binoculars at downtown and saw the people pouring out onto the streets, where angry mobs attacked and mutilated one person after another — some of the mobs even turning on each other when there was no one else around to brutalize. The moment that some of the crowd began stalking a young child, whether a boy or a girl he couldn't tell, Larry put the binoculars down and refused to watch any further. From then on he kept his eyes and mind focused on the entrance to the marina, making sure the boat and his family were safe. Part of him now wishes that he would've paid more attention to them, learned more about their behavior and habits.

  "When you say the worst ones, do you mean violent?" he asks.

  "They're worse than violent — they're inhuman."

  When they finally reach the waterfront road where the barber shop is located, Beth looks down at where they fo
und Sean's body just the day before, but its not there now — only his shoes and a ripped up shirt are left.

  As Beth opens the barber shop door and steps into the small room, she doesn't really expect to find her husband waiting there — she knows that he would never leave her inside the hospital alone. She had to check though, if nothing else than to free her of the burden of always wondering 'what if'.

  "Jake, are you in here?" she yells out, heading straight to the bathroom in the corner of the room.

  "Beth, we should go. He's obviously isn't here."

  "Come here, we should grab some of this shit before we go."

  Larry walks up behind her and sees the room filled with supplies, most of it guns and ammo. They fill his bag to its limit with a variety of things, like medications, matches, energy bars, bottles of water, and a couple of pistols with ammo. Beth grabs another bag and fills it with somewhat the same items, with more emphasis on the ammunition, knives and guns. On the way out, she takes an AR-15 semi-auto rifle leaning in the corner and swings it onto her shoulder, then heads to the entrance of the shop, looking back at Larry to see what's holding him up.

  "What're you doing?" she asks, seeing him reach into his bag.

  "Finding this." He holds up a piece of paper and then sets it down on the counter. "Its a map of where we're going. If Jake is still alive, he might come back here and find it."

  Beth looks out the window, seeing more people spilling out into the street from the nearby buildings and docked ships. A group of seven of them is chasing what appears to be an old woman down to the shoreline, nearly catching her by the time they slip out of Beth's sight.

  "Maybe we should stay here for the night. They're getting restless out there already." says Beth.

  "You said Sean's boat is still afloat?" he replies, clearly ignoring her suggestion.

  "Barely."

  Larry stands next to her, appraising the situation for himself, then opens the door quietly when it appears that nobody is looking their way. As they both step out onto the sidewalk, Larry turns and whispers into her ear. "If anybody gets in your way, try to walk around them — but if they won't move, shoot them in the head until they drop. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  They move along the sidewalk slowly, trying to stay hidden against the sides of the old brick buildings they pass by — but the number of people on the street next to them is growing by the minute, and after only half a block it becomes painfully obvious that at least some of them are now watching their every move. Beth glances up at the road in front of them, and sees two older men in filthy clothes staring at them intently, almost as if they recognized them from somewhere. As they get closer, Beth can see the red tinge in their eyes.

  "Those guys ahead of us are really sick, look at their eyes."

  "I see them."

  The men begin to walk toward Larry and her, each step looking stiff and painful. She turns around to see if they can still get back to the barber shop, and sees a small group of a dozen or so people almost to the entrance and coming their way.

  "We have to do something..." she whispers to Larry, her voice shaking with fear.

  He grabs her hand and steps off of the sidewalk and onto the roadway, crossing to the other side where the marina is only a short distance ahead. The men ahead of them start crossing the street to cut them off, and when Larry looks back at the group of people following, he notices that they've fanned out, and are now completely blocking the road behind them. Whether operating by instinct or intelligence, or perhaps a little of both, its obvious that he and Beth are being hunted.

  "We might have to make a run for it." he tells his sister.

  "We can't even be sure the boat is still there."

  "Just be ready."

  Still staggering somewhat, the two men speed up their advancement and make it across the street, and have now stopped directly in front of them, blocking their way to the marina only fifty feet ahead. Larry notices that the others behind them have stopped as well, and that the people to their side have closed in and sealed the street off, leaving the harbor to their right the only way out. He feels Beth tug on his hand as she begins to move toward the water, but he pulls her back onto the sidewalk next to him.

  "Aim for their torso, just like Jake showed you..."

  Beth feels his hand let go of hers, then watches as he aims his pistol at one of the men in front of them. She slides her rifle off of her shoulder slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements, then pulls the charging handle back in a quick motion to cock it. The people behind them and to their side are still about thirty feet away, but the two men are only about half of that. Turning to face the crowd to her side, she lifts the rifle up and aims it at the chest of a young man who appears to be in his early twenties. She feels horrible doing it, and for a moment she wonders whether or not she's even capable of pulling the trigger and killing another human being — and then the man smiles at her. The grin is almost mischievous, but the red-tinged teeth underneath tell her that there's something much more dangerous about him.

  When Larry's gun goes off behind her, it startles her enough that she almost drops her rifle. When the second round is fired, and the people surrounding them quicken their pace to close in on them, Beth begins firing her gun at each of them, trying her best to keep her composure and not waste ammunition. In only a fraction of a minute, she pauses and looks around, seeing nothing but bodies lying on the ground, all of them either dead or writhing in pain.

  A few of them are moaning loudly, or screaming in agony. Then she hears a rattling noise, and after looking down she realizes that its coming from her own gun, and that her hands and legs are trembling.

  "Beth..."

  She turns around and sees Larry pointing up the hill, where huge crowds of people are making their way down the pavement from seemingly every street.

  "We need to get out of here, now..." he tells her.

  They both grab their bags and begin running down the sidewalk and onto the walkway that leads to the marina. About halfway to Sean's abandoned boat, they feel the floating dock suddenly shudder and sway, the wooden side supports cracking loudly as it sinks farther into the water. Beth glances back quickly, seeing a large swarm of people running onto the dock from the street, filling every square inch of the decking.

  "Hurry, they're gaining on us!" she yells.

  Larry can tell from here that the boat is taking on water, but the fact that its still floating is a huge relief. When they finally reach it, he throws his bag onto the deck and starts untying the rope from the dock. He can hear the hundreds of footsteps getting closer, and the splashes of water as they push one another into the harbor. Fearing that he's running out of time, he grabs a large knife from the bag and starts cutting his way through the rope — both of them pushing off from the berth as soon as he's finished, and just in time to see the first people reach the end of the dock. Still only a boat length away, Larry and Beth watch as dozens of people are pushed into the water from the masses right behind them. Within a few minutes, the surface of the harbor is filled with struggling bodies, all of them grabbing onto whatever is close by in order to stay afloat.

  As the fog and smoke moves in around them and completely blocks their sight, Larry and Beth are left with only the sounds of splashing water and screaming, and the occasional clawing at the boat's hull.

  Sarah listens to the labored, congested coughing emanating from the next room, and the slow sound of footsteps as the man walks across the tiled kitchen floor toward the living room. She points her gun in the direction of the intruder, and then feels a tug on her sleeve.

  "Mom, shouldn't we hide?" Matt whispers to her.

  She looks over at Carl, whose withered body is pushed as far into his chair as humanly possible, a look of fear and disbelief on his face as he stares at the doorway to the kitchen.

  "No." says Sarah. "We're not going to hide — not anymore."

  They can hear him in the other room going from cupboard to cupbo
ard, spilling their contents across the already filthy floor, then dragging his feet through the trash as he makes his way closer to the entrance of the living room. Sarah almost pulls the trigger the instant that she sees his face. Even in the pale light of the room, she can clearly see the bloodshot and almost lifeless eyes, and that his skin is covered in dark colored blotches that seem to take up most of his face. Upon entering the room, he looks at each of them only briefly, then begins looking through the bookshelf that rests against the wall next to the hallway.

  Sarah looks at Carl again, who looks petrified with fear. "Carl, say something to him..."

  "Like what?"

  "Anything, tell him to get out."

  Carl looks back at Jacob, who's now removing every book off of the shelf one by one. "Jacob, can you hear me?"

  No response.

  "Jacob, look at me!" he says more forcefully. This at least causes the young man to stop what he's doing for a moment and turn around briefly, but all Carl gets in response is a hostile glare and muttering under his breath. Carl stands up and takes a couple of steps toward him, prompting Jacob to turn around and scream something unintelligible at him.

  "Carl, stand back..." Sarah tells him.

  Carl takes a step back just as Jacob lunges forward and takes a swipe at his face — his dirty, overgrown fingernails coming inches from his cheek. As he falls back into his chair and covers his head from any further attacks, Jacob turns around and faces the bookshelf again — pitching the books and knickknacks to the floor.

  "Hey, get the fuck out!" Sarah yells at the man, aiming her gun directly at his head. Jacob grabs a book and turns around, then throws the hardcover at her, the corner of it hitting her left shoulder hard enough to nearly knock her off of her feet. After steadying herself, she aims the pistol at his head once again as he stumbles across the living room toward her and Matt, his eyes not only bloodshot, but glazed over with a milky-white substance as well.