by J. Thorn
Diego massaged his shoulder, wincing in pain. “Baby, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think. It’s just … my head hurts.”
Diego leaned over and pulled his fiancée close to him.
Meanwhile, Peaches began wiping away the blood from Olivia’s head.
“How does it look?” I asked.
“The cuts ain’t too deep. But we gotta get this bleeding under control.”
Olivia agreed. She was crying bloody murder.
“Just keep pressure on it.”
I sat up, looked around. The windshield had cracked in a dozen places. The front end of the Buick was smashed in like a crinkled-up soda can, its metal body merged with the blue pickup. Not surprisingly, the car had shut off during the wreck. A light smoke rose from the engine compartment.
“We should probably get out of the car,” I said. “What if the engine is on fire?”
Everyone looked forward, watched as the smoke grew thicker, blanketing the outside of the car in a grey fog.
Inside the car, I began to smell it. The scent of burning oil.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to go.”
We all got out at the same time.
Not a second later, we all wished we hadn’t.
Beyond the smoke was a circle of eight people, surrounding the car. Six men. Two women. And I knew instantly they weren’t here to help us. They all had their hands down at their sides, and on each of their faces was the unique expression of indifference they would make famous. They, the infected. They wouldn’t smile. They wouldn’t gloat. Even though they knew they had us trapped.
Before any of us could mutter a syllable, they rushed in on us, two apiece. I suppose I was lucky, as the two who came for me were probably two of the smallest of the group, and direct opposites. One was a girl no more than fourteen or fifteen years old. The other was an old man close to my grandma’s age. He had crazy white hair, pale skin, and was bone thin, like a Q-tip with arms and legs.
Even with the body of a fifteen-year-old girl myself, I was able to fight them off rather easily, as they attempted to pull me down to the ground. I leaned back against the car door and kicked the girl in the chest. She slipped and fell backward into the ditch. Then I worked on prying the old man’s dinosaur claws off my shirt and pushed him aside. Beside me, Diego was struggling with his pair. Both men. Both much larger than him.
I opened the car door back up and went for Sally between the seat and the center console. But she wasn’t there. She must have become dislodged during the crash.
I climbed into the car, searched around the floor in the front. The only thing I found down there was a box of travel tissues and an old roll of Mentos—the freshmaker. My grandma loved those darn things.
Behind me, somebody’s once-beloved grandpa set his claws on the back of my Harry Potter shirt and tried to yank me out of the car. I turned and pushed him away, and then lunged into the backseat. She, my Sally, had to be back there.
The old man climbed into the front seat. If nothing else, he was a persistent old badger. Probably a war vet.
Those fuckers never give up.
I ended up finding Sally by the back windshield, of all places. I fumbled with the slide. Checked that the safety was off. Ready to fire.
The old man struggled to get between the seats. He had his arms outstretched, trying to grab hold of me, but I was just beyond his reach.
I pointed the gun at his head. “Back off!”
He didn’t back off. He tried even harder to get me between his wrinkly old fingers.
“This is your last chance,” I said. “Back the fuck off!”
Again, he didn’t listen. Maybe he was hard of hearing, or just didn’t believe that I would pull the trigger. Most likely, he had no clue what a gun was or what would happen if he didn’t do as I said.
I actually felt sympathy for him.
He should be spending his retirement doing something nice and relaxing like, I don’t know, visiting the Grand Canyon in one of those fancy power wheelchairs—like in the television commercials. Instead, he’s asking me to paint his brains all over the interior of my grandma’s car.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not to a war hero.
I opened the back passenger door and got out. Peaches, and the two who had attacked her, had disappeared. Luna, as well. Diego was still struggling on the ground on the other side of the car.
The young girl saw me come around and ran straight at me.
I raised the gun. Fired.
Two shots in the chest, just like Ted had taught me.
She went down instantly.
The gunshots had alerted the other two fighting with Diego. They stopped and raised their heads just enough to give me a clear shot.
Thanks boys.
A moment later, they rolled off Diego, blood spurting from the holes in their heads.
“Gracias,” Diego said.
“We have to find the girls,” I said, helping him to his feet.
“Where are they?”
“If I knew that, we wouldn’t have to find them.”
Then I heard a female scream, and I looked up. Peaches was on top of the blue pickup, cradling Olivia. A man and a woman were climbing up after her. I raised the gun, wanted to take a shot. But it was too risky.
Behind me, Diego was limping along like a zombie, yelling for Luna.
Peaches was yelling at me. “Jimmy, help!”
I stepped out on the street to get a better angle, and that’s when I saw the rest of the infected—dozens—coming down driveways, through yards. I saw something else too, down the road off in the distance, but moving fast.
Two cars.
A police car and a Jeep.
I raised the gun again, took aim, and fired at the woman closest to Peaches.
Missed.
I fired again and hit her in the shoulder.
Robbie “Road Rash” Robinson took out three or four people with the car before he came to a stop. Ted pulled up alongside him twenty yards away, stood on the front seat of his Jeep with the bolt-action rifle pressed against his shoulder, and began firing away.
One down. Two down. Three down.
“Luna!” Diego cried out, crossing the street. Just as someone would get within ten or fifteen feet of him, Ted would shoot them down.
The guy was a sniping machine.
Peaches passed me Olivia so she could safely get down from the truck.
Robinson got out of the car and ran over. I handed him my gun. It didn’t feel right holding Olivia and Sally at the same time. It felt dangerous.
“How many shots you got?”
“I don’t know. Not many.”
Bowser and Aamod stayed by the cars, covering Ted while he reloaded.
Peaches jumped down from the bed of the truck.
“Do you want me to take her?”
“No, I got it,” I said. “Just stay close by.”
Even with all the gunfire, Olivia had finally stopped crying. I checked the side of her head. The cuts had stopped bleeding, and it didn’t look like she had any swelling. Both positive signs.
“Move out of the way,” Robinson said.
Staggering along from behind the Buick was old white hair. The war hero. He would never quit. Until Robinson put a few holes in his chest. Then he grunted and toppled into a sad ball on the ground.
Only a few of the infected remained. Most lay all over the road like scattered trash blown around during a storm.
“Nooooooo!”
It was Diego. He was on the other side of the street looking into the small ditch.
A moment later, two men popped up and knocked him to the ground.
We all ran over to help, including Ted, who quickly jumped down from the Jeep.
I stayed back, out of the firing line.
Bowser, out of bullets, grabbed one of the guys and hit him so hard in the stomach I was surprised the man didn’t vomit all over himself. The man fell to his knees, took the blun
t end of Bowser’s pistol to the top of his head, and then fell the rest of the way. Robinson grabbed the second guy by the back of his shirt and lifted him off Diego. Then he pushed him out of the way, and with no hesitation, fired a bullet into the back of the man’s head.
Diego rolled over, his face a bloody mess, and tried to stand up. Robinson helped him on the second attempt.
We all looked down in the ditch.
Luna lay at the bottom, arms splayed, facing up.
Not moving.
Robinson and Diego climbed down the ditch and began checking to see if she was alive.
“She’s not breathing,” Robinson finally said. He had to yell at Diego to back off so he could administer CPR.
Up on the street, Ted continued to keep watch of our position, picking off any infected who wandered within fifty yards.
“What happened?” Naima asked.
“We got ambushed,” Peaches said.
Aamod finally felt comfortable enough to lower his shotgun. “You were supposed to stay behind us.”
“We were behind you. If you hadn’t noticed, we got into a little accident. Almost died ourselves.”
I had nothing to say. It wasn’t a time for words. I was scared for Luna, scared for Diego. I couldn’t take my eyes off Robinson down below. He was now doing another round of mouth-to-mouth. His officer training put to good use. Any moment now, I expected Luna would pop up, heaving for air.
Come on.
Just this once.
Finally, Robinson stopped and stood up. Diego was on the ground next to his fiancée, his arms around her, trying to talk her back into life.
“Please, baby,” he cried. “Don’t leave me. I need you. I can’t live without you. Please, baby. Please.” He looked up at Robinson, his face covered in blood and tears. “Is there nothing else you can do?”
Robinson shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Diego held her tighter, shut his eyes, and began talking to her in Spanish. The same line, over and over again. “Te amaré por siempre. Mi novia. Te amaré por siempre.”
I’ll love you forever.
My sweetheart.
I’ll love you forever.
Chapter 36
Five heartbreaking minutes later.
After the massacre that had left a few dozen infected dead in the road and surrounding lawns, the number of helpless souls willing to make a run at us slowed immensely. Those that did show themselves often hid behind fences or trees, keeping their distance, but keeping their eyes on us all the same.
They were learning.
Slowly.
They saw what happened to their brothers and sisters, and were no longer so willing to come out in the open and give Ted a clear shot. Good thing too, cause he had to be running low on bullets.
“We need to go soon,” Ted whispered to me. “I don’t have many shots left.”
See. What did I say?
I nodded. “Give him one more minute.”
Diego was still in the ditch with Luna, devastated. The rest of us backed off, gave him some space, some time. There was nothing we could say to him that would help. Diego hadn’t only lost the love of his life; he lost the son or daughter she carried inside of her. He lost the vision of their future together, of being a husband and father, every last dream they had dared to dream. None of it mattered anymore. All of it—gone—snuffed out with her last breath, and now he was all that remained of what they shared, the sole holder of those memories, of those beautiful dreams, knowing they would never come true.
“There’s some stuff in the trunk,” I said, looking over at my grandma’s wrecked Buick. The smoke had finally stopped coming out of the engine compartment. “Don’t want to forget about it.”
Robinson followed me over to the car, waited as I popped open the trunk with one hand. I was still holding Olivia, who had fallen asleep on my shoulder.
“Wow, that’s a lot more than I was expecting,” Robinson said, rummaging through some of the plastic bags. “This will work. Yeah, this will work good.”
I shrugged. “Thanks. I can’t really take credit for it, really. Except the duffle bag.”
Robinson looked over at his squad car parked near Ted’s Jeep. “Hmm.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just trying to figure out what we’re gonna do, space-wise.”
“Isn’t there room in your trunk for all this stuff?”
“Sure. But not for us.”
“Oh, I see.”
Robinson waved Ted over.
“How much farther we got to go?”
“Not far at all. Three miles, maybe,” Ted replied. “Why you ask?”
“I don’t think we’re gonna have enough room for everyone. Might have to make more than one trip.”
“If that’s what it takes. How many we got?”
I did a head count. Robinson, Ted, Peaches, Bowser, Aamod, Naima, Diego, Olivia, and myself.
“Nine.” I said. “Right?”
Ted nodded. “That’s what I got too.”
“Don’t forget Jax, and when you add Luna, that makes eleven,” Robinson said.
“I can fit three with me in the Jeep,” Ted said.
I was a little confused. “Wait … we’re gonna take Luna?”
“We should,” Robinson said. “Don’t wanna just leave her lying there in the ditch. We should at least bury her … have some kind of small funeral, for Diego’s sake. Problem is … we have to transport her somehow, lay her down in the backseat I guess. That’s why I was thinking we might be best off making more than one trip, so that we don’t have to be crowded on top of each other.”
“I could take some people back to my house,” Ted said. “Drop ‘em off, then be back in a flash.”
“Okay, good deal.”
“Who you want me to take?”
“Doesn’t really matter to me. Jimmy, you want to go?”
I shook my head. “You should have the girls go, including Olivia here. Get them out of danger.”
Robinson looked around. “I think most of the danger is gone now, at least that of the immediate variety, but I get what you’re saying.”
“My house is pretty secluded,” Ted added. “Should be safe.”
“Just to be sure, we’ll send Aamod along with the girls. He’ll keep an eye on them.” Robinson smirked. “And it’ll get him out of our hair for a bit.”
“Good thinking,” I said.
“Mind if I hold on to the rifle until you get back?” Robinson asked.
“Sure thing.” Ted handed over the bolt-action rifle. “Ain’t got many shots left, though.”
“Better than nothing.”
We rounded up Aamod, Naima, and Peaches, and then told them the plan. I handed Olivia back to Peaches and then watched as the four of them loaded into Ted’s Jeep and took off down the road. After, Bowser and I transferred the bags from the trunk of the Buick to the trunk of the squad car, while Robinson kept an eye out for infected.
“That guy’s a mess,” Bowser said.
“Who?”
Bowser nodded at Diego still lying grief-stricken in the ditch. “Who do you think?”
I nodded. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“I suppose.”
“You said you had a girlfriend, right? And she was … well, like them?”
“She was in a coma, yeah.”
“So you must understand a little of how he’s feeling.”
“I suppose.”
I stopped putting the stuff in the trunk and met eyes with Bowser. “You ever been in love?”
Bowser broke eye contact, thought about the question, then said, “No, not really.” He looked back over at Diego. “Not like that, anyway. I loved my mama. But that’s different.”
“Interesting.” I began again stuffing the trunk with plastic bags. “So you didn’t love this girlfriend?”
Bowser shrugged. “She was kind of a … temporary thing.”
I smiled. “Did she know that?”
“No
pe. Never got a chance to tell her.”
“Do you feel bad about it?”
“I did a little at the time. But not anymore. That was last week. And last week was a whole different world. Can’t live in the past.”
Robinson wandered, rifle in hand, over to Diego and somehow coerced him up and out of the ditch. He was saying something to him, but I was too far away to hear what. Diego, on the other hand, said nothing. His lips stayed closed.
I turned back to Bowser. “No, I think if we could live in the past, we’d all be okay with that. The future doesn’t look so bright right now.”
We finished loading the bags. Bowser slammed the trunk shut.
“But if it makes you feel any better,” I said, “I’ve never been in love before either. Never even had a girlfriend.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “Really.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Damn.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But you’ve had sex?”
“Well…”
Bowser frowned. “You’ve never had sex?”
“Can you say it any louder?”
“Damn, man, not even with Peaches?”
I shook my head.
“I just figured—”
“And I figured you would. But no, Peaches and I are just friends who met under unusual circumstances.”
“She just seems attached to you.”
“She trusts me, that’s all. I’m safe. We kissed last night. But beyond that, nothing is gonna happen.”
“Why do you say that?”
Robinson left Diego and began walking toward us.
I sighed, considered Bowser’s question, and then said, “Because nothing ever happens. Not to guys like me anyway. I’m the friend. The nice guy. I’m safe.”
Robinson walked up and completed the triangle.
“How’s he doing?” Bowser asked, referring to Diego pacing around in front of the ditch.
“As expected,” Robinson replied. “I told him we’d take Luna with us. Give her a proper burial.”
We all turned and watched Diego pace around. I couldn’t tell if he was crying anymore—he had his head down—but I certainly wouldn’t blame him if he were. Seeing him grieve brought my grandma back to the forefront of my mind. It hurt me to think of her out there all alone in this broken-down world, not knowing if she was okay. Was she wandering to the west with the rest of the infected? I hoped she’d find the peace she deserved.