by D. J. Molles
Lee heard the door of the vehicle open. He turned and watched Angela step out and close the door behind her. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
Jack sat down in a squat, head in his hands. Blood was dripping from his arms onto the ground. Neither Lee nor Angela wanted to get any closer to the infected man. “Something is wrong...” Jack spoke haltingly. “...with Tango. He...He...snapping his jaws...and bites me. Keeps biting me.”
This time Angela spoke quietly to Lee. “Maybe Tango can smell Jack turning.”
Lee looked over at his long-time companion that now paced restlessly around in the back of the pickup bed. Growling low, head hanging, tail slightly tucked. Uncharacteristically fearful. Undeniably aggressive. It would be more pleasant for Lee to believe that Tango simply smelled the infection in Jack and attacked on instinct. But Lee wasn’t living in a pleasant reality.
He didn’t answer Angela as he walked over to the side of the bed.
Tango kept pacing, growling, grumbling to himself. Then he saw Lee and his low-slung tail raised just a bit and wagged two or three times.
“Hey buddy.” Lee reached into his right cargo pocket and pulled out that old tattered rope toy. The dog wagged and stared at the toy. In his simple canine mind, it was just time for fun, fun, fun.
Inside the Petersons’, Tango had defended them by attacking the infected man with the shovel. Probably taken a good chunk out of him when he did it. Lee wanted to blame himself for it, but he knew it would have been impossible to keep Tango from coming in contact with the infected. His only hope had been that inter-species infection was impossible.
Lee walked to the end of the truck and lowered the tailgate. The man moved slow, like his legs were encased in concrete. He felt feverish. Light-headed. He held the rope toy out and Tango made his way to the end of the tailgate, then jumped off. He didn’t look as nimble as he had the day before. He looked like a different dog.
Angela spoke softly. “Lee, we can just leave him here.”
Lee matched her low volume, but his tone left no room for argument. “I asked you to wait in the truck.”
There was a moment of silence. She tried again. “I understand that—”
Lee turned to face her. “I will do what I think is best. Now get in the fucking truck.” Lee turned to Jack. “You too. Both of you get in the truck. Leave me be for one goddamned minute.”
Lee turned back to Tango and gave him the rope toy. The dog chewed on it. Care-free. Ignorant. Beautiful. Behind him, Lee heard the truck door open and the scuffle of Jack climbing back into the truck bed. Then the door closed and there was just the quiet rumble of the truck’s engine at idle.
Lee bent down and took the rope. “Tango, give.” The dog obediently released it. Lee walked toward the grassy field to the side of the road, still holding the rope toy.
Tango followed, tail wagging. The dog’s stride was stiff, but he didn’t seem to notice. Lee kept walking, feeling Tango moving diligently next to him, occasionally his flank brushing Lee’s leg as they walked, as it had so many times before.
Lee wasn’t sure how far he walked, and didn’t care. He knew that everyone in the truck could still see him, but he wanted to be away from them. This was not their business. This was just Lee and his dog, alone again. Like they started. Simpler.
The man stopped, and his dog stopped with him. Lee looked down at Tango. “You want the toy, buddy?”
Tango wagged his tail. Lee tossed the rope, but not too far. When he would take Tango out into the backyard, when things were normal, he would throw tennis balls as far as he possibly could. Tango was a fast dog and would sometimes catch them before they could bounce twice. This time he hobbled after the rope, his mind excited, but his body uncooperative. Lee had always admired the dog’s muscular grace. Now he didn’t think he could throw the rope again. He didn’t think he could watch the dog hobble anymore, ignorant of its own sickness.
Tango returned at a walk, the rope hanging in his mouth.
“You tired already?” he tried to sound cheerful for Tango, but his voice was weak. Lee knelt down to Tango and put his left arm around the dog’s chest, felt the dog’s ribs and wished the last couple days of Tango’s life hadn’t been so rough on him. He scratched the dog’s neck and leaned in close and whispered, because he couldn’t find his voice. “You’re a good dog, Tango. I can’t give it to you, but you deserved a full belly and a soft blanket.”
Tango wasn’t listening. He just kept chewing the rope. Fun, fun, fun.
Still holding the dog, Lee pulled out his pistol, put the muzzle against the dog’s head, just behind the ear, and killed him with a single shot.
***
They drove on in silence.
Lee’s mind pulled him a dozen different directions. His emotional response to losing Tango had dismayed him. Not because he did not have affection for the animal, but as a handler of a working dog, he knew his dog was there to do a job, not be a pet, and understood the danger inherent in that. Lee had not wanted to become emotionally attached to Tango, but it was unavoidable, especially given the long weeks he’d spent in The Hole.
It also struck another sensitive chord inside of him. Everything he new was being stripped away in one way or another. His house, his dog, everyone he knew—everything was gone and had been replaced with this new cold reality that offered no comfort, no familiarity. It was as though he had been born through a raging furnace and come out the other side with every old thing burned away. In the span of days, he found himself living a completely different life.
Tango had been the last tie to his old life. The last comfortable, familiar thing he knew. Besides the shell-shocked state Lee found his mind in, there were other concerns.
Such as Jack. It had been obvious to everyone—including Jack—that he was becoming symptomatic. The confused speech, the pale skin, the constant sweating. In Lee’s briefing what felt like months ago in the comfort of his bunker, Colonel Reid had established a 72-hour asymptomatic time period. However, that may have been old data based on a less intrusive means of infection than being bitten on the arm.
With no other data available on the plague or how easily it was transmitted, Lee felt increasingly uncomfortable with carting the infected man around. Lee knew he couldn’t catch the plague simply by being around Jack, in the same way he knew it took a detonator to set off a nuclear device—but it didn’t make it any more comfortable to sit next to one.
And whatever the science might be behind Jack’s contagion, the fact of the matter was that he wouldn’t be around much longer. He was a time-bomb, and Lee didn’t know how long the fuse was. He knew he didn’t want to abandon him, and he didn’t want to kill him, especially when Jack could help them get to a safe place. But the longer they waited, the more of a risk Jack became. It was coming to the point that Lee continuously checked the rear-view to make sure Jack wasn’t frothing at the mouth and trying to beat his way through the back glass to attack them.
From a strictly utilitarian perspective, the only reason Jack wasn’t dead, was because he could still help in a fight. But how much trust could there be in a combat situation when Lee knew the guy that was watching his back could turn into an instinctive killer at the drop of a hat?
Then there was the mission, which was essentially on hold until Lee could get Angela, Abby and Sam to a safe location. His mission required that he travel between groups of survivors and continue to make contacts, connections, and build bridges between communities. He couldn’t do this with parties of survivors slowing him down.
Was his mission even feasible?
In that moment it felt ridiculous, outlandish, and impossible. He’d spent two days on the surface of this shitty place and had come into contact with only four survivors, one of which was about to die. And that wasn’t counting Sam’s father. To pay for this he’d lost his house, his supplies, his dog, and a generous helping of his positive attitude. What he was left with was a pistol with four rounds left in it, an
empty rifle, a symptomatic infected man, and three survivors that were now only slightly further away from terminal dehydration. Not to mention that edible food appeared to be non-existent. Did he really think he was going to find entire groups of survivors in this wasteland?
“That’s it! Right there!”
Lee snapped out of it and saw Angela leaning between the two front seats, pointing out the windshield at the entrance to what looked like it had once been a well-to-do condominium complex on the left of the road. The sign, made of brick and plaster, and missing a few vowels, announced it as “T mber Cre k.”
Lee slowed down and turned left into the entrance, then rolled to a stop.
The inside of the pickup truck was awkwardly silent, as though no one could think of the right thing to say. In the rear view mirror, Jack stood up and looked over the cab. Lee didn’t know whether he felt like laughing or crying. He wasn’t quite sure what they’d expected to find, but he knew what they’d hoped to find, and this was not it.
The gates to Timber Creek looked like someone had driven a Mack truck through them. One of them laid, mangled, but still clinging to the lever that once opened and closed it. The other one was gone completely. The complex itself looked like someone had burned half of it to the ground, and looted the other half. Burned out husks of cars still sat in their designated parking spaces. Trash and broken glass were littered in every corner. The buildings stood like skulls in a catacomb, their broken windows as black as eye sockets, and just as dead and empty.
To keep himself from laughing or crying, Lee took a slow, deep breath and tried to let it out quietly, though he was sure everyone in the vehicle knew what mood he was in. “Well...” he looked around at the mess in front of him. “...I guess we can look around.”
And that was when the truck slammed into them from behind.
CHAPTER 18: THE PATROL
Lee heard the impact like an explosion and felt himself spinning, like he was strapped into a carnival ride. Jack tumbled over the top of the cab and dented the hood on his way to the ground. When they stopped spinning, they were turned nearly 90 degrees counter-clockwise, and were now facing their attacker. Lee got the impression of a freight tractor with no trailer attached, its twin exhaust pipes poking up like devil’s horns. He didn’t wait to see what came out of the truck.
Lee had just enough of an angle to stick his pistol out the driver’s side window and still draw a good sight picture on the truck facing them. He pointed for the driver’s seat and cranked off his last four rounds. The dark windshield turned into white spider webs. Jack staggered to his feet and fired his last two rounds of buckshot, peppering the driver’s side door.
As Lee pulled his gun back into his pickup truck and tossed it in the passenger seat, he watched as the driver’s side door of the truck opened and a bloody body was shoved out like a bag of garbage. The truck immediately started rolling towards them.
“Jack! Get in!” Lee screamed over the roar of the diesel engine bearing down.
Jack stood in the open, still holding his empty shotgun. He never looked back. The truck hit him so hard, it looked like the old marine simply disappeared.
Lee tore his eyes off the scene and slammed his pickup’s accelerator, steering hard right, trying to maneuver for the wreckage of Timber Creek. With not a bullet between the four of them, Lee felt their only chance of survival was to evade and outflank their attackers inside the condominium complex.
Their vehicle almost made the turn, but the pickup’s powerful engine and heavy torque spun the wheels for just a bit too long and, as Lee wrangled the pickup towards the damaged gate, the freight truck T-boned them on Lee’s side.
Glass shattered inwards like a sharp, horizontal rain. The kids were screaming like air-raid sirens. Lee heard a popping sound that he thought was the engine malfunctioning and then quickly recognized it as small arms fire. He mashed the accelerator again, but the pickup wouldn’t budge. The two vehicles were hooked together.
Lee ducked as two rounds punched clean through the side of his door and missed his midsection by inches. “Get out!” He yelled at Angela and the kids, who were already opening the passenger-side door. He launched himself over the center console, leaving his MK23 and his M4, but grabbing his go-to-hell pack as he shoved open the front passenger-side door and leaped out, face first.
He tried to pull his arms in front of him to brace his fall, but the weight of his backpack held them back. He felt his face slam concrete and tasted blood and grit, and wasn’t sure where it was coming from. He was only glad he hadn’t blacked out.
He staggered to his feet, feeling like it took him ages to accomplish this simple task, and saw Angela and the kids, already sprinting through the entrance to Timber Creek. Dirt and concrete chunks exploded around him and Lee realized that he was still being shot at.
He sprinted for the entrance of the complex, holding the backpack with one hand and digging in the pockets with the other. Rifle and pistol fire continued to track him as he ran, crunching off the ground and pinging off the metal gate. The only thought in his mind cycled in a tight loop: Get the GPS! Get the GPS! Get the GPS!
“Lee!”
The scream broke his attention. He looked up and saw that Angela and the kids were now running back towards him. He felt his fingers touch the GPS and grabbed it in an iron grip and simultaneously realized why Angela and the kids were running back towards him.
Drawn by the loud noises, three infected were sprinting towards them.
Lee didn’t have time to plan, didn’t have much in the way of weapons, so he simply acted on the first thing that popped into his head. He pulled the GPS out of his backpack and shoved it into his cargo pocket as he charged straight at the approaching infected. Previously fixated on Angela and the two children, the infected shifted their attention to Lee.
The first attacker caught Lee’s backpack in the face as Lee swung it like a flail. The hit knocked the infected off its feet, but it grabbed the backpack on the way down and Lee let him have it. As the next infected approached, Lee took two big sprinting steps and jumped, slamming both feet into the creature’s chest. The two of them tumbled to the ground, a few feet apart. As Lee tried to get to his feet, he saw Angela and the kids taking advantage of his distraction and flanking around, heading back into the condo complex.
The third infected reached Lee before he could react and threw him back to the ground. The thing was fat and blood was pouring from its mouth. Lee was on his back looking up at it as it screeched at him. He thrust up with one hand, catching the thing around its flabby neck, his only concern to keep it from biting at him. With his other hand he reached down to his boot and yanked out a small thrust dagger he kept there—the only weapon Lee had left.
The fat man swung wildly at him, grabbing a fistful of Lee’s face and sinking its dirty fingernails in. Lee screamed in rage and pain and slammed the thrust dagger into the infected’s temple, causing it to instantly go limp.
Lee shoved the dead body off of him. Both of the other infected were now on their feet again. Lee yanked at his dagger, still imbedded in the side of the fat man’s skull, but it would not budge. Lee left it, and started running in the last direction he’d seen Angela and the kids heading for. Breath came to him in ragged gasps, his legs felt numb as they flew across the concrete, and Lee could sense the instability in his sprint and feared his legs might give out before he made it to safety.
He glanced behind him and saw several armed gunman pouring through the front gate, rifles and pistols flashing, but the noise just sounded like muted thumps to Lee. One of the remaining infected’s head split open and it tumbled to the ground. The other froze in place, unsure whether to pursue Lee or attack the gunmen.
Lee faced back around and found himself running straight for the door of a ground-floor condo. He didn’t think about it, though in the back of his mind he knew it wasn’t the best decision to go into a confined space when he was being pursued. He hit the door with his shoulder
and it shattered open. Lee felt a spiking pain through his right arm as he stumbled into the condo and immediately regretted his decision.
The room he found himself in was completely black. The windows must have been boarded up by a conscientious condo-owner, and the light that pushed through the open door only lit up a small square of the room.
But he couldn’t go back.
Blindly, he kept moving straight ahead, feeling in front of him with his arms. He found a long, narrow hallway, passed a few bedroom doors, felt his boots step on something soft halfway down the hall, but didn’t stop to try and see what it was. He made it to a door at the end of the hall and fumbled for the door knob.
Behind him, he heard shouts at the front door.
He pushed through the darkness and entered this last room. Again, he was met with pure, inky blackness. He shut the door behind him and locked the doorknob. Then he put his hand out to the right wall and started feeling around. There had to be a window in this room. Please, God, let there be a window.
Lee pushed over furniture, knocked what he thought were pictures off of the walls, and tipped over a chair before finally finding a window. Without hesitation he reared back and put a boot through the glass. The glass shattered easily, but the plywood on the other side did not. Lee knew it was his only option. This wasn’t a prison. He could get out. It would just take some effort. He would not die, gunned down by some fucking raiders in a dark, dead, back bedroom of some looted condominium. Not after all the things he had already survived.
He kicked again at the plywood, this time feeling some slight give. He could hear shouts coming from inside the condo now. Surely they heard him crashing through the darkness and pounding at the window. He had only seconds left before they caught up with him. He kept slamming his foot into the plywood, feeling it rattle just a little more each time until finally he saw a hint of daylight creeping through the lower left-hand corner of the window.