“Dear God,” she whispered. “They can’t possibly be like Trevor?”
Seb knew it to be a rhetorical question. She had to already know the answer, only she didn’t want it to be true. “Except with razor sharp teeth and an attitude which makes Trevor look like Fred Rogers. Although, I’m more worried about the noise I heard.”
While trying not to lose sight of the dogs, he also tried to look at his son. Jack stood alertly, stiff, and staring intently at the shop’s windows. Wondering what he stared at, Seb moved a little to the side.
“Karla, I’m going to go look through the windows. I can’t get Ruff. Can you manage? I’ll just be a few feet away.”
“I’ll try,” she whispered back. “Just hurry.”
The sense of dread which hadn’t completely left him since Trevor and Trisha had arrived at camp grew in the pit of his gut. The world had completely gone mad. How would they survive when even dogs turned zombie?
Chapter Thirteen
I hated everything in that moment. Hated everyone like Olivia who’d brought this on with their holier-than-thou attitudes and more money than sense. Hated the makers of the soap, of the virus. Hated our government. Hated stupid people.
But mostly, I hated my inability to protect everyone from the zombies, from the horrors brought on by the change.
I hated being helpless in the face of the pain to come, helpless to stop it all.
I hated hurting my son.
Karla
Karla kept her eyes fixed on the dogs. Sound or not, she wasn’t sure if she could take down both dogs. “Seb, I’m going to back up slowly, try not to antagonize the other dogs. Why don’t you have Jack call Ruff?” No way she could grab Ruff and keep her arrow strung.
She kept her voice low and calm, the same as she would with any feral dog. Why didn’t Ruff attack the dogs? Could it be he understood instinctively that they were contagious? And why weren’t they attacking them?
Soon, Jack’s voice came, softly calling Ruff. She backed a little, so he could as well. The dog did back with her, but he never took his eyes off the other animals. “We may have a problem, Seb. Ruff won’t go.”
Seb didn’t answer, and Karla felt torn between watching Ruff and the dogs, and looking at him. His continued silence escalated her concern and made him the priority. “Seb?”
He stood stock-still, weapon on his shoulder and silent. “What is it?” she whispered.
With a barely perceptible nod, he indicated the windows. Cautiously, she turned her body and took a step over. Three dogs and two humans stood in the window staring out at them. “Shit,” she breathed.
“Jack, Rachel, each of you slowly, ever so carefully, get in a car. One in each, and get ready to drive. Don’t make any sudden moves.” She kept her voice as low-pitched and calm as she could manage. “Ruff. Come.” She desperately wished she could reach her forty-five without dropping her bow. The quiver was fine on her back. But the crossbow would take a few seconds to get slung over her shoulder. Maybe she could…
As she took a short step back to hide behind the doorjamb, she quickly put the arrow in the quiver and retrieved her gun from its holster. Ruff’s barks went hysterical as she’d started to move, so she held her finger on the trigger of her gun as she slung the bow across her shoulder. She peeked around the corner and saw the two dogs on their haunches about to spring.
“Seb, they’re attacking!” she yelled as she let off a shot. One dog dropped and tripped the other. It yelped, but then the should-have-been-too-injured-to-move animal started to get up. It favored a forepaw, and she gave a second to be thankful for that, though next time, she determined that she needed the head shot, just like with Trisha and Trevor.
A small whimper left her involuntarily. She loved animals. All of this slowly burned a blight onto her heart and mind, leaving her soul in pieces. But she didn’t have time to worry about the long term. She needed to get to safety and somehow drag Ruff with her.
She grabbed Ruff by the scruff and pulled him back just as the glass near her broke. She pivoted and shot. The dog dropped, but didn’t stop. Shit. She’d missed the head. This one was a burly dog, perhaps a lab, and it appeared determined to get to her.
It scraped and crawled its way to her. She had to nearly choke Ruff to keep the poor dog back. One bite from that thing, and hell only knew what would happen. Well, hell and them. It took all her strength to pull the dog with her, and she barely moved him. The effort to balance a compound bow, the quiver, the dog, and her gun, and not lose her grip or balance, became extremely difficult.
Seb’s shotgun went off. The splatter of brain matter on the walls of the store made a grotesque squishy spatter right by her. The boom of the shotgun echoed back at her, and her ears rang for a few seconds. She shook her head as if trying to get water out of it. Finally, the ringing stopped in her ears. The lab had crawled closer, growling the whole way.
She nearly forgot about the other dog, but heard its claws on the wood floor as it scrambled past its fallen mate, but the one outside was closer. When she finally got balanced enough to risk another shot at the dog, she didn’t hesitate. It yelped. Damn it. Now what? The whole time, she’d been backing to the car, despite Ruff’s resistance, but she hadn’t gotten far. The need to go slow hampered her, but Ruff’s resistance made it worse. Seb was behind her now, and she heard another shot go off.
Seb had shot the dog outside, and the human started running for her instead of Seb. “Nooo,” the gravelly voice creaked. The gray tinge of its skin was even more marked than any of the others she’d seen, with a lot more green and yellow in it. And he stunk. He stunk as if the Grim Reaper had already taken him, bathed him in the innards of dead bodies, then sent him back to Earth to roam.
He bent down over the lab. She took the opportunity to move back a little faster, dragging a protesting Ruff across the ground. The Doberman from the store came out and took a flying leap at her from the porch. She shot without aiming. The impact of the shot slowed him down, so he fell short of her.
Seb was reloading the shotgun. Clank, thud, clank. “Shit! It’s jammed.”
The man leaning over the lab looked swiftly at them. He stood up and whistled through his protruding teeth. Very high, and very loud. It struck a chord of fear in her unlike any she’d experienced in her life. The Doberman stopped midstride and turned to the master. The master gave her a malevolent stare.
“You’ll pay for killing my dogs now,” he said and laughed. “Come on, honey. Why don’t you come here so I can show you what I mean.”
An odd feeling came over her, and the gun became very heavy in her hand. It lowered, but it didn’t matter. The pull to go to the man seeped into her consciousness.
As she took a step, Seb yelled at her, and Ruff slammed his body into hers, causing her to stumble before righting herself. She blinked. Dear God. He hypnotized me. Fucking hell. The gun came quickly up, and she shot the Doberman as she ran backward to the vehicle, Ruff in her grasp.
Loud screams rent the air, and she gasped. People came running at them. Not helpful people. Hungry, frenzied, sick people. Masses of sub human things, she corrected. She couldn’t think of them as people. Same with the… Oh God, were there more dogs?
All at once, Ruff tore out of her grasp and rounded the front of the car. Rachel started screaming Jack’s name. A—she faltered at calling it zombie—creature reached for Jack. Her heart jumped in her throat. He’d gotten out of the car and strung his training bow. Jack got a shot off in the eye of the man attacking him, but it only made him angrier.
He—it?—went after Jack with a vengeance, but Ruff hurtled through the air and grabbed the creature by the neck. The man tried to dislodge Ruff, scratching and biting at the parts he could reach. However, the dog wouldn’t let go. Jack strung another arrow.
She whirled around as shot after shot rent the air. The man had run up behind her when she’d been watching Jack.
“Seb!” She sobbed. “Ruff. Jack.”
�
��I know,” he replied. “I couldn’t get a clear shot. Jack’s in the way. Jack,” he called and reloaded. He shot into the approaching crowd.
It slowed them down, so she shot as well, both directions. “Dad,” Jack yelled back.
“Get in the car and lock the damn doors. Karla, you too.”
Karla took a few more shots in each direction from the running board of her SUV, aiming at the heads of those closest to her. A couple shots hit the mark. As they went down, the others around them stopped and bent down. At first, she thought it was to help them up, but then one turned its face to her and grinned. Blood and something she couldn’t—wouldn’t—identify splattered its face. She slammed the door and locked it.
To the other side, she heard more shots, then Seb’s door shut. But they weren’t moving. Next to her, Rachel sobbed and cried for Jack and Ruff. Karla crawled over the middle console to see what was going on. Ruff still had the zombie, but he bled from all over his body.
“No,” she breathed and held Rachel. “I’m sorry, honey.”
She tightly grasped the young woman in her arms, frantically trying to find a way out of the situation. What in the hell could they do?
Chapter Fourteen
I… Tears won’t even come. I can’t comprehend, even now, how things went so badly so quickly. How the world had gone so wrong.
Dry eyed and numbed soul, I kept shooting, internally screaming at my inability to get to my son. I just…kept shooting, kept going. Is this what happens to soldiers? Even as they know the price to their hearts, their minds, their very souls, they don’t stop. Do they just understand, believe that it is their price to bear?
I never liked war, but I understood that monsters were real, even before this…zombie issue arose. Monsters are real, and they are human. Now, we could at least recognize their faces.
For all the good it does us.
Sebastian
Seb chambered another round as fast as he could, trying to pretend his teenage son wasn’t crying like a six-year-old who’d lost his best friend. If he paid attention to his son’s tears, he’d be overwhelmed with emotions. He couldn’t, or they’d not get out of here.
“Jack,” he said calmly, a lie of his state of feelings. His heart raced, his stomach churned, and his fingers, if someone had looked, shook as he slid the big red shotgun shells into the chamber.
“What,” Jack croaked back.
“I need you to roll down the window when I say. Not far. I’m going to get situated. If we do this right, he won’t be able to get at us.”
Jack nodded, but never took his eyes off Ruff. “He’s gone now, isn’t he?”
“I’m not sure. Chances are, since he’s got the blood in his mouth, Ruff could get whatever virus this is.” He licked his dry, chapped lips with a tongue as sandpapery as the lips he sought to moisten. He’d give a year’s pay to be able to say different to his son.
“I can’t kill him, Dad,” Jack said hoarsely.
“I know, son. Just do as I say so I can kill the creature. Then we’ll figure out what to do with Ruff.” He blocked out his son’s pain, the anguish. He stuffed it into a mental compartment with his own. Maybe to get it down later and deal. Maybe not. For now, Seb concentrated on making it out of the sleepy little town turned Horrorville.
Again, Jack nodded. “Okay, Dad.”
Seb took in a deep breath and aimed down the sights at the creature’s brains. Who knew Halo games would be good practice? “Now!”
Even as Seb said it, Ruff yelped again. The zombie finally got Ruff off his neck. He took his two bare hands, and after looking into Seb’s eyes, he began to crush Ruff’s skull. Ruff yelped, then hung loose. Anger surge through, a searing pain which threatened to incapacitate him, but he tried to contain it. The window came down just before his shot left the chamber. It hit the man square in the eyes, but it was too late.
Ruff lay on the ground, motionless. Jack started to pull open his door, but Seb stopped him. “We have to get out of here before the mob of people finish their...snacks.”
“I have to get him, Dad. I can’t leave him to these creatures. Please.”
Seb okayed it, reluctantly. “Wait.” The precious seconds skipped by as he moved to find the extra tarp he’d bought and just thrown in the back. He couldn’t let Jack touch Ruff directly. With great relief he found it, ripped the sack open, and unfolded it part way.
“Listen, Jack. You cannot let the blood get on you. Understand?”
“Yes.” The tarp was unfolded one more time, then, with a glance at the still-feeding group of monsters, Jack opened the door. As Jack made a quick grab at Ruff, Seb dug behind his seat for the extra blanket there. And his hunting knife. He hid the knife in the blanket as he brought it forward, then under his thigh. Just in case.
Jack handed Ruff up, and Seb took him. The head had an odd shape, and Ruff’s eyes bulged out. Seb had to swallow back the bile as Jack led the way in the two-car caravan out of town.
The hordes were distracted from their meal by the vehicles plowing their way through their midst, and more than one made a grab at the windows. Jack’s mouth set in grim lines as he pressed down on the gas. A bump under the wheels, screeches, and many of them started moving out of the way of the vehicles.
Jack drove a few miles, and Seb didn’t know what to do. In order to go back up where they were, they needed to go back the way they’d come. That wasn’t happening. Going to town… He shuddered as bile threatened to come back up. All those people, turned and acting that way?
No. He wanted to call Karla, but he waited. Plus, he had to keep his focus on Ruff. Just in case… They came up on a campground that he knew they could drive forward through and turn around, so he had Jack stop there. It was a pay site, but he didn’t think anyone would come collecting. At least not money.
With care, and making Jack hold the shotgun, Seb slid out of the Bronco, keeping the tarp carefully level, and walked to the nearest picnic table. Gently, he laid Ruff down and stood back. In the background, he heard Rachel sob out Jack’s name and his son’s hoarse reply.
Seb swallowed the lump in his throat. He couldn’t cry. The worst wasn’t over.
Ruff twitched.
Chapter Fifteen
I’m sure that in every parent’s life, they do something they’re sure their child will hate them forever for. I know I have—grounded Jack from homecoming for something and had to disappoint him and Rachel. But this, this, I was sure would earn me the hatred of my son forever. Of all the things I had to do during this time, including killing the first zombies, this hurt the most and the longest—because it hurt my son.
Ruff, about twelve years old and forever a pup to me, came to us for Jack’s fourth birthday. Ruff had comforted Jack through many a skinned knee, played horse to the red wagon lots of times, and eaten plenty of Jack’s shoes.
My son.
I hurt so much already. I remember thinking how I should just stick my knife in Ruff’s brain and pretend it was from the zombie attack. But I couldn’t lie to him about it. Somehow, the lie would make it worse.
When I found out they found a cure, I had the fleeting wish I’d been able to save Ruff. Fleeting, because I don’t believe they found a cure. I believe they found something to mask the symptoms. Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid and cynical again.
But I promise you, if you had to kill your son’s beloved pet—again—after having witnessed it save your son’s and possibly the rest of your lives, you’d become cynical about hope, too.
How much more pain could my son take? Rachel? She’d been with Jack for three years now, so had grown attached to Ruff. My father’s heart is still breaking. But what I felt played secondary to survival. However much my son might hate me for it, his continued existence, his safety, was, as always, my priority.
Karla
Karla saw Seb standing with his shoulders bent over a bundle on the picnic table. When Jack had handed a tarped bundle up to Seb, she’d guessed at it being the dog. But throug
h the car window, it had been hard to see, and there hadn’t been time to get more than a glimpse before they’d left.
Leaving the two sweethearts to comfort each other, she went to check how bad the damage was. Ruff lay on a blue tarp, his black fur mottled with blood and pieces of skin laying back, baring parts of his innards. The tears spilled down her face as she looked. Even those few miles to here had to have been gut-wrenching for Seb and Jack.
“You softie. You shouldn’t have let him bring the dog.” Though her words chided, her voice, soft and loving, hopefully conveyed that she agreed with his letting Jack do it.
“I couldn’t let him know that those things ate his dog after the way Ruff defended him.” Seb’s unshed tears bit her to the quick. God, how that had to hurt.
“Now what?” Even as she asked, she saw the chest rise and fall. “He’s—he’s not dead?” Ever hopeful, yeah that’s her. Just call me Pollyanna. No way Ruff survived having his head smashed and his guts splayed. Just.
“You’re going to have to...” When she watched the zombie shows on television, or watched a movie about them, it seemed over-the-top sometimes. Like really. Who has time for the silly soft emotions when working on survival? But that was the only thing left of being human instead of monsters.
And it was ten times harder than they made it look on television.
“I know,” he replied harshly.” My son is going to hate me, but he’ll be safe.”
“If you’re going to let him say goodbye, he needs to do it this minute.” Or like a minute earlier. Another rise and fall of Ruff’s chest. No, not Ruff. Ruff died defending Jack. Her head pounded as the tears continued down her face.
“Jack,” he called rather than answer her directly. “You need to come say your goodbyes.”
His shoulders seemed to have sagged even more. “Karla, could you start a fire, please. And get your gas can again?” His shoulders seemed to have sagged even more.
Slow Fever Page 7