by Smith, Aaron
“Brandon, don’t look!” Danielle barked at the boy in the back seat. She could tell, simply from the amount of spilled blood that Claire was dead or near to it. But Danielle was still frozen, too shocked and horrified to begin driving again. She just stared as the Empty Ones tore Claire’s body apart. It was only when Brandon climbed up into the front seat that Danielle’s awareness snapped back and she knew she had to get them out of that place.
She looked away from the tragedy of Claire and through the front window, but her path was blocked. Three of the Empty Ones had finished their morsels of Claire and turned their attention to the car. Danielle cursed loudly and readied herself to press down on the accelerator, hoping the damage caused by running over the damned things would not be severe enough to keep the car from continuing on its way. Before she could bring her foot down and move the vehicle forward, two loud cracks split the air and she watched as two of the zombies in her path were cut down by a pair of perfectly placed shots. A second later, the third obstacle was blown away.
Danielle and Brandon turned around in their seats to look for the source of the three sudden shots. There was a man approaching at a steady run from behind the car. He was a large black man, strongly built, dressed in green. Expertly, he kept firing as he drew closer, hitting two more of the Empty Ones that were lingering around the wreckage that had been Claire. The two remaining walking dead men scattered.
The man in green reached the scene, nodded to Danielle and Brandon, who still had the windows shut, and walked over to where Claire lay sprawled on the sidewalk. Danielle now had a clear view of what was left of her friend.
Claire’s face was unrecognizable; large portions of it were gone. One hand was gone, and the tips of the other hand’s fingers. Her shirt had been torn open and a gaping hole stared at Danielle from Claire’s abdomen, like some grotesque parody of the diagrams from her medical books. Claire’s shoes had come off in the struggle; her feet lay shredded and sliced. Danielle was relieved when the man who had shot the attackers stepped between her and the body, obscuring her view. The sound of one last shot rang out as he made certain that the dead young woman on the sidewalk would not rise up and move again.
It was over. Danielle felt a strange mingling of relief and loss wash over her. She watched through eyes that were welling up with tears as her savior turned and stepped toward the car.
He walked across the front and came around to Danielle’s window. He smiled reassuringly. Danielle decided to trust him and rolled the window down.
“Are you all right, Miss?” Trumbull said, glancing into vehicle and seeing Brandon in the passenger seat. “What about you, son—you okay, too?”
Brandon nodded enthusiastically, perhaps impressed to be spoken to by a soldier.
“I’m sorry you just had to see that,” Trumbull said. “Was she a friend?”
“Yes,” Danielle said. She had found a tissue and was wiping her eyes. “And I understand why you did it. Thank you.”
“You need to get out of the city ASAP.”
“That’s what we were trying to do.”
“I can help if you’ll let me.”
“I’d be an idiot not to.”
“Good. Then let me drive and I’ll get you and your son safely out of the city. After that, you’re on your own. My name is Captain Terence Trumbull. Call me Terry if you want.”
“Danielle Hayes,” she introduced herself as she stepped out of the car to let Trumbull take her place behind the wheel. “And that’s Brandon.” She walked around to the other side, ushered Brandon back into the rear seat, and they were off. “He’s not my son, by the way. Things just happened and he’s with me now and I feel responsible …”
“I understand,” Trumbull said as he propped his gun in the space between his right knee and the emergency brake. He shot a stern look at Brandon. “Do not touch that.”
They continued to the western edge of the city. Danielle directed, as Trumbull admitted his ignorance about some areas of Chicago. As they moved, Trumbull could feel the dark mood of his companions; the young woman was obviously distraught, having just watched her friend’s gruesome death, and the little boy was understandably frightened.
It had been Trumbull’s original military work as a Special Forces operative that had taught him to put down zombies in a way that they would not get up, but it was his later work as a chaplain that had taught him something about how to deal with the grieving and the afraid. Getting them to talk was the key.
“So what is it that you do, Miss Hayes, when you’re not busy fleeing a falling city?”
Danielle couldn’t help but crack a slight smile. She assumed the humor was intentional and appreciated his trying to lighten a terrible time. “I’m a med student.”
“Excellent,” Trumbull said. “What about you, young man? What do you do for a living?”
Brandon let out a laugh and answered, “I’m in the second grade, and I make zombies, too!”
“You make …” Trumbull’s voice trailed off, but then came back with a scolding edge. “That’s not funny, son. This situation is nothing to joke about.”
“He’s not joking,” Danielle interjected. “He’s lost his whole family to those things … and he thinks he’s somehow to blame for all this craziness. He told me a pretty wild story before we started riding this morning. I didn’t know what to make of it.”
“Really,” Trumbull thought, for a moment, of Africa. “Brandon, can you tell me the story you told Miss Hayes? I’d like to know what you meant when you said you make zombies.”
And Brandon did. He let it all out, every detail he could recall. He talked of his mother leaving him in charge to go and help Aunt Phyllis and Joseph’s bathtub mishap and the poor drowned boy’s blue skin. He spoke of the phone that had —in a seeming miracle to the eyes of a second-grader —come back to life after the magic of rice had taken away its water damage, and he related how he had tried the same trick to save his brother. And finally, he told Terence Trumbull about the dark presence he had seen, and the coldness he had felt as he had seen it, and how it had looked to him that it had gone into Joseph, and how it had been at that moment that he had known his brother would never again be as he had been before the water and the rice and the resurrection.
As Brandon finished his story, Trumbull shivered. He could tell by the sound of the boy’s voice and how he strung the words together that he was telling the truth. Exactly how it had happened Trumbull didn’t understand, but now he knew when and where the Ether-virus had come to Chicago and become a disaster that might soon be uncontainable.
Chapter 11
Kacey finally came out of the bathroom. Her hair hung straight down, wet from the shower and she wore a long robe. Doug was relieved—he assumed the less he could see, the less his shadow-self could obsess over. She smiled and Doug shot back a smile of his own.
He watched as she walked over to where he sat. She kept smiling as Doug’s eyes wandered down her robed body. It covered most of her, exposing skin only from her knees down, and Doug found himself watching each step as her bare foot rose and landed again, toes spreading out for balance as she came closer and closer.
Kacey giggled. “Good or bad?”
“What?” Doug asked, looking up, wondering what she meant.
“You’re staring at my feet. Why? Is it because they’re cute or because they’re ugly?”
“Interesting,” Doug answered.
She reached him, leaned forward and kissed him. “Nice,” she said. “I like honest answers. I’m not sure what it means, but that’s okay. There’s too much fake shit in the world and look what it takes to get people to talk honestly!”
“What do you mean? What does it take?”
“A city being ripped apart, death all over Chicago, and you stuck out here in the middle of nowhere because you can’t go home; if it wasn’t for all that, we wouldn’t have slept together. I mean … what’s happening in Chicago is horrible, but I’m glad you’re here, Doug. I’
m really glad.”
“Do you have to go to work?”
“Not ‘til the early evening shift, about five. So … what are we doing ‘til then?”
“To continue being honest, Kacey, I have to tell you that there’s a part of me that wants to head back and see how close I can get to Chicago.”
“Why? Why would you even think about that? It’s a horror show; people are dying! Is it that bad here? I know it’s a shitty little town … but I’m here and you can stay as long as you have to.”
“It’s not you, not you at all. You could call it curiosity, morbid curiosity, but curiosity all the same. I know it might seem wrong but I can almost feel it pulling me … like a magnet, like I need to see the chaos with my own eyes and not just on the TV screen. Maybe in some twisted way I can help. You probably think I’m crazy now.”
“It’s okay. I’ll take honest crazy over fake sanity any day, but you’d be an idiot to try to go back there. If you get there, you’re dead meat. And you’d probably get tangled up in traffic or arrested or something before you even made it near the city if the news is any indication of how bad it is. And I won’t let you go.”
“How can you stop me? We’re not that far from where I left my car. I could walk.”
“You can’t go if I don’t tell you where I put your keys when I brought you here last night.”
“That’s not funny. But maybe you’re right. It’s a stupid idea.”
“Of course I’m right. I’m always right. Are you hungry? We should get some breakfast.”
“Where, the same place you work? I didn’t see much else in town as far as food goes.”
“Well I’m not dragging you into Mom’s kitchen. That wouldn’t go over too well this early in the morning. But if you don’t want the diner we can head out of town, in the opposite direction from Chicago, of course! There are a few places on the highway that aren’t too far or too expensive or too nasty. Hop in the shower if you want. I’ll get dressed while you’re in there.”
Riding with Captain Trumbull made things a lot easier for Danielle and Brandon. The soldiers and police at the next several checkpoints let them through with no questions once they saw Trumbull’s silver bars and heard his quick explanation of, “I’m getting this kid to the edge of the city. This is no place for a seven-year old.”
“It’s not much further now,” Danielle said after a while. “We can hop on I-94 soon enough and get out of here. Traffic might be a little backed up, but we’ll make progress once we’re clear of the city.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Brandon called from the back seat.
“Hold it!” Trumbull and Danielle shouted simultaneously.
“Have you figured out where you’re headed?” Trumbull asked.
“I guess I have a few options,” Danielle told him. “My parents’ place is only a few hours from here. I can go there and my mother will be better at dealing with my little friend here than I am.”
“What sort of area is it that your parents live?” Trumbull inquired. “Is it heavily populated?”
“Pretty tight suburbs,” Danielle answered.
“Then it might not be a good idea,” the captain warned. “I hate to say it, but this thing, this virus is going to leak out of Chicago. I can almost guarantee it’s out there now somewhere, spreading, growing and killing. If I were you, I’d go somewhere more secluded. You might be safer that way. Do you have anywhere else?”
Danielle thought for a moment, nodded. “Yeah, there is someplace. It’s a little on the weird side, but if you think seclusion is a good idea, it might be perfect. But I need to make a call and see about that.”
She took out her phone and brought up her contacts, scrolled down the list, hit “send” for the number she wanted. Six rings later she heard a slightly gravelly male voice.
“Hello.”
“Professor Harrison? Professor, it’s me. It’s Danielle Hayes.”
“Danni, how delightful it is to hear from you. Are you all right? It’s been some time since we’ve spoken. Your illness hasn’t come back, has it?”
“No, Professor, I’m in perfect health, cancer-free and feeling fine. I feel as well as anyone in Chicago possibly could at the moment.”
“What does that mean? What’s happened in Chicago?”
“Professor, I forgot just how isolated you are out there, completely separated from civilization!”
“That depends how you define ‘civilization!’”
“Professor, it’s a long, strange story about Chicago, but I can tell it all when I get there.”
“You mean you’re coming here?”
“If it’s all right with you I am. I need a place to stay for … for I don’t know how long yet, and I think where you are is perfect.”
“By all means then, come along. My friends out here will be happy to meet you, I think.”
“Thanks, Professor. Oh, just so you know, I’m not coming alone. I seem to have … inherited a little boy.”
The call ended. Danielle put the phone away.
“Okay, Captain, I have a plan.”
“And who is Professor Harrison?”
“Professor Donald Harrison was my anthropology professor when I was an undergrad. He’s great; he was like an uncle to me even though I wasn’t concentrating on his area of expertise. We keep in touch and, since he retired, he’s been living someplace that’s just about as secluded as you can get without leaving the country.”
“That sounds fine, Miss Hayes. Did I hear you mention cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay now?”
“Yeah, it’s all good.”
“Glad to hear it; you seem all right to me.”
“Thanks. A little recovery time and a decent prosthesis can work wonders.”
“Where’s that? I’d never have guessed. Not that it’s any of my business, just curious.”
“Lower left leg,” Danielle revealed.
“Hmmm … how high up is it? Being military, I’ve seen my share.”
“Not very high, basically it’s just the ankle and foot.”
“It looks like it functions well. I didn’t notice a limp when you let me take the driver’s seat.”
“It’s great. It’s fine unless I get tired.”
Brandon wondered aloud from the back seat, “What’s a prose-teezitz?”
“It’s an artificial part, Brandon” Danielle explained.
“You mean you have a fake foot? Cool! Can I see it?”
She laughed. “Maybe later, Brandon. We have other things to worry about now. You might want to turn left here, Captain. We’re getting close to I-94 now.”
“Listen,” Trumbull said with a solemn note to his voice. “I don’t know how much I really believe in fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it, but I need to throw something out there before we reach the end of our little trip together.”
“What’s that?” Danielle asked.
“Well, you’re a medical student, you said, and I, well I just might be the only person around who’s seen the sort of thing that’s tearing Chicago apart before. And I don’t know if it will do the world any good, but I’m thinking maybe I need to pass what little I understand about it to somebody who might be able to make more sense of it than I can. Maybe, Miss Hayes, there’s a reason we’ve been thrown together for a little while like this.”
“I’m listening,” Danielle said, intrigued. She listened intently as the captain continued.
“I’ll make this short, and I’ll cut out the worst details since we have a child present. I spent some time in Africa a few years ago and I saw this disease wipe out an entire village of people. There were eight of us, Americans who saw it, but I’m the only one left alive now; the rest were killed in an unrelated incident not long afterwards. What we did manage to figure out was this: we called it an Ether-virus, for lack of a better name. It seemed, so far as we could tell, to work like a sort of controlling parasite. It seems to exist to consume part
of the mind, or perhaps you’d see that it destroys part of the brain if you dissected one of its victims. That would be the part, I think, that controls the personal identity and the conscience and the inhibitions. It seems to infuse its victims with an overwhelming hunger for human flesh. It makes sense, doesn’t it, for it to affect the host in such a way that it will be compelled to spread the virus, allow it to move on and, I suppose, reproduce? That’s what we made of it, Miss Hayes. I explained this to my commanding officer before we came out to Chicago, but I don’t think he quite took me seriously. Maybe in your hands, that information could be of some use.”
Minutes later they arrived at the end of a line of cars. Up ahead they could see the edge of the city and the entrance onto the highway. Flashing lights could be seen up ahead too. Danielle hoped it would be the last checkpoint on their exodus from the city.
The line inched forward and the sergeant in charge greeted them. Trumbull stepped out of the car, spoke to the enlisted soldier for a moment, and was given easy approval for Danielle and Brandon to be on their way.
Danielle stepped out to move to the driver’s seat. On her way she met Trumbull in front of the vehicle. They hugged.
“Thank you for everything,” Danielle said.
“It’s my job, Miss Hayes,” Trumbull replied. “Good luck out there. I hope God watches over you. And take good care of that little boy; it’s a big responsibility.”
“I’ll do my best, Captain.”
They let go of each other. Trumbull looked into the car to see Brandon, who had climbed up into the front passenger seat, snap a salute. Trumbull reciprocated and began to walk away. Danielle thought about calling after him to tell him to be careful but she kept quiet. All the words in the world, she knew, wouldn’t keep him from going back into the bowels of the city and continuing his fight against the Empty Ones.