The King of Clayfield - 01

by Shane Gregory

  "You little shit!" Jen said, holding her jaw.

  She came back at him. A gun went off, but I didn't see it happen because my view was blocked by the door. Jen stumbled backward and landed hard on her back. The door shut, the van shifted into drive and started to roll.

  "Hunter! No!" the woman yelled.

  Sara opened her door and jumped out. Hunter wheeled around us as we encircled Jen. Then he sped off down East Broadway toward the mass of infected.

  "The terd shot me," Jen said, surprised.

  There was a bullet wound in the top of her right thigh. A spot of blood began to spread out around it, soaking her jeans. I took off my bandana and held it on the wound.

  We were in the middle of the intersection, beneath the stoplight. We were completely exposed.

  The moving van plowed into the approaching crowd then stopped when too many bodies got wedged under the undercarriage. They started climbing up the sides.

  "Hunter!" the woman screamed.

  I grabbed the woman's mouth and squeezed it.

  "Shut up," I said. "We're out in the open, and Jen is wounded. If you want to make noise, do it somewhere else. Do you underfuckinstand?"

  She nodded, fear in her eyes. I let her go and blood from Jen's leg was smeared around her mouth where my hand had been.

  I felt sick--sick over Jen, sick over how vulnerable we were, and sick over how I had just acted.

  "I'm sorry," I said. "Please...I'm sorry."

  The woman was crying.

  "We have to find a car," the woman said. "We have a doctor in our group and medicine. Maybe he can help her."

  "Good," I said. "What's your name?"

  "Brenda."

  "Brenda, this is Sara. You two carry Jen off the road and hide in that ditch over there. Keep pressure on her leg. I'm going to find us a vehicle."

  CHAPTER 34

  I didn't know where to go. The only vehicles close were on the west side of the bypass, but the crowd of infected was there trying to get at Hunter. There would be no way I could get in there and get a car and get out again. Even if I could get in there, I had no guarantee that the car would even start. We'd driven the bypass a few times that day. There were vehicles on it, but I feared they would be dead just like most of the other abandoned cars on the road. I had to try.

  I headed south down the bypass, running as fast as I could. There was a white car on the shoulder about a quarter of a mile away. All I could hear were my boots clomping on the asphalt and my own raspy breathing.

  My lungs were burning, and my throat was raw from running in the cold air. My heart kept punching me in the chest. I wasn't into fitness before the virus hit. I wasn't really overweight, but I wasn't in very good shape either. Taking the stairs usually winded me, and I liked my donuts. In this new world, everyone would have to get in shape or they would die. It would be the new fitness craze--run for your life.

  I'd left the .30-06 with the others. All I had was the .38 in my coat pocket and one of the .22 revolvers in the front of my pants. Hopefully I wouldn't meet a crowd of them.

  I started doing math in my head. I didn't know how long it should take to run a quarter of a mile, but I seemed to remember people always talking about a ten-minute mile. It would take more than two minutes for me to reach the white car at that rate. That was like an eternity when there were zombies close to the people you cared about.

  I looked over my shoulder. I didn't see the women anymore. They were hiding. Good. The white car was close. Gunshots and screaming. The creatures had gotten to Hunter. Poor kid. Poor, stupid, reckless kid.

  I got to thinking about one of the conversations Jen, Sara, and I had during the rainy evenings around the fire back at Blaine’s. Jen had been saying how there were two kinds of people that had survived the initial outbreak--the lucky and the smart. She said that the lucky wouldn't be lucky forever. They would have to get smart or Darwin would eventually have his way. Stupid people might have survived and procreated in the soft and civilized world before Canton B, but in this world, nature wasn't going to allow it.

  I had been one of the lucky ones. I hadn't prepared. In fact, I had been oblivious to all of it. I was even lucky to have met the woman in the mask. Even she had been lucky. Her brother had been the smart one. I like to think that since that first day I'd been smart. Maybe I wouldn't get culled out of the gene pool.

  Sara had argued that God chose who lived and died, but she had no explanation for God's particular decisions. I could tell that she had been wrestling with her faith the past couple of days, and Jen wasn't helping with that.

  I still couldn't get over the absurdity and randomness of all of it. I'd always believed in God, but none of this fit with what I believed. Maybe all those fire and brimstone preachers were right, and God was punishing us all by letting Hell loose on the Earth. Most of the world got off easy; with their minds gone, they didn't even know what was happening anymore. It was the survivors that were getting the harshest punishment.

  Or maybe it was a mixture of the two. Maybe God was purging the world of the weak, and those of us that were left were being tried to see if we were worthy.

  If this was God's doing, he sure picked a fine time to do it. We didn't know how to take care of ourselves anymore. Our parents hadn't seen the need to teach us how to do something as basic as feed ourselves. I wondered how many survivors would be able to start a fire when the world ran out of lighters and matches. I wondered how many would make it through next winter or the winter after that when canned goods would be harder to find.

  I wondered if I would be tried and deemed worthy.

  When I got to the car, I found the doors locked. I took that to be a good sign. If the driver had succumbed to the disease and left the vehicle, they wouldn't have had the presence of mind to lock it. So there was a good chance that it would have some fuel and a good battery.

  I hit the window with the .22, but it didn't break. I didn't have time to beat on it, so I stepped back, and shot it twice. It was weak enough after that. I hit it with the gun, and it shattered.

  I brushed some of the glass out of the seat, and climbed inside. No keys, so I would have to hotwire it. I had no idea how to do that except from what I'd seen in movies. I opened the glove compartment hoping to find something to pry the casing away from the steering column. There was nothing in there but papers. I pushed the button to pop the trunk and got out to look. It was clean--just a spare tire.

  "Shit."

  This was taking too long. Jen was bleeding. I didn't know what I was doing, and our luck was running out.

  I took off down the road again. The intersection with Bragusberg Road was just a little farther. There were houses and vehicles on that road.

  My vision was blurring.

  Stop crying, dammit!

  I cut across the corner onto Bragusberg Road. A little boy came out of nowhere and chased me. He was probably around nine years old. He was muddy and only wearing one shoe. He couldn't catch me, but it was still unnerving knowing he was back there. I also realized that once I stopped I would have to deal with him. I didn't want to have to do that.

  I could still hear gunshots coming from around city hall and the court square. The siren on one of the fire engines came on, too.

  I had to run past three houses before I found a vehicle in the driveway--a Dodge Caravan. The doors were locked and no keys, so I went straight to the house.

  I didn't bother knocking. I tried the knob, but it was locked. I ran around back. It was locked, too, but it was a glass door. I shot it then kicked it in. I was in a dining room. I could see the front door in the living room and keys hanging on hooks by the door. I went straight for them.

  The house was occupied by a whole family of infected. Man, woman, and three kids came screaming down the hallway from the bedrooms. They scared the shit out of me. I emptied the .22 on the woman, but she kept coming. I pulled the .38. It fired this time, and I hit her in the chest. She fell back into the hall, slowing the progr
ess of the others, giving me time to get to the keys.

  I turned the lock on the deadbolt as the man entered the living room, walking over his wife. I fired, but I just winged him. I fired again and hit him in the face.

  I was empty. All I could do now was run.

  I busted out the front door, onto the porch and over the railing to the front lawn. The little boy was waiting for me, and the three kids from inside were on their way out.

  The kid came at me. I was still holding the .38. When he got close enough, I grabbed him around the throat, careful to avoid his teeth, and hammered the weapon against his forehead as hard as I could. He went limp. The other kids were coming down the steps, snarling.

  I pushed the button on the keypad to unlock the door, and the side door of the van slid open. Not what I was after, but it would do. I dove in the van and slid the door shut before they could reach me.

  My hands were shaking again, but I knew I needed to reload before I encountered any more. I pulled the box of .22 rounds from my pocket, but I realized I had dropped the revolver--probably inside.

  "Screw it," I said, and climbed in the captain's chair. Ignoring the little monsters outside, I cranked the van and sped away to help Jen.

  I pulled up next to the spot where I told Sara and Brenda to go hide Jen. Some of the crowd on East Broadway was heading back into town to investigate the fire truck siren. We got Jen into the van. She was being stubborn at first, trying to walk on her own, but she quickly swallowed her pride and let us carry her.

  "Where?" I said.

  "What about the others? What about Hunter?" Brenda said.

  "Hunter is gone," I said. "I'm sorry. I have to get Jen to your doctor. I'll let you out if you want, but I have to go."

  "No," she said, softly. "Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "Behind Grace County High School," Brenda said. "There's a maintenance building back there with a fence around it."

  I looked at her in the mirror. She reminded me of my mom. She was younger than my mom, but there was something about her...

  "How many are in your group?" I asked.

  "Sixteen."

  "Wow. Really?"

  "There were four of us from the high school. I worked in the cafeteria there. Hunter and Jamal were students. Wanda Green taught drama. Then there was a group of six that came over from the hospital. Doctor Barr was in that group and so was Nathan Camp. Then there's--"

  "What about Nicholas Somerville?" Jen asked.

  "The name sounds familiar, but he's not with us," Brenda replied.

  "If Mr. Somerville didn't set off the tornado siren, then who did?" Sara said.

  "That was Nathan's doing," Brenda said. "He's a firefighter. We noticed a few days ago that someone had set off a police siren, and we saw how the sick came in and stayed with it, so--"

  "That was us," Jen said. "We did that. Whose brilliant idea was it to set them on fire?"

  "I know it didn't seem like a smart thing to do," she said, "but we know fire keeps them from coming back, and we thought we had it under control. Nathan assured us that the batteries on the siren would last. We really didn't expect to be out there that long, but they just kept coming in. I guess from out in the county."

  "Fire keeps them from coming back?" I said.

  "Well," she said, "burning them up...you know. You can kill them if you shoot them in the head, but they'd have to be disposed of anyway, and burning is the best way to make sure. We've shot them in the head and they came back, and we've shot them in the head and they didn't. I guess you've got to do it just right."

  I drove past the spot where Mr. Somerville had wrecked his truck. We were coming up on the hospital.

  "What about Hank?" I said. "Do you know anyone named Hank?"

  "No."

  "Does anyone in your group drive a Porsche?" Jen asked.

  "No," she said. "We know there are others around, but we don't know who they are. Except now we know some of them are you."

  We passed the entrance to the hospital then crossed over the four-lane highway. The next road took us to the high school.

  "You'll need to go around the school," she said. "It isn't with the main building."

  I drove past the football stadium then the high school. I could see the building she was talking about. There was a small parking area in the front with enough spaces for three cars.

  There was already an ambulance parked in the spot nearest the front door. On the right side of the building was a big garage door which accessed a bay for school busses. There were five busses off to the right a short distance away from the building. Between the busses and the building was a diesel pump like you would see at a gas station. The building, the front lot, and the pump were all surrounded by a tall chain link fence.

  There was an elderly man on the other side of the gate armed with a shotgun.

  "That's Ed," Brenda said. "Let me get out, so he can see me. Otherwise, he might shoot."

  I stopped the van well away from Ed and his shotgun and opened the side door. Brenda got out and went up to the gate. She said something to him. He looked at us, nodded, and opened the gate. Brenda went into the building while I parked the van.

  When I ran around the van to get Jen out, Ed had already closed the gate and was approaching. Another man came out the front door. He wasn't wearing a coat.

  "Let me help you," the man said. "I'm Travis Barr.”

  He looked like he was a little older than me, but not much. His dark hair was gray at the temples. He was clean-shaven, which was something we hadn't seen much of lately. He was slim and muscular. His physique wasn't like that derived from hard physical labor, but more refined and sculpted, like time spent in a gym.

  He helped me lift Jen out of the van. Jen yelped in pain.

  "Sorry," he said. "We'll get you fixed up. I'm a doctor."

  "What kind?" Jen said.

  "The real kind," he smiled.

  "Do you know how to remove bullets?" Jen said.

  "I've never done it before, but I've seen it done on TV many times."

  Jen's brow furrowed.

  "It'll be okay," he said, still grinning. "If I can't figure it out, I'll get Ed in to take a look."

  He looked over at me.

  "We're going to put her on the desk in the office," he said. "Brenda and Connie are getting it ready for us."

  Sara held the door for us as we went inside.

  It was warm in the building, and there was electricity. We carried Jen into the office. There was a sheet and pillow on the long desk. The computer and papers from the desk were stacked in the floor in the corner. A pudgy, young Asian woman in the room left as we came in. I presumed that was Connie. She soon returned with a cardboard box full of medical supplies.

  "Let's get these jeans cut off her," Dr. Barr said.

  Connie removed Jen's boots and got to work with a pair of scissors cutting up the leg of her pants.

  He turned to me.

  "Do you know what caliber weapon it was?"

  "No," I said.

  "It was Hunter that did it," Brenda said. "He had that twenty-two pistol he found."

  "Okay," he said. "Maybe it won't be too bad."

  Connie pealed away Jen's jeans, and started washing away the blood with a damp towel. Dr. Barr removed Jen's mask and unzipped her coat. When he pulled her scarf away, I could see the wound where that woman had bit her a few days before. It didn't look very good.

  "Jen," I said, "why didn't you tell me that wasn't healing?"

  "What could you do about it?"

  "Is this a bite?" Dr. Barr asked.

  "Yeah," Jen said. "A woman tackled me and bit me. It'll get better."

  "It looks infected," he said. "Do you have any other injuries?"

  "What about your ribs?" I said.

  "No big deal," Jen said. "They're just a little sore."

  "Travis, she has two bullet wounds," Connie said.

  CHAPTER 35

  I could see it, too. There were
two small holes in Jen's leg. One was in the top of the thigh and another was in the side. Both were oozing blood.

  "Were you shot twice?" Dr. Barr asked.

  "I don't think so," Jen said, wincing when he touched the wound with his latex-gloved hand.

  "I only heard one shot," I said.

  "I need everyone except Connie to get out. I need room to work in here."

  Brenda, Sara, and I left the office, and Dr. Barr shut the door behind us.

  Immediately to our right was the entrance to the bus garage. I glanced inside. There were rows of cots in there.

  The room where we were in was a sort of break room. There were two round tables with chairs, a countertop holding a microwave and coffee pot, and a small refrigerator in the corner. On the wall was a large map of Grace County with bus routes marked off in different colors. There was also a bulletin board with announcements for events and training that weren't ever going to happen.

  "May we have some coffee?" I asked Brenda.

  "Of course," she said.

  Sara and I poured some coffee and sat at one of the tables.

  "How do you have electricity?" I said.

  "There is a small building attached to the back of this one. It houses generators. We don't run them all the time."

  "They sure are quiet," Sara said.

  "I'm really worried about the others," Brenda said. "Would you go back out with me?"

  I didn't want to, but I nodded anyway.

  "Yeah," I said. "But we're not doing anything too risky, and I'm doing the driving."

  Brenda went to the office door to tell them our plans. I looked at Sara.

  "Will you be okay here?"

  "Yeah," she said. "The guns are in the van."

  Brenda and I returned to the van and Ed opened the gate. As soon as I put it in reverse, I could see the big Ford F-350 coming up the drive. The trailer full of bodies wasn't attached anymore.

  "Some of yours?" I said.

  Brenda looked in her mirror then got out.

  "It's Jack and Wanda," she said. "They were doing disposal."

  She shut the door on the van and went out to meet them. I turned the van off and got out, too.