by Jeff Olah
Roland ducked behind the corner of what was once a vintage arcade. He watched as Blake jumped behind the wheel of the tan Jeep and his people piled into the remaining vehicles. Multiple engines fired at once, drowning out the soft rain that fell against a red and white canvas awning that hung tattered overhead.
As the micro caravan pulled away from the school and drove out of view, Roland leaned back into the wall. He took a few deep breaths and moved to the door of the arcade. Holding his hand out flat, he let the rain soak his palm and then wiped away the grimy buildup from a small head-high section of the glass.
He needed at least a few hours’ sleep, but attempting to make it back to the house on foot, and at this time of night, would be suicide, not to mention the fact that he was certain that would be Blake’s next stop.
Roland gripped the handle and shook the door against its frame. He looked back through the interior and just waited. He wasn’t a patient man, but he was also out here alone. He needed to make smart decisions, at least until he could figure out his next steps.
He counted to sixty, figured there wasn’t a good reason to continue and again laid the bags at his feet. He used the butt of the rifle to bust out the center section of glass just below where the lock met the handle. He dropped to one knee, quickly reached in, and unlocked the door.
Moving the decades old video game cabinet was more work than he initially anticipated. Not as heavy as it was awkward, he struggled to move it even a few feet across the commercial grade carpeting. Once on the tiled entry, he was able to quickly force it into place behind the door without much additional effort.
Through the main game room and into the kitchen, Roland checked the walk-in freezers, the back office, and the bathrooms. Moving to the second floor, he stopped at the entrance to the stockroom and used the handle of an oddly positioned broom to push the door back.
The acrid sweet stench of rotting flesh hit him all at once. He put his hand over his mouth and took two steps back into the stairwell. Pulling up the collar of his shirt, he placed the thin microfiber over his mouth and nose and bit into the fabric. In through his nose, he guessed the makeshift mask cut the offensive odor by maybe forty percent. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but it was manageable.
Seated up against the far wall of the stockroom and hunched forward, a middle-aged man was missing his left arm and a large portion of his shoulder and chest. At his feet, a shotgun lay in a dried pool of blood that appeared to reflect the desperate look stretched across the man’s pockmarked face.
Roland moved through the room, intermittently turning to stare at the grotesquely misshapen body. He scanned the nearly empty shelves, pulling from the top a lone jar of sliced pickles. Slowly twisting the lid, he waited for the audible pop, dug out three of the larger pieces, and tossed them one by one into his mouth.
The salty snack burned at the corners of his lips and puckered his tongue as he furiously chewed and swallowed. He tossed back a few more, thought about the need for a glass of water, and then leaning into the wall, turned back toward the hunched man.
In his mind, he traced the timeline back to the minutes before the former arcade employee took his own life. Roland watched as the man entered the stockroom and then placed himself in the scene. He imagined attempting to convince the already distraught man into using the weapon and when the moment came, when the man was finally at the edge, he’d pull the pump action shotgun away and do it himself.
Roland pictured the surprised look on the man’s face and the thick polyester from the man’s shirt melting into his shoulder socket with the superheated report of the powerful weapon. And as the man started to slip, began to find his way to death, Roland would take his own ear and place it to the man’s lips. Listen and feel as the last few breaths warmed his skin and the hunched man finally escaped this world.
Something inside Roland tore at his mind. The internal push of adrenaline from having control over another human, controlling their every thought, their every action. It was no longer enough. He craved the dominance, but wanted something else, something more.
Replacing the lid, Roland set the jar of pickle slices aside and propped the door open. He moved quickly back down the stairs, pulled the Glock 21 from his waist, and set it alongside the two black duffle bags.
He dug through the first bag and in the dim light, shook his head. Nothing he wanted. He quickly slid the bag away and dipped into the second bag. Many more pistols to comb through and as he reached into the bottom of the bag, he smiled bigger than he had in days.
“This’ll do.”
His heart now slamming against the inside of his chest, his mouth going dry from excitement, Roland checked the older model 22 caliber revolver. Holding it up to the single frame of moonlight that played just above his head, he found that he had at least three pulls of the trigger.
Back through the darkened arcade, up the stairs, and into the stockroom, Roland took a deep breath and stood over the dead man. Leaning forward, he dragged the shotgun away from the dried mess between the man’s legs and laid it against the wall. Without thinking too much about what he was doing, he grabbed the man’s hair and attempted to force his head back.
Rigor must have set in weeks ago and as Roland pulled, the man began to tip backward. Realizing the details weren’t as important as the actual deed, he allowed the man to again slump forward and moved to the opposite side of the small stockroom.
With his back up against the wall, Roland slid down into a seated position, his legs flat on the floor. He moved a few inches to the right, laid the revolver in his lap, and reached for the pickles. Studying the man’s forward leaning posture, he tossed another few slices into his mouth and took a beat to run back through his fictional scenario.
He closed his eyes, counted to three in his head, and grabbed for the revolver. Before again opening his eyes, he gave in to the previous twenty-four hours with no sleep, yawning with such force that his jaw threatened to unhinge.
With the revolver gripped in his right hand and his arm outstretched, Roland sucked in one final breath, held it, and fired a single shot at the man. The almost nonexistent recoil still caused him to flinch.
Unable to tear his eyes away, he sat transfixed as the top of the man’s head opened up and sprayed its contents onto the brick wall behind. He quickly fired off another two rounds, each destroying a different part of the man’s head. He’d shot more Feeders than he could remember, and had become quite accurate with a handgun—however, this was a first; he’d experienced something behind the trigger that didn’t exist before now. A sensation much more powerful than anything he’d felt leading the eighty-four survivors out into the streets.
And he had to have more. It was no longer a want, he needed it to continue, to survive. He needed to kill something with a heartbeat.
Resting his head back against the wall, Roland laid the weapon on the cool hardwood floor and allowed his arms and then his legs to go limp. The tension seemed to flow from the rest his body like he’d opened up some sort of imaginary floodgate.
A deep sense of calm now began to settle in as he closed his eyes and let the warm embrace of sleep finally take him from this world.
31
He woke to a blistering fire that tore at the right side of his head. Felt like the heat of a thousand suns focused on the spot just above his ear. It pushed in behind his eye and radiated down his face, into his neck. Griffin knew that although this pain was much worse than anything he could have imagined, it meant that he wasn’t dead. At least not yet.
His left side pushed into the asphalt, he lay bent and broken, no sensation from his right shoulder down to his hip. He pulled in a breath, only able to fill half his lungs as the dense black smoke hung in heavy swatches from the east end of Sixth Street to where the ten-foot chain-link fences had come down.
For the moment, he was hidden. The horde had followed as he and Roland made their way to the east end of the rear lot, only to be pulled away by the thick smo
ke and the growing flames now enveloping the gym.
Griffin tilted his head back, looked to the rear, and fought to focus on something other than the monumental pain shooting through his skull. He noted three downed Feeders twenty feet back that laid across one another, creating a momentary obstacle for the others. The horde’s path now cut a line through the rear yard that offered a small window of opportunity for him to get to the open gates near the football field, although he needed to move now.
Come on, get yourself together.
With his left leg forward, Griffin rolled onto his stomach. He used the momentum to swing his right arm up and push away from the ground. With every bit of strength left in his wrecked body, he moved to his hands and knees and began crawling away from the disoriented crowds.
Griffin stayed low and kept his distance, weaving his way through a minefield of fallen Feeders. He couldn’t quite determine how long he’d been lying unconscious, but as the smoke thinned near the entrance to the stadium, it appeared morning wasn’t far off. And as he approached the walkway to the stands, he began flashing on the encounter with the blond man in the tan jacket.
Who was he and why had he saved him? Why injure him only to then leave him to die at the hands and mouths of the horde?
Nothing about the man or the last several hours made any sense. But something inside him said that if he made it out of the parking lot with his life, he was going to find out. He may not ever see his friends again, but he was somehow going to find out who the hell the man in the tan leather jacket really was, and then he was going to kill him.
At the gate leading into the stadium, Griffin had to take a break. The fabric of his jeans had begun to shred at the knees and his lower back was on fire. He reached for the hinge post, pulled himself up, and gradually added weight to his injured leg.
Caught off guard, his left leg was heavy and felt fat, but it was also mostly numb from the knee down. Realizing the sensation was probably only temporary, Griffin turned toward the school and looked for a way out.
The horde had broken off into two massive groups. The first continued to congregate near the tennis courts and the downed fences, while the other seemed to be interested in something only thirty yards to the east. They blocked his path away from the field and appeared to be only half concerned with the toxic stench rolling through the rear lot.
With his lack of mobility and no real way to defend himself, Griffin didn’t like either of those options. He could attempt to outpace the group over his left shoulder and hope to make it to the street; however, one misstep over the next two hundred yards meant that his current string of good fortune would quickly fall away.
As he gave the rear lot one final glance, Griffin noticed a few of those at the outer edge of the horde had broken off and were now headed his way. With each heavy footfall of the beleaguered few, more began to take notice. What only minutes ago was a mere annoyance had quickly become the thing that may seal his fate.
Griffin searched the gate and noticing another lock was missing, pushed it closed, and dropped the latch into place. He stepped away from the fence, reached for the railing at the right side of the walkway and started into the stadium.
His pace was slower than he’d liked and as he moved up the long ramp into the stands, the pain coursing through his left ankle returned with a vengeance. Griffin turned to check the horde’s progress and although they’d reached the fence, they hadn’t yet found their way through the gate.
At the end of the ramp, he paused to check the opposite side of the field, the visitor stands, and the streets beyond. While he appeared to be alone inside the stadium, Sixth Street was still home to more Feeders than he cared to count. They continued to flow in off the street and into the rear yard, but not quickly enough.
With the rain beginning to slow, Griffin stepped away from the ramp and moved into the stands. Back to the awkward stride-limp-stride movement from earlier, he started up the steps one slow stair at a time.
Nearing the top, Griffin paused and leaned into the rail, giving his left ankle a break. He placed his foot atop the next step and reached into his sock, massaging the extremely swollen limb. It did nothing to ease the agony, and if it was possible, his hands against the affected area caused just as much pain as the injury itself.
To his right and twenty feet below, the crowd at the fence had doubled. They pushed into the small walkway and as the latch finally failed, the gate exploded inward. Griffin wrapped his arm around the railing and waited as the stands shook under his already unsteady legs.
He moved up the last few rows and sat in the darkened corner below the stadium’s press box. Searching the area below the bench seat to his left, Griffin reached for a large plastic bag, pulled it over, and quickly emptied its contents into his lap. Three empty beer cans and a full soda. It wasn’t much, but for now it would work.
Thirty feet below, the first grouping of Feeders emerged from the mouth of the ramp. They bottlenecked at the turn and began spilling out into the stands. The first few dropped to all fours and started up the steps, clawing furiously at the slick aluminum benches.
Griffin dropped the empty cans back into the bag and tucked the end into his waistband. He leaned back into the wall of the press box and launched the can of soda toward the first few rows. It connected with the bench along the second row, toppled end over end, shot open, and dropped onto the track below.
As the carbonated soft drink continued to roll toward the field, the horde slowly began to take notice. One by one they started toward the railing and then reaching out, tumbled head first to the track below. Body on top of body, the pile swelled and then dropped away as the first few crawled back to their feet.
With the crowd’s attention temporarily pulled away, Griffin slid along the edge of the press box, watching the crowd as he moved toward the north end of the stadium. At the far side of the stands, he mapped a path to the fences that ran parallel to Sixth. He scanned those most near, calculated their trajectory, and then started slowly back down the unforgiving steps.
At his current pace he’d make the fences, but not without running across a few of the more agile Feeders. Only a handful had taken notice of his escape, and although they moved away from the main horde, they weren’t gathering any followers.
Off the last step and at the edge of the track, Griffin pulled the crumpled plastic bag from his waist. He palmed two of the empty cans, filled them with a quick handful of dirt, and tossed them back into the stands.
The crowd followed the sound as it echoed toward the top of the stadium stairs and then rolled toward the center. They broke off into two distinct packs, those still pouring out onto the track fifty yards away and now the second much smaller group, clawing at the steps attempting to place the rattling aluminum cans.
Griffin turned back to the field and eyed the area just beyond the opposite side of the track. Three Feeders had moved out of the shadows of the visitor stands and were now staggering in a straight line toward the growing crowd over his left shoulder.
This was going to be a problem.
Wait the additional thirty seconds and let them pass, or try to make his way around the trio on an ankle that now throbbed beneath his pant leg. The chances of actually making it to the fence and out onto Sixth Street weren’t any better with either option. Whatever he decided, it would end up being a roll of the dice.
As the day’s first light peeked over the horizon, Griffin stepped out from behind the stands and started across the track. He bit through the blinding pain from his lower leg and the intense heat still firing against the right side of his head, hobbling in a wide arc along lane number seven.
Not more than sixty feet from the stairs and both groups now began to follow. They moved away from the stands and from the field, closer with each second that passed. Staying on the track wasn’t going work, he needed a more direct route; however, that would mean a fight—a fight he’d most certainly lose.
Without turning to check the
progress of the crowd, Griffin slowed his already protracted pace, and stepped up onto the field. Now intent on cutting his route straight through to the fence, he balled his hands into tight fists and started to jog.
The cataclysmic pain shorting out his central nervous system demanded that he stop. Each placement of his left foot against the damp grass sent a tsunami of fire though his calf and into his hip. Fighting against instinct, he pushed on, every second a test of his will to survive, although at the moment, death seemed a much more merciful end.
Fifty yards, that was his guess. Cross what remained of the field, clear the track, continue to the ten-foot chain-link fence, and then somehow hope that neither of the crowds reached him first. The odds told him it was impossible, but everything he’d survived over the last six weeks was impossible. This morning, he just needed to hold it together for another sixty seconds.
Griffin drifted right as he turned to glance at the trio that had come from the visitor stands. They were closer than those at his back, but moved much slower. He increased his pace and at the edge of the field, stepped out onto the lowered track with his left foot.
Still focused on the fence, Griffin’s left leg buckled as it touched down, a wave of nausea running through him. He crashed onto the track, slid on his left side into lane number six, and without allowing his mind to take inventory of what this meant, pushed himself back up and started again.
The trio at his back were overtaken by the two crowds coming out of the stands. They were much closer than he was comfortable with and another misstep would mean they’d certainly reach him before he cleared the fence.
Off the track and crossing a small patch of upturned grass, Griffin tasted blood. It ran freely from the wound along the right side of his head, dripping into his eye and pooling near the corner of his mouth.
Ten feet.
And then he was there.