“Maybe we can team up, share resources?”
“You’re kidding me, right? Just ‘cause we know each other, don’t mean we’re some kind of immune. All I know is this—I ain’t turned and my daughter ain’t turned, but I don’t know crap about you these days, Mike, or your boy, and he’s got some real issues, as I recall. So, thanks but no thanks. Look, I don’t cotton t’killing good men because I think they’ll turn. Best we go our own ways and look to ourselves. One guarantee I will give y’all though.”
“What’s that, Jerry?”
“Next time we meet, if y’all’s got food or medicine and I need it? Watch yourself, ‘cause I won’t be asking to share. I’ll be taking what you got, one way or the other, and I won’t be offering any please or thank you. As much as I regret saying those words, come starvation that’ll be a cold hard reality. I’m sorry I busted your skull, Mike, and here’s my hand on the matter.”
The two former librarians shook firmly and looked each other in the eyes, like old friends did sharing a common hardship. Jerry broke off first. He adjusted his backpack, collected a blood-stained baseball bat by the door in his right hand, and tugged his cap down over his eyes with his left as he stepped purposefully out into the warm, night air. He paused with one hand on the door. He glanced back for a brief moment before turning his attention back to the street.
“Dawn’s coming, Mike. Y’all best you be getting on home, quick-like. With that blood on your face, y’all’s gonna be attracting all the wrong attention. If you keep moving, I figure you got maybe a slim hour before they smell and then converge on you. Stay here, and you’re a dead man hiding. Out there, moving. You got a chance, less now you’re all bloody. Like I said, I regret that. If you ain’t home by first light, be smart, man. Hole up somewhere’n wait for night. Get your strength back, then move on. You can’t afford the smell of that blood on any breeze wafting in any direction. Be seeing ya.” Jerry sprinted across the road and was lost to the dark before Mike could reply.
Mike edged back inside and closed the door. With his right foot jamming the door shut, he fumbled in his backpack for the disinfectant. Keeping his focus on the dark street, he poured the pine-smelling liquid liberally over the head wound. Sharp pain aside, he dropped the empty bottle to the floor and then reached for a pack of geriatric diapers by the walker. He tore the cover apart and drew out a packet marked extra absorbent. Ripping the plastic with his teeth, he drew the diaper out and gingerly wiped his face and head clean. All the time, his gaze never left the outside. As he waited for the pain and bleeding to subside, Mike contemplated his encounter with Jerry Thomas and wondered about what had taken place earlier.
First off, Jerry was right. No one not inoculated could be trusted outside a cleared area, that was a fact. Another fact was that a bleeding man staggering about John’s Island was a convenient decoy for someone on a mission carrying medication for a sick child, especially when Jerry needed an unimpeded path back home halfway across the island, just like Mike did.
Mike wondered if Jerry was outside watching him sneak in and if he recognized him in the low light. It’s not like they were strangers. Going back over Jerry’s words, he couldn’t be sure of his former friend’s motives one way or the other. One thing was for sure—a live and bloody Mike drawing the infected away from a slow-moving Jerry was a better option than a dead Mike doing a whole lot of nothing in Jerry’s favor. Damn, but he had been set up and used. Dimwit!
As he staunched the flow of blood, Mike went over his conversation with his former colleague in his head. He broke the conversation and Jerry’s actions down into chunks to re-examine from a logical perspective, relative to their circumstances in the store. The more he thought about what had happened, the more he was convinced it was like watching a choreographed dance routine. And the way Jerry expressed himself, well, it was like he was delivering a series of rehearsed words to suit the situation.
The more Mike mulled it over, the more he was convinced Jerry had planned every move, probably from the second he’d seen Mike enter the store. If Jerry’d had the place staked out for a good hour, he would have known about Greta and watched Mike sneak up on the place. At that moment, Jerry chose to use Mike as a Judas Goat. The fact Mike survived must have come as a shock to Jerry. Nevertheless, Jerry adapted and continued to use Mike as a tool of escape, rather than join forces with him.
A deep, abiding bitterness along with a hint of desperation tainted Jerry’s words, not that Mike blamed him for that. No sir! He too was a changed man. The godawful plague had seen to that. But the edge to Jerry’s words and his intent to take at any cost spoke of a man determined to survive, no matter the consequences. Consequences? What consequences? They were few these days. Out there in the boonies, at night, looking for meds or food, he could kill another human competing for the same supplies quick or slow, just like Jerry said he would. The sad fact was, it didn’t matter really how the killing was done. The winner would take all and live another day to tell the tale or do it all over again. Bottom line, survive buddy. That’s what counts at the end of the day.
And who would give a damn? Not the cops, if you could find one that is. Not the militia, they’d more’n likely string you up on the spot for the hell of it. Clearly, safety in numbers was not an option for Jerry. Killing and using people was his preferred methodology. So be it, Jerry, acknowledged Mike silently. His choices were clear in his head where Jerry was concerned when next they met. Next time though, Mike would hoard and stash the insulin too. Then we’ll see who’s making decisions for who and under what conditions.
A determined and chagrined Mike dropped the bloody diaper to the littered floor and kicked it under a display. He pulled the door shut behind him and sidled slowly into the humid night. Tiptoeing, he kept his back as close to the bushy fence lines as he dared. Mike adopted a version of Jerry’s style of a slow, sliding walk along a sidewalk festooned with weeds breaking free of centuries of poison control ready to reclaim the land.
Looking east, Mike tried to guess exactly how far off dawn was. As a twenty-fourth century American who lived a life from childhood with ‘bots and drones doing most of his daily housework, he possessed no outdoor skills whatsoever to work with, so it was best guesstimates all the way. Most of them he got wrong.
He paused in a ground-knuckling crouch to survey a road scattered with stalled public vehicles, many of which he was a hundred percent certain contained trapped infected. Mike ran his eyes over the path ahead and cursed the fact street lights still operated in this neighborhood. It was true that some suburbs had gone totally dark as the power to the grid failed. But local stations must be running on emergency power options. That or the military had juiced the system into life and kept it that way for their use. Light meant visibility and that translated to Mike being seen by all the wrong people, dead ones mostly.
The way he saw it, Mike had two choices. The first was to run like hell between stalled public cars, across the road and into the safety of the park’s long shadows and keep on running. Problem with that option was if he took choice number one, he’d chance tripping over abandoned suitcases, rotting bodies, clothing, scattered furniture and God only knows what else in the dark. Tripping meant making noise, which was an A1 guarantee to literally wake the dead. Option number two—He could creep slow and cautious across the road into the park, using whatever threw long shadows as a nominal safety net. Hopefully, he’d then sneakily disappear into the island’s centennial park following the pavement back home, tree to tree, the same way he got there.
Scuttling for the safety of an oblong shadow cast by the moisture-slick public transit stop, Mike crept up to flatten against the cool cement structure. Edging to the corner, he peeked out, studying the stalled cars before him. His gaze traveled across mounds of abandoned objects and sprawled bodies, searching for human shapes sitting in an upright position in cars. Rusting, dead power grid lines winked and sparkled, thick and moist with early morning dew.
By mo
ving his eyes to pick up on the light falling into the vehicles, Mike was able to make out shapes of the infected slumped forward in cars. It was like they’d fallen asleep on the way to work, only the windows weren’t left sparkling clean by service ‘bots. They were caked and smeared with dried blood. Every car window had bloody hand and fingerprint smears, telling a tale of desperation and slaughter. He focused momentarily on a school bus nose-down like a head-shot buffalo on the grid line far back toward the park entrance. He shuddered when an image of his son popped into mind. In the weak yellow glow cast by the transit stops hailing light, he squinted as he looked for cars without infected. These vehicles would form the path he took across the road.
Letting go of the structure, Mike was about to step off when he was overwhelmed with a dizzying urge to vomit and fall at the same time, neither of which he could afford to do. If he fell into unconsciousness, he may well not wake in the land of the living. Vomiting too was out of the question. The infected were sure to smell it, and those not entombed would wake and cluster on him.
Hanging onto the transit stop’s wall, Mike struggled to remain vertical as he fought waves of vertigo. His head had started to pound again too. The more he thought about his recent encounter, the more he was convinced Jerry deliberately hadn’t hit him hard enough to kill him. The question was, did Jerry recognize him, or was Mike a convenient decoy? Son of a bitch! Decoy, Mike agreed with himself.
Mike choked back and swallowed down the hot contents of his palpating stomach. Clutching the structure, he waited for the nausea to pass and his vision to return to normal. Panting slowly, he soon convinced himself he could walk. Mike swiped drool and vomit from wet lips with the unsteady back of his hand and pushed himself off the transit stop. He half lurched, half staggered toward the nearest vacant public car. Two wobbly paces onto the moisture-slick road and Mike guts tightened. He knew he should have holed up somewhere until dawn.
No sooner had his palm touched the nearest vacant car’s slick surface than four trapped infected slumped below the visible interior sat up, snapping their jaws at the windows. Clawing at each other, they competed to escape and devour him. A second later, all the public cars opposite the transit station were rocking and heaving violently. The low growling the infected made at the scent of a living creature rose from a confined burble to a full-on crescendo of blood-curdling mewing and snarling. He held on to the car body for dear life, trying to get his breath and focus. Mike was reminded of the time he watched a Mexican Wave at a football game. Car after car rocked and bucked as the infected animated.
The moaning grew in such intensity that Mike knew any dozing infected inhabiting the nearby park were now awake, alert and hungry. Fearing bulging windows might give to the constant pounding, and that his freshly bleeding head would pull nearby infected in, Mike sprinted—well, wobbled—in a not very straight line quickly across the road and into the safety of the park’s shadows as best he could. Behind him public cars bucked and swayed as the infected drank in the scent of a bleeding, living human.
Halting beside an ancient oak dripping with Spanish moss, Mike sucked in hot lungfuls of air as he fought to slow his hammering heart. He peered suspiciously around the trunk into the shadows for signs of movement ahead and, to his horror, saw it.
Goddamn it, here they come. Skinning his knees, ankles, and palms, he scrambled up into the oak’s low branches. Scrambling up as high as he dared in the dark, Mike finally lay exhausted, stomach down on a wide limb. Closing his eyes, he let the dizziness and pain flow through him until it sufficiently dissipated so that he could open one eye to look down. He was relatively safe up there—well that was if he didn’t pass out and fall.
Through one eye—the less painful one—Mike could make out that the shapes of the approaching infected were from all walks of life. The ragged cluster had two things in common. One, they were dead and didn’t know it. Two, they wanted to pull him out of that tree and eat him alive. Guess we’re about to discover whether the infected can climb, Mike thought as he nervously positioned himself so he could look in all directions, feet dangling precariously. Holy crap, there must be fifty white-eyed killers converging on the oak. Cops in uniform, military personnel, nurses or doctors maybe, city grid workers, parks officers, kids of all ages, old folk and office workers all stood at the base of the tree sniffing the air or walked tight circles around the trunk, seeking the source of the blood odor but not looking up. Their death-dealing injuries were horrific. Nearly all had hideous bite marks on the throat, neck, and face revealing cartilage, bone, and black-bloody gristle. Missing fingers featured prominently. Must be like chicken fingers, Mike thought.
Clothing went from blood-soaked and tattered to near-naked rags. Even that close to dawn, they carried with them a swarm of buzzing insects keen to feed on whatever rotting morsels fell off the infected. Resting his chin on the gnarled branch, Mike shut his eyes and wished he was anywhere but there. With effort, he forced the pain and nausea to another place. Then he opened one eye and looked east. Jerry was right about one thing—a warm orange glow was splitting the ink-purple horizon.
A quick glance down told him his crowd of admirers was swelling. Judging by the agitated way the infected moved and bumped into each other, they knew he was close, just not where. Mike felt his stomach start to heave as the wind changed and brought with it the stink of the undead herd below. Only by clamping a firm hand over his mouth and keeping it there did he prevent hot vomit from spilling out and exciting the crowd below. He smelled old, dried blood, rotting meat fermenting in the infecteds’ stomachs, unwashed bodies, human oil and grease and the sour pluff mud clinging to their shoes and clothes. By sheer will alone, Mike regained control of his body.
He was not confident the military would see the crowd, investigate and intervene, particularly if they were engaged elsewhere. It wasn’t like Centennial Park was strategic anything, more like a spooky place with far too many bushes for the infected to ambush them from, so the military avoided the place. Which is why Mike, the looter, had to risk traveling through it past its inert inhabitants at night, with no cops or armed patrols daring to venture there after dark to take pot shots at him. Mike figured he would have to wait until the infected got bored and drifted off before he could drop down and make a run for it
Goddamn, he hated the infected. Since the plague ripped through America, Mike had lost a considerable amount of weight. He had little trouble slipping his belt off and securing himself to the branch with it. He was exhausted and feared falling unconscious into the jaws of the slavering infected, so he cinched it tight enough to make him wince.
The next time Mike opened his bleary eyes, the sun was well up. Ten o’clock, he figured. Maybe nine? Aw, what the hell did he know? It could be as easily seven as eight. Looking down, he noted most of the infected had drifted off, but he still didn’t feel safe. Around sixty or more were standing singularly and in nearby clusters staring at each other or into the cloudless sky. Mike quietly fed his belt back through the loops, took a deep breath, and dropped into dewy, thick grass on all fours. An instant later, he was up, sprinting and weaving across patches of open parkland free of infected for his home two blocks from the eastern entry.
Even with his heart hammering and his breath bursting through his lips in ragged gasps, he could hear the infected moaning and shambling after him. Those noises were as good as halftime baseball game music, bellowing across the playing field. Every infected within miles would be on the move, tracking his scent and pounding feet. Soon, a herd would form and swarm any living thing in its path. Dogs, cats, ground birds, squirrels, even snakes, you name it. If it weren’t quick enough, those white-eyed assholes’d eat it.
Military personnel guarding Med-Tech’s working portable incinerators had been overrun in minutes by herds half the size of the one pursuing him. At forty-seven, unfit skinny, white legs and elbows pumping, Mike was out of the park and onto a cracking road going hard between stalled cars. Aw, hell! Coming out of a s
treet to his right were ten staggering infected, and they had him squarely on target.
At sight or scent of him, he never knew which sense the brain-dead killers used, the tiny herd let out a collective moan and shuffled quickly in his direction. Small mercies, Mike thought as he put on a burst of power. These jerk offs couldn’t outrun him. Come that day there’d be a whole lot more living joining their ranks. Made no difference, at the end of the day—get bit and dead’s dead’n that should be it. Well, not entirely true these days, but wishful thinking all the same.
Just seeing six more infected zeroing in on him from the left, Mike veered into an alley and leaped a series of scattered trash cans to emerge a block from his home.
“Halt, or I shoot,” boomed a deep, military voice somewhere behind him.
Heading down the alley, Mike risked a glance over his shoulder but didn’t stop. “Are you kidding me?” He bellowed incredulously, putting on more speed and looking ahead as he dodged tumbled trash cans.
Behind him, a medium sized truck carrying portable incinerators manned by a half-dozen National Guardsmen idled at the intersection in one of those all-terrain camouflaged bodies. A guardsman standing in the rear, leaned forward, pointing a rail rifle menacingly at his back. Mike guessed the crew were engaged in a little extracurricular taxation of the living. You never knew what goodies people stashed in backpacks these days.
“I said, halt, or I’ll goddamn well shoot, you asshole,” the guardsman boomed in an aggressive tone.
“Look to your right, dick wad,” Mike yelled, running harder. “Y’all feel free to shoot as many of them as you like,” he added turning onto his street and sprinting.
Survival_Book 1_And Tomorrow Page 3