Survival_Book 1_And Tomorrow

by Ralph F. Halse

  “Now,” he grated between clenched teeth pointing his weapon at each of them in turn. “Move yourselves the fuck over there.” He gestured with his weapon.

  Listening to the cruelty inflicted on his father caused something to snap in Kitch’s brain. Moving in a blur of speed, he leaped straight up in the air. Kitch was now pure kung-fu. Such was his rage that he was immersed in a killing zone. All those years of training, the hideous premature death of his father, the cruelty to the children along with a burning hatred of Junior came together in nanoseconds of pure adrenaline-driven martial arts skills, fueling the basest of human desires: to take revenge.

  Rocketing his staff in an overhand motion, he smashed Pi’s weapon to the ground from his surprised grasp. Kitch came to a standstill beside the bug-eyed, open-mouth teenager. Twisting his hips, he pivoted toward Pi from the waist up. Employing all the power his hips, shoulders, and torso could muster, he pounded the staff crossways into a short, sharp but very brutal jab hard against Pi’s throat. Such was his speed and dexterity employing the staff that his opponent never had a chance to respond to the threat. It was all over before Pi’s brain could register the danger he was in.

  When Kitch’s staff met Pi’s throat, there was a loud crack. Something snapped in the killer youth’s throat. The huge teenager’s eyes bulged. His tongue distended as he clutched his throat with both hands, gargling for air that would never come. His knees buckled. Bubbling blood flowed in a river down his bearded chin as he gurgled his last seconds of life away. Pi fell face-first to the ground, feet drumming.

  In his gut, Kitch knew Pi was dead the second he’d delivered the fatal blow. He surprised himself at the fury and speed with which he dispatched another human being. Muscles trembling with adrenaline-surged fear, he urged in a sharp whisper, “What’s the quickest way over the wall?”

  Kitch followed as Caitlin took off in a half crouch heading toward the nearest scaffold, dragging her sister along. Sprinting lightly up a ramp, she paused momentarily at the top. Visibly holding her breath, Caitlin looked down on clusters of infected standing silent and listless looking at the ground. Marie started to squirm. Caitlin whispered soft words of encouragement until she ceased.

  Kitch hauled himself over the wall. Hanging by his fingers, he dropped soundlessly to the soft sand. He waited anxiously with his back to the wall as he searched for signs the infected were moving. Turning, he signaled to Caitlin to hand Marie down. Seconds later, Caitlin joined them.

  Moving quickly on tiptoes, Kitch and Caitlin made their cautious way through the car park to the bridge. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the small boat was still there. Placing Marie in the boat, Caitlin hopped in and he pushed off. It wasn’t until Kitch motored silently out into the river that he relaxed slightly. “I wish we’d brought some drinking water,” he said with a smile to Marie, who smiled shyly back.

  Chapter Six: New beginnings

  While Caitlin clutched the trembling Marie, Kitch powered slowly against the current heading for home. As the destruction on the river bank passed, he collected his thoughts, sorting through his limited options. He’d brought these girls with him, and it was his responsibility to find a safe place, food and clean up, but where?

  “Where are we going?” Caitlin enquired with a tight smile creasing her face into an eager expression of new-found freedom. By now, she had tied her blonde hair back and was smiling hesitantly on a regular basis.

  As the sun rose, Kitch said, “Home for a change of clothes and a shower. I have to review my VOID on properties likely to provide shelter,” he replied.

  She shook her head vigorously. “I’d advise against that. As soon as Junior and Connor discover Pi’s body, they’ll come after us. Junior might not because he won’t want to surrender his leadership role. But, he’ll send Connor for certain. You knew Connor and Pi were close? They were best buds at school. You remember, don’t you? Besides, there’s no grid power to fire up your VOID.”

  “There is at home. Dad—” he swallowed hard at the bitter memory of his father’s demise “—put a solar sphere on the roof. What I remember is Pi bashing and teasing me for years and years. Connor only ever communicated to sneer, like I was something stuck under his shoe, that’s what I remember,” he responded, sticking his chin out. Looking at Caitlin, he couldn’t hold back an OCD frown of concentration that creased his face into a serious and thoughtful expression as he computed the odds. Then he said, “Yes, you’re correct, they will. But that won’t be for several days yet. I got lucky locating this boat. Otherwise, I’d never have made it to the construction site when I did. Look at the roads. They’ll have to negotiate thousands of infected to find us. By then, we’ll have relocated. I doubt they are even sure where I live. We’ll have time before we move.”

  * * * *

  “How long do you reckon?” she asked stroking Marie’s hair, nodding agreement at his calm and calculated logic. The way he organized his thought processes was one of the most endearing mannerisms that attracted her to him. Something struck her like a punch to the jaw—Kitch was not stuttering. His eyes were focused and his face free of tics. His jaw was set in a determined line, like she had seen on his father’s so often at the mall.

  “I don’t trust Junior not to send out a patrol to track us down immediately. He’s too erratic to predict. He knows I live within walking distance to the old tourist castle. I made no secret of that, never had to before now. That narrows Connor’s search zone down some, so forty-eight hours is good for me. Next problem, we have to relocate to a safe haven, settle in and make it safe. God only knows how long or what that might take.”

  Caitlin nodded as she kissed and stroked the top of Marie’s head thoughtfully. For the remainder of the journey, her eyes took in passing scenes of carnage and multiple deaths along the main road as she considered a future free of, but dogged by, Junior Watson and a band of sick followers. Clusters of dozens of bodies drifted by the small boat—all ages were represented in death heading out to sea. A logjam of corpses swirled gently onto the bow, bumped lightly then spun away leaving a stench of wet death in their soggy wake. Seagulls, herons, and turkey vultures hopped from corpse to corpse dipping slime-coated beaks into a host of cavities. One corpse rose out of the water from the waist up. It waved at them. Caitlin gasped, and half stood, pointing with her mouth open, just short of a shout to stop and help the poor man until eyeless, water-logged features stared in their direction. A second later, the torso sank back into the tangle of stark-white flesh.

  Water beneath the dead male boiled as schools of feeding fish glutted themselves. The corpse settled back into the water with the moving current. Terrified birds abandoned their ride when a tail-slapping river predator dragged it beneath the surface. Yes, she thought, somewhat relieved as her eyes returned to path Junior and followers must take to reach them. Junior would have his work cut out for him that was certain.

  The infected bunched across the thoroughfares. Small groups wandered aimlessly, while others stood silent and swaying, staring up the sky. Most wandered haphazardly between vehicles at that slow, lazy shuffle common among all the poor unfortunates. But she was worried. Junior’s madness and the quantity of alcohol he consumed set his level of violent unpredictability toward unsound judgment on an immeasurable scale.

  If her observations of his brutal and volatile behavior were correct, he would have made a bloody example of a wall guard for not preventing their escape. Never mind the fact she heard Junior order them off the wall using his jolly, big brother voice to join the alcohol-fueled orgy of sex and death. That, after all, was his way of keeping his sullen subjects in line. She shuddered at what such a punishment might entail.

  Then there was the utterly ruthless, slyly ambitious and exceedingly dangerous Connor. With those two heading up the construction site’s feral inhabitants, she and Kitch had a formidable force of enemies to deal with should they ever track them down.

  Leaning forward, Kitch spoke softly as he killed
the small engine and let the small boat cruise. “We’re coming into the retirement village now. We need to keep quiet. Y’all spot any infected, just point. We’ll figure out how to avoid them as needs be.”

  * * * *

  Alert now, the two girls nodded. A light mist hovering over the water’s surface masked their approach. Eerily silent, the retirement village resembled a ghost town—nothing moved. Marie’s hand came up as soon as the boat turned into the man-made canal. Kitch couldn’t see any infected. Marie’s rigid finger continued to point. Squinting, he looked harder over the misty, silent surface to the shoreline and then to the small dwellings. Village windows displayed drooling infected watching from within almost every tiny home. Once the grid went down, no power existed to allow an exit from their retirement homes, or even to open a window. That function was climate-controlled through sophisticated sensor-driven electronics. Exit and entry were gained via biometric locks. Unable to perform rudimentary movements, undead retirees were prisoners, locked in until the flesh rotted from their bones.

  Marie’s finger shifted to the road. Kitch stopped counting at around one hundred. Infected roamed randomly between the intersection at the top of the hill and his nearest landing point. Steering for a thick growth of rushes along the bank, he cruised noiselessly inside. Certain they were hidden from both the water and roadway views, he gently eased himself over the side. He quietly anchored the boat to a submerged log and steadied the boat. Standing in knee-deep water, he reached in and collected the trembling Marie and his backpack. Caitlin followed. Hunched down close the shore, they waited, listening for that moan the infected gave when they smelled the living. All was quiet.

  He placed his mouth close to Caitlin’s ear saying, “I think we’re safe.” Pointing to the old tourist castle, he added, “If we can make it that far, we should be okay to my home.”

  “Food at last,” Marie responded with a genuine smile of pleasure pinching her cheeks upward. “Something other than cat or dog meat will be great. What do you have?”

  Kitch froze, his eyes fell to the sand, guiltily. His neck shifted in a Tourette’s-inspired jerk. He’d eaten the last energy bar long ago. His eyes studied Caitlin’s hopeful smile. “Nothing, I’m sorry. We’ll have to stop at the local shopping mall to stock up. We’ll starve if we don’t.”

  “Great,” Caitlin said, clearly annoyed. “I’ll bet its full of infected?”

  “Not as many as you’d think,” he answered, sounding more confident than he actually felt. Formulating a plan as they went, he was sure it would work. “Once we get there and with your help, we’ll have food. Let’s go,” he said smiling at Marie, who was starting to accept his position in their trio of survival as non-threatening.

  Crouching, they made for two lines of stalled public vehicles. Most were empty. Those that weren’t didn’t all contain infected. Rather than surrender to the inevitable, many travelers had fought to the death in those small spaces. Thick blood smears coated plexiglaz windows in swirls. Clawed, desperate finger marks and palm prints were visible. In some cases, so thick was the blood, it was impossible to see in. Figures rocked in one or two cars as a squatting Kitch plotted a way around the stalled passenger vehicles. He didn’t want excited moans drawing in the infected.

  Five minutes into their short and dangerous journey, Kitch’s plan went awry. They were trapped between a line of stalled public vehicles and two infected staring into space. To his right and toward the retirement village entry, the bulk of the infected were clustered by the gate. The two infected blocking them were separated by fifteen feet. Kitch swiftly worked through their options. Retreating to safety to plot another path was as dangerous as not moving, particularly as the infected wandered to no discernible pattern. Eliminating the two infected blocking their trail quietly and swiftly, so they could pass the destroyed military post without further disturbance to the shopping mall, was his only option.

  Motioning Caitlin to stay put, he duck-walked forward. All the time his brain raced across his limited options. He saw the sense in the government broadcasts now. A fatal blow to the head, instantly killing the infected, solved a host of problems. All he possessed was his staff. Too late for another plan, he was committed with nowhere to run or hide.

  Holding his staff like a spear, he took up a position directly behind an infected dressed like a truck driver. Considering how and where to strike a killing blow, Kitch hesitated. Inexperience and unfamiliarity with killing, along with an unwillingness to take even an undead life stayed his hand, until the infected lifted his head and sniffed.

  Far more quickly than Kitch thought possible, the big male swung aggressively in his direction. Head canted to one side, clawed hands coming to the attack, jaws snapping, it sought fresh prey and advanced on Kitch. The male’s wounds were hideous to behold.

  Almost the entire right side of his face was chewed off, exposing glistening bone, shriveling muscle tissue and yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. Claw marks above his left eye ran into his hair, where a large section of scalp flapped as he moved, exposing a fly-blown wound. He was missing four fingers on his right hand and two on his left. Defensive wounds to his arms, chest, and hands proved he had fought hard before turning. Kitch had to act. If the second infected caught their scent, she would no doubt moan in anticipation of the feast of fresh flesh to come. Next, there would be a swarm coming at them. Standing upright, he acted on instinct and thrust the slightly pointed end into the male’s right eye.

  But to Kitch’s knee-trembling horror, his strike wasn’t quite hard enough. While he halted the gargling male in his tracks, the once human creature continued to push aggressively against the rigid staff without any apparent loss of willingness to kill him. Blood-caked hands swiped ineffectually at Kitch around the staff. An open-mouth Kitch was astounded that his blow had missed vital brain cells. The weight of the infected pressing forward prevented him from withdrawing the staff.

  Easing back, he closed his mouth and licked his dry lips as he let the pressure applied by the infected press the staff into the ground. Taking the infected’s weight, Kitch applied reverse pressure. Ducking spurts of stinking black ichor leaking from its eye socket, nose, and gaping mouth, Kitch took a firm grip on the staff. Bunching the muscles in his arms, Kitch commenced waggling the tip from side to side, until he had the creatures head wobbling like an empty bottle on a stick.

  After several final firm shakes and prods that left him perspiring and trembling, its arms finally went slack. When its mouth opened in death, Kitch knew all life was extinguished. Kitch screwed up and turned his face away as it exhausted vile gasses consistent with rotting meat before it went entirely limp. He eased the infected gently to the road surface before tugging the staff out its skull. An ooze of slippery, stinking black, rotting brain tissue slithered out. Kneeling, Kitch worked at suppressing the vomit smacking at his stomach and throat. Through watery eyes, he kept watch on the remaining infected as he gathered his strength.

  Approaching the next infected from behind, Kitch raised his staff spear-like, intending not to make the same mistake again. Kitch would punch the pointy end of the staff through the back of the undead creature’s head. Only now, he resolved to use all the force he could muster. As he drew the staff over his shoulder to drive his thrust home, he noted out the corner of his eye a cluster of around ten or so infected staring up at a roadside tree. He froze. Moving his eyes fractionally as he controlled his breathing, Kitch took in the scene from side-on.

  A ginger cat had climbed into the branches, or was more likely pursued there by an infected. The wary feline feigned sleep as it watched the infected with bright, golden eyes, tail swishing. For the moment, all were silent. But if that cat was to jump down and run in their direction, Kitch and the girls were in all sorts of bother and none of it survivable.

  He had to do this fast, faster than the last time. His troubled eyes swung back to the problem before him. Wishing he had something long and sharp like Junior’s shovel, Kitch positione
d himself so his body wouldn’t protrude beyond the car’s profile to alert the infected, and he raised the staff.

  Taking a deep breath, Kitch bunched his muscles, then he drove the pointy end of his staff up to the rear of the woman’s skull, aiming for the space where the spine met the brain. With a bone-breaking crunch, the tip burst out of her gaping mouth. Kitch lurched forward but quickly held his balance. Loose teeth flew from blackened gums, spraying chunks of flesh covered in a foul-smelling liquid that might well have been blood onto the public car’s windshield. Kitch struggled with the infected as she twisted and sagged at the knees like a live fish hooked on a line. With some practice behind him, he took her weight onto the pole and bunched his muscles again. Slowly and as quietly as he could manage, Kitch pulled the corpse backward and lowered her down onto the ground. Pinning her face-first onto the cement with the staff, Kitch pressed down hard and held. When her struggles ceased, Kitch eased his staff out of her skull. The soft sucking sound it made coming out brought with it a host of noxious gasses.

  All around him, the heady stench of death filled the air. Thankful the revolting odor masked the scent of the living, Kitch turned. Still half crouched, he signaled a pale-face Caitlin and Marie forward and the nervous trio crept between stalled cars away from any infected, until they gained the military checkpoint. Kitch knew that the bodies were piled so thick between the checkpoint and mall that the movement to this point by the infected was an impossibility. The infected would trip and stumble on the piled bodies, and they would get nowhere. But somehow, they sensed this and stayed away. Peering out through the flaps of a shredded medical tent at the mall, he noted infected congregated in the park on the opposite river bank.