Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  Alissa emits a small moan as she probes my arm. “Oh, Jordan, you opened up almost every stitch.”

  I inhale sharply when she presses against the back of my bicep.

  “It feels like it.”

  “I can’t see the front wound. Is it torn too?”

  I glance down, taking in the neat line of stitches Syd put in me last night. “Nah, it’s still closed up here. I must have ripped the back when I stretched my arms over my head for cover.”

  “I’ll re-stitch you tonight,” Syd says. “Assuming we find somewhere safe to stop. For now, we need to move out of here and fast.”

  As with all things in the zombie apocalypse, it’s easier said than done.

  Chapter Three

  Alissa is still wrapping gauze around my arm when we reach highway 34 a few minutes later. It’s pandemonium. Cars facing every direction, cutting across lanes, trying to escape through fields. People are in the street running while others lay on their horns to encourage cars to move. Cars that may not have anyone left in them, or anyone with a working brain anyway. The worst of it are the infected. They’re everywhere. They’re milling around with the people who are running, reaching out to make halfhearted attempts to grab them as they sprint by. Some are at the sides of parked cars pounding on the windows trying to get in. There are screams everywhere, coming from every direction. Just in front of us there are three infected kneeling on the ground tearing into a motionless, desecrated body like a pack of wolves devouring a kill. The sight is sick enough. I’m grateful we aren’t able to get the audio from here.

  “Mother of God,” Syd says, his voice low and awestruck.

  He hasn’t seen it yet. Not like this. Not the way Portland was in the first days.

  “We can’t cross this,” I tell him. “I imagine that’s what you were planning, but we can’t. No way.”

  “We have to. There’s no other choice. Otherwise we go south where we’ll have to cross another highway and the river.”

  I grab the map from where it lies on the dash. “Yeah, but if we go north we have to cross two highways to get east anyway.”

  “And going your way, how will we cross the river? By the one bridge? The same bridge everyone else in this entire area will be trying to cross. If we cross here and head north a ways, we might actually be able to get on the highway heading north. It will be clear because no one will be doing that.”

  “Yeah, with good reason. The infected are that way. Ground Zero is north. We are not going back there,” I tell him firmly. I can’t believe we’re debating this.

  “The infected are already here,” Alissa argues, pointing at the chaos. At the mass of zombies swarming in front of us. It’s only a matter of time before they become aware of us and we’re surrounded. My hands are starting to sweat at the idea. “And we can’t run south from them. We’ll only be trapped by the wall. At least if we go north we can try to fight our way through, maybe even get to where they used to be. There can’t be that many up north anymore.”

  “Yes, there absolutely can be,” I say emphatically. “You have to remember, they gain numbers in every city. When they finish rolling through Corvallis, this swarm will be bigger than it is now. Think about that, Ali. This swarm is bigger than the one we got away from in Portland because it’s grown. It consumed every town along the way. We cannot fight through that. We were lucky to make it out of Portland when we did. Our best bet is to head east as hard and fast as we can and get on the outside of this thing. Right now, this close to I-5, we’re at the heart of it. If we head southeast we can make it to the mountains. The mountains will slow them down. We’ll have a chance.”

  “But we’re here now,” Syd says impatiently. “Let’s just do this.”

  “We were in Corvallis two hours ago,” I remind him calmly, “but we got out because it was stupid to stay there. Crossing this if we don’t have to is stupid.”

  There’s silence in the cab of the RV while chaos roars outside. I hear a gunshot followed by more screams. I wonder if the bullet was meant for an infected or a human. There are no guarantees anymore.

  “We should listen to him,” Alissa tells Syd grudgingly. “He knows what he’s talking about and he’s gotten us this far.”

  I don’t know what Syd is going to choose to do. Listen to me or do things his own way. I’m leaning toward the former but I’ll never know for sure. The decisions is made for us when another car comes racing up the road behind us. It crashes into our trailer that’s hauling the quad, sending us forward into the traffic. Our front end smashes into a small black sedan, crushing its front end and probably popping its tire. It doesn’t matter, there’s no one alive in it. The truck that rammed us backs up then lurches forward, passing us to head into the ditch on our right. In a flurry of dirt and rock it’s gone.

  We’re in the thick of it now. We’re trapped by surrounding cars and just our luck, the infected are aware of us. Several begin lumbering our way. I glare at Syd. I told him this was a bad friggin’ idea.

  “What do we do?” Alissa asks apprehensively.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “Can we go through the ditch like the truck did?”

  Syd shakes his head as he throws the RV into reverse. “The suspension on this thing couldn’t handle it. We’d either lose a tire or get marooned on something.”

  We try to back up but something’s wrong. We don’t make it very far. Not far enough to turn around.

  “The trailer,” Syd spits out angrily. “They must have jacked it up when they hit us. I can’t back up. We’re stuck.”

  “Oh God,” Alissa moans.

  More infected are coming. We’re going to be surrounded.

  I snag the duct tape off the dash and violently wrap it around my arm, covering the bandages Alissa just applied. I’ll need the extra protection. This is about to get ugly.

  I grab the gun she gave me and my bat, switching it to my left hand. I throw my door open then sprint for the back of the RV. I can see the infected taking notice, catching my movements and my scent on the wind. They’ll follow me now. I quickly survey the damage to the back of the RV. Luckily I can see the situation in no time because that’s exactly what I have; no time. The trailer is detached from the RV, the hitch wedged under the back bumper. We’ll never back out over it. We have to move forward somehow.

  Three infected are coming at me. I swing my bat with my left hand, creating a wide arc meant to buy me some space, nothing more. I’m pleasantly surprised when I’m able to knock two of them down with that one move. Not dead, just down, but that’s enough. I run back to my door to find an infected already trying to get in. I press the muzzle of my gun to his temple, turn my face away and fire. Gore is everywhere, especially on me. I realize as it hits me that my shirt is still off and I’m thankful for the duct tape. I have to take a swing at another infected as I make my way toward the black sedan we hit. It’s a feeble effort and my aim is crap this time, but it still makes contact with the girl’s chin, knocking her head back with a sick crunch. I take another swing, then another, each one connecting with cheek bones or a nose. Dark blood bursts from every blow and eventually she goes down. I’m not interested in completely killing her, just stopping her from biting me while I get inside this car.

  There’s no one in the driver’s seat but I check the back real quick because I’m not an idiot. I’ve seen my share of horror movies. Empty. I slam my foot on the gas and plow forward, shoving the car ahead of me forward as well. I back up a ways, backing over the girl I took to the ground with my bat, and repeat the process. An infected gets in my way when I go to back up again so I slam the gas a third time and smash him between the trunk of this car and the hood of the one behind me. There’s a small cracking sound combined with a meaty thud. He’s not dead but he’s not going anywhere either. Just to make sure, I apply the parking break.

  When I leap out of the car, Syd is pulling the RV forward into the space I’ve created. People and infected are running around them like
ants, some slamming into the side before bouncing off and continuing to run. Alissa is in the passenger seat leaning out the window with her handgun to provide me coverage. It doesn’t surprise to know she has my back.

  A gunshot rings out, the bullet landing in the side of the RV not far from where Alissa leans out the window. She disappears inside, taking cover on the floorboards. I hunch down behind a car that looks to be filled with a terrified living family and I look for the source of the shot. Shooting at the living at a time like this can only mean one thing; they want what we have. Syd continues to pull forward, carefully using the RV as a battering ram to get them the rest of the way across the highway. People don’t even care. Most of them have bailed out of their cars in favor of fleeing the area instead of saving their stuff. A lot of them are running in the wrong direction, heading north into the swarm. I have to remind myself that that’s what we’re doing too.

  This is all such a bad idea.

  The RV is almost to the other side when I see our shooter. It’s a tall guy with a sideways baseball hat and a TapouT shirt standing in the bed of a huge red truck. He’s leaning forward using the roof of the cab to steady his shotgun. Under normal circumstances I’d dislike him based on his shirt alone. Today it’s because he’s one more thing I’ve got to worry about in a world where I already have way too much to worry about.

  I run wide around him, becoming just another part of the scenery that he’s ignoring. Other people are still running and screaming as well. Infected are everywhere, grabbing at everyone. He’s unconcerned, however, and I wonder if he’s an idiot or if he has other people covering him that I can’t see. I take the chance anyway. I don’t have another choice.

  As I near the back of his truck he takes another shot at the RV. Just as I’m about to lunge at him I feel fingers grab at my back and slip off. I spin around to find myself face to face with someone’s sweet old grandpa. His mouth hangs agape dripping with dark fluid, his teeth (most likely not originals) coming at me. I press my gun in his open mouth, right between his dentures, and I pull the trigger. I don’t look away and I regret it. At least I flinched in time to keep his blood out of my eyes, out of my mouth. I don’t want to find out what zombie tastes like.

  My shot alerts the douchebag in the truck to my presence. He turns to me, his gun coming level with my chest. He’s not hesitating, probably assuming I’m an infected considering I’m double dipped in gore. Or maybe he’s just a murderous tool. Regardless, I quickly raise my bat, connecting with his barrel. It sends his shot wide and alerts him to the fact that I’m human. I’m alive. He still moves to bring the barrel around again.

  So that’s how we’re playing this.

  I press my handgun to his thigh and pull the trigger. He goes down screaming, dropping his shotgun as he grips his leg.

  Shooting a person should feel different. It should give me some pause, but it doesn’t. Putting a non-lethal shot into a guy trying to kill me and the girl I’ve spent the last few weeks busting my butt to keep alive? Doesn’t even phase me.

  The driver’s side door of the truck flies open. As the guy steps out I quickly point my gun at his face. I shake my head at him.

  “You don’t wanna mess with me,” I warn him, my voice low.

  He shakes his head quickly as he puts his hands in the air, backing away from me. I imagine what I must look like. Shirtless, coated in blood, gun to his face. What he doesn’t need to know is that I have no idea how many bullets I have left. I never checked the clip because I don’t know how to. I also don’t know how many bullets this clip would hold. I guess it’s good that we’re both ignorant here.

  “You might want to drive your buddy out of here if you can,” I tell terrified guy. “The smell of his blood is going to bring them all running.”

  He simply stares at me, never taking his eyes off the gun.

  “Now.”

  He leaps into the truck.

  When I look down the road the RV is gone but I know where it was headed. I make a break for it, running for the countryside. I burst past living and dead alike, feinting and dodging to avoid them like a running back on his way down the field toward a touchdown. An infected manages to get right in my way, leaving me no time to sidestep her, so I duck my head down and ram her with my shoulder. She flies back into the side of an SUV, crumpling in a stinking, stunned heap on the asphalt.

  Once I make it off the road I break into a dead sprint. There are trees here that I try to stay inside of, using them to create buffers between me and the infected. There are more of them out here. Tons of them. More than I’ve ever seen moving as a group before. It’s unnerving. The sound of their moaning and shuffling all around me is giving me ulcers on my ulcers. The only thing I have going for me is the fact that I’m covered in their kind. Even as some wander past me, they don’t give me a second glance. I think of the day Ali and I wandered slowly through a herd of infected, completely undetected. The only thing that gave us away, the thing that almost got us killed, was another human. My gunshot wound and temper both flare up thinking about it when what I should be thinking about is getting back to the RV and out of this swarm of undead.

  Oh, and the Runner coming straight at me.

  Guy must have sniffed me out because he is coming right for me, eyes locked on like lasers. He’s a big one, bigger than I care to fight in the best of circumstances, and he’s absolutely covered in blood. I can see by the way he runs that he’s in that weird not yet undead but definitely not wholly human phase. I’m thinking that bright, shiny blood is all his. He has logic, reasoning and a heartbeat, but his inhibitions, the ones that normally would be telling him not to tackle me with his teeth, are shut down. I’m screwed. I can’t be sure I can outrun him, I can’t fire my gun without bringing attention to myself while surrounded by more zombies than tweens at a One Direction concert, and I cannot win in a hand to hand fight. Against the zombie, not One Direction. I’d destroy those guys.

  But right now, I’m screwed.

  Though I have no intention of firing it, I raise my gun. The Runner still has enough sense to recognize a gun pointed at his face as a bad thing. He slows. I’m thinking about waiting him out, seeing if I can keep him at bay with the natural fear of a bullet through the brain until he turns into a Shambler and I can outrun him. That could be a long wait, though, and I worry that Ali will come looking for me in that time. I doubt Syd will be on board with a search and rescue, but Ali and I made a promise to each other. One I know she’ll keep, no matter how misguided.

  My Runner begins to circle me. I’m watching my peripheral as best I can as this fool and I go round and round beneath a barren apple tree. I feel my feet slip and sink in the mud and suddenly I miss my shirt. Goosebumps rise up on my arms as my hand holding the gun begins to tremble slightly. I know what’s happening. My adrenaline is leaving me. I won’t be as sharp anymore. Not as fast. I should—

  I’m bumped from behind hard. The force knocks me forward and I slip on the slick ground, nearly losing my balance and my gun. My heart is hammering in my chest. As I struggle to regain my balance, I’m waiting for icy hands to grab onto the bare skin of my back or shoulders, the precursors to teeth and gnawing. But it never comes. Instead, I’m bumped again, pushed aggressively to the side. I slam into the rough bark of the tree trunk and watch as my Runner lunges at me, his hands reaching out, nearly touching my face. I press myself hard against the tree to avoid him. He’s shoved back by the zombie who just shoved me. Three of them descend on the Runner, ripping at his clothes and digging their fingers into his still warm, pliant flesh that’s made slick with the coating of fresh, human blood. I watch with breath frozen in my lungs as the three of them, with two more on the way, drag the Runner down to the ground and proceed to tear him apart.

  The eerie thing is, eerier than the fact that the undead are accidentally eating their own, is that he doesn’t make a sound.

  Chapter Four

  “Jordan, thank God!” Alissa cries when she sees me
running toward the RV.

  She’s parked on the roof with a gun, surveying their surroundings as they slow roll at about 5 miles an hour down the road. It’s smart. They gave me time to catch up but they never stopped moving. They only need to move faster than an infected and as long as they aren’t fresh, that’s not hard to do.

  I jump onto the ladder attached to the back of the RV and climb up slowly. My limbs feel like jelly. My arm is burning beneath the bandage and duct tape.

  “I was so worried. I was just about to tell Syd to turn—Holy hell!”

  I’ve crested the top of the camper and given her a full view of my situation, of the black gore coating my front.

  I nod in grim agreement as I sit down, keeping my distance. “Yet another reason I don’t like guns.”

  “Sure, yeah. You need to get cleaned up ASAP. Is your arm still covered?”

  I lift my arm, glancing at the injured area. “Yeah, it’s fine. The duct tape is keeping everything out. Hopefully I didn’t have any other open wounds anywhere. Even a paper cut right now could kill me.”

  When Alissa doesn’t answer I drop my arm, looking up at her. Her face is a mask of worry.

  “Ali,” I say, getting her eyes on mine, “I’m fine. No cuts, no scrapes. Nothing. I’m okay.”

  She nods weakly. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” I sit up and head toward her, still being careful to keep away. I get on the roof of the cab and lean over so I’m hanging my head upside down in the driver’s side window. “Hey, Syd, think we can find somewhere safe for me to get cleaned up?”