Alive

by Ashley Shannon

  “PALEN, JUMP!” Becky yelled at him, waving her hands to get his attention. The look on her face was of panic, but when her eyes met him, they seemed to talk to him.

  “Really?” Her eyes said to him, “Come on, if I can do it, so can you.”

  Palen jumped, to the side of the trashcan, knowing that landing on top of it was more dangerous than the bush beside it. Pain pierced through his rib cage on the left side. He could barely breath when he hit the ground. At first, he thought the force of his landing had just knocked the wind out of him, but when he took Becky’s hand and got to his feet, he knew it was much worse than than. But now wasn’t the time.

  No one had gotten this far in the plan. Levi’s genius could only get them so far. His last point of the plan was find a car and get out here. There were a lot of cars to choose from, but as the group ran frantically down the hill towards them, they were met with locked doors. Car after car, door after door, was locked.

  “It’s the end of the world, so clearly I need to lock my car.” Johnny said, kicking the tire of a truck that wouldn’t have fit them all anyways. “Doesn’t anyone trust people anymore?”

  “Nope, not even the Army.” Frankie said. His eyes met Palen’s and the lightbulb moment struck them both. The Army wasn’t like anyone else. They didn’t have to have car alarms and locked doors to protect them from thieves. They had the unholy power of the U.S. Government behind them. Only a fool would try to take something from the Army, which meant that the vehicles were unlocked and more than likely had the keys in them.

  “We have to get to the north side of the building.”

  The others in the group who weren’t in the service didn’t catch on, but they didn’t have to. Palen knew exactly where to lead them. But he still couldn’t take a full breath without a stabbing pain radiating through the left side of his body.

  “Frankie, take the lead them to the hummers. I’ll bring up the rear.” Both soldiers took out their weapons and began to move the group toward where the almighty Army decided to park.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The group moved slower than Sada would have thought while being chased by an ever present danger. They creeped up to the corner of the north side of the building, Frankie leading them. She watched him carefully look around the corner. Fear ripped through her when she realized that he was watching zombies over by the Army hummers. This was their only escape plan. They could sift through the streets and try to find a vehicle that was not only unlocked but had the keys left in it. But the odds of finding one were low. This was more than likely their only option of escape. Frankie took in the scene beyond the corner, the only one who could, and came back to rely the information to the rest of the group.

  “There’s two of them. Looks like they took out a solider who had the same idea we did. It shouldn’t be hard to run up and take them out. Palen and I should go first, the rest of you stay behind us and head to the hummer. Johnny, head to the driver’s seat.”

  “No, I’ll do that.” Palen chimed in, drawing Sada’s eyes toward him.

  “Right now isn’t time for a measuring contest,” Frankie began but Palen interrupted him.

  “It’s not like that. I’m hurt. I can’t run well and I’m having trouble pulling up my left arm. Shooting is probably going to be an issue too.”

  Frankie’s eyes searched over Palen’s body, but the injury wasn’t visible. He nodded at his fellow solider and returned back to the plan.

  “Johnny, you’ll have to take Palen’s weapon. Move with me and take out the one on the right. I’ll get the other one.” He turned from Johnny to the others. “The rest of you just get to the hummer at all costs. Help each other in.”

  Everyone looked scared to Sada. She could see traces of determination and strength, but mostly they all looked scared. Tears threatened to fall from her eyes. It made her mad that she felt like crying. Now wasn’t the time. They had one chance, one shot to get away from the school. Palen handed over his weapon to Johnny. Sada watched as he studied it quickly, a look of recognition on his face.

  “On three.” Frankie quietly said one, but then motioned two with his hand. With a look at them all, he motioned three, mouthing the word but didn’t make a sound.

  Frankie and Johnny turned the corner first. She had expected them to start shooting right away, but instead they moved quietly forward to the zombies. They were covered in blood. Their skin was a tinged grey color. Sada imagined it was the color skin turned after you’d been dead and buried for awhile. It wasn’t a thought she would ever imagine thinking. Things were very quickly changing.

  Levi, Becky, Palen, and Sada made their way to the hummer as quickly as they could. Their footsteps echoed around them. The two zombie’s snapped their heads to find out where the sound was coming from. Their dead prey forgotten, the two infected began to move in toward the wrong part of the group. Palen guided them to the opposite side of the hummer, hoping to put as much distant between them and the undead duo as possible. Once they were safely on the far side of the vehicle, Sada heard the shots. They startled her even though she knew the plan. Her first instinct was to duck down and cover her ears. It was like a reflex, her body just moved on its own before she even had a chance to think about what to do.

  Levi reached over and grabbed her, before she could hit the ground. He began talking about reflexes and ways your body reacts when it feels threatened. She couldn’t understand anything he was saying. Palen swung open the back door of the hummer first, giving Becky a hand up into the seat. Then he moved to the front seat. Sada saw the expression of pain on his face when he moved his arm up to climb into the hummer. He was by no mens short, but that didn’t make the climb any easier.

  Sada quickly climbed into the back seat and then scaled the front seat. Fumbling to turn herself around, she finally righted herself and leaned over to give her hand to Palen. Gratefully, he took her assist and used the leverage to pull himself up into the hummer with only his right hand. Sada moved over to the passenger seat and Palen turned the key in the ignition. The hummer roared to life like a lion, then idled, purring steadily like a kitten.

  Levi climbed in the backseat, just as the hummer started, and shut the door behind him.

  “There’s more on this side. We have to get them in here quick.”

  Sada looked at Palen, unsure of what to do.

  “Are the two on this side dead?”

  “They’re on the ground, but more are coming.” Sada said, studying the view from her window.

  “Both you and Becky have to open your doors, get them in. NOW!”

  Zombies were coming at them from all sides as if a levy somewhere had broken or a damn had burst. Through the doors of the back entrance and around both corners, they flooded forward to them. Sada opened her door at the same time Becky pushed hers open too. Frankie and Johnny were trying to take as many of them down as possible. The horde had snuck up on them. They weren’t sure if they were even going to make it to the hummer at this point.

  “Frankie! Johnny!”

  The two boys turned and saw the doors. Their weapons dropped to their sides and they ran. Without a word between them, Johnny ran to Sada and Frankie towards Becky. The infected followed. Sada couldn’t do anything but watch, as they ran to the safety of the stolen Army vehicle. She yelled at them both, as if it would help. Johnny reached up his right hand, having switched the gun to his left hand before he reached the open door. Sada took his hand, wrapping her fingers tightly around his. She didn’t want him to slip away from her. The thought didn’t register with her, until Johnny was sitting beside her. It wasn’t that she wanted something to happen to any of them, but especially him.

  Johnny let go of her hand to pull the door shut. Becky reached down and pulled Frankie up into the army vehicle. He was a few steps behind Johnny because he had turned to take a few shots, giving his new buddy a little extra cover as he ran. The back door slammed shut and without any hesitation, Palen floored it. The hummer busted through th
e zombies that surrounded it. Sada watched for a few seconds, seeing their bodies being torn apart.

  “They’re drawn to the noise and perhaps the lights.” Levi said, answering a question that no one had asked.

  “How do you know so much about them?” Frankie asked.

  “Video games. That and studying them. You could see them coming for the vehicle in greater numbers when it was running. They are drawn to loud noises and sounds.”

  Sada couldn’t watch through the windshield anymore. She hadn’t come to terms with the fact that they weren’t people anymore. It was easy for a kid like Levi to label them zombies and then everyone is suddenly okay with ending their lives. But they didn’t now if these people could come back from this. What if this wasn’t like a movie or a video game, what if this didn’t have to be the end of the world? Maybe some secret lab somewhere had a cure for this shit and they were taking that away from these people? What if Palen hit her dad or mom, and took that chance away form them?

  Tears burned her cold cheeks and she turned to Johnny. Without asking permission, she buried her face in his coat. The hot tears continued to fall, and she cried silently against the chest of a guy she barely knew. Johnny put his arm around her, pulling her in tighter against him. A sudden wave of exhaustion flooded over her. Her body had held it together until now. It had fought the good fight for her, found her a safe place, but it couldn’t go on any longer.

  Her eyelids felt heavy and she could barely keep her eyes from closing. Johnny’s chin pressed against the top of her head, comforting her with the weight and pressure. It was a reminder that someone was there. That he was there. Sada didn’t understand why that was such a comfort to her. It didn’t make any sense. She tried to think it through, processing just the one thought from a day full of extreme circumstances. But her body wouldn’t let her. Her eyes closed and with no warning, she fell asleep.

  A noise floated up to Sada’s ears, waking her. When her eyes opened, she looked up into Johnny’s eyes. For a brief second, she forgot about the noise and got lost in his eyes. There was something about him that was pulling her in. When she realized the noise was coming from her own bag, she finally realized it was her phone. She tore her eyes away from Johnny’s and began to search her bag. Her hand located her phone among her things and pulled it out of the bag. In a rush, her fingers slid the button to the right and she brought the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It wasn’t a call, which Levi was sure Sada would have realized if she hadn’t just woke up. The fact that a phone had worked at all seemed like a miracle when only the day before it was a common occurrence. Levi had held his breath when Sada answered the phone, watching her lips move as she mouthed ‘voicemail’. The word registered in his mind without him even paying any attention to her. It was another little helpful symptom to his condition. The condition that he had spent most of his life hiding and being ashamed of for as long as he could remember. Being different when growing up most often ended up in isolation from the majority of ones peer group. Levi, unfortunately, was no different. His ‘gifts’ as his mother called them, always seemed like curses and caused him to hide away from the real world, nestled in the safety of online gaming.

  Sada eyes flash with terror as Levi watched her. It wasn’t uncommon for him to study someone, closely watching them for clues to decipher who they really were. He often learned things about people that they weren’t willing to say out loud, just by watching them. In the lines on her brow, Levi could see distress. Whatever the message on the phone said, it wasn’t bringing her any joy, but rather the opposite. Levi noted that when Sada was worried, not only did she get lines on her brow and sometimes around her mouth, but her eyes darted back and forth. This was of particular interest to him because sometimes his eyes did the same thing. It was a nervous tick, a thing that happened without his knowledge or control. He found it interesting that they both did the same thing when they were upset. Levi didn’t often find common ground with other people, especially girls.

  Except Char, they had plenty of things in common. She didn’t shy away or get bored when Levi talked about one particular subject for hours. Instead she took interest in what he was saying, most of the time even offering things of value to the conversation. If it was a topic she wasn’t particularly knowledgeable on, Char would ask questions and let Levi teach her about the subject.

  That’s what made her special. That’s what made her someone who was very important to Levi. Char was the only one person like her that he had ever met, just like he was the only one like himself Levi had ever met. This made them special, one of a kind. It was why Levi knew they were destine to be the great love of each other’s lives.

  Tears pour out of Sada’s eyes, like they had before, when her parents had opened the classroom door. Levi thought that was a stupid move. Her father clearly had not calculated the risk of opening the door or worked out any alternate scenarios. But Levi knew he couldn’t say any of that to Sada. It wasn’t right or appropriate. Years of therapy had taught him that much. He didn’t understand the social construct, but he knew he had to obey it.

  “Who was it?”

  Sada couldn’t look at them, though it wasn’t because of the same uncomfortable feeling that surged within Levi each time he tried to make eye contact with someone. He knew this was apart of her emotions. While he saw similar qualities in himself, he knew that this girl was not anything like him. No one was like him, no one that he had ever met, though his mother told him he wasn’t alone. He was not the only one.

  Levi was not dense enough to think he was the only person with Aspergers. Studies and articles across the internet, as well as books and t.v. shows talked about his condition at length. But those things were so separate from him that they never felt real. He wanted to meet someone like him in person, flesh in blood before him. Until then, he would ultimately feel completely alone.

  “Nolan, my boyfriend.”

  “That explains why you look guilty.” Levi spoke without thinking. He wasn’t suppose to do that. Each time he wanted to speak he was suppose to say it in his head first to make sure it was appropriate for the situation. Another lesson from therapy.

  “What?” Sada asked, moving with the turn Palen made in the hummer. No one else spoke, looking between the girl and the boy who just called her out.

  “You look guilty because you have a boyfriend, but you just became romantically involved with Johnny.”

  “We’re not romantically involved.”

  “You fell asleep on his shoulder. You made strong, intense eye contact him. That is romantic involvement.”

  “No, it’s not.” Sada yelled, coming to her own defense since no one else around them would.

  “What did he say?” Frankie asked, trying to steer her away from the conversation.

  “What?” Sada asked, turning to face the solider.

  “What did he say, on the message?”

  Sada looked down at her phone, confirming to Levi that she indeed, did feel guilty. Even though she said the opposite. People sometimes did that, his therapist told him. It was calling lying. Levi thought that Sada was lying to him and herself because she couldn’t bare the truth. What she said next confirmed his hypothesis.

  “He got infected. He called me hours ago and I just got the message.”

  No one spoke. Levi knew that the correct thing to do in this instance was to comfort her in some way, but he had never been good at that. He had never been good at doing what he was suppose to do. It never felt right to him, no matter who told him that it was the right thing to do.

  “Did he say anything else?” Johnny asked, his hand pressed against Sada’s shoulder. He liked her too. Levi could see it in his eyes. They shown like glass, which was due to excess wetness, something that happened when emotions where involved. The corners of his mouth turned up too when he looked at her, another sign of endearment towards someone.

  “He said that the group
he was with, a bunch of kids from my high school, they’re all headed to Wal-Mart here, in Dubuque. Nolan said I should get there, that I’d be safe with them and they’d be nice enough to help me. He said they were in Dubuque earlier today, at the hospital, but it got infested. Just like the school did.”

  “The hospital was suppose to be another safe zone, like the school. It was one of the Army’s other bases in the city,” Frankie said, looking downward. Levi wondered if he was thinking about people he knew, other soldiers who were more than likely dead at this point.

  “So do we go?” Palen asked. He had driven them as far from the school in some direction, but without noticing where they were going. There had never been a plan of where to go next.

  “I think we should.” Sada’s voice quivered, but she had stopped crying again.

  “I don’t see why not, we don’t have a lot of options.” Becky weighed in.

  Levi didn’t say anything. He didn’t have enough information to make a calculated decision and he wasn’t going to guess, not on something this important. Palen looked back at him, taking his eyes away from the road for only a second.

  “What do you think, genius?”

  “I don’t know. There are too many unknown variables.”

  “But if you had to pick one option or the other one?”