Dahmer Flu

by Christopher Cox

  I looked and saw Jon rush around the corner, a large ring of keys clutched in his hand and a heavy backpack weighing on his shoulders. “Jon!” I called. He rushed to the window.

  “Hi Brad, Hi Pandit. There’s people shooting. Did you know that?” He spoke like a frightened child that was trying desperately to seem brave.

  “Yes, I did. Jon, you need to let us out of here, we need to get away.”

  A remorseful look soured his face. “I’m sorry, Brad, I have to do this. I’m keeping people safe,” he said. He started to walk away, but as my only chance for escape, I needed him to stay.

  “How are you doing that, Jon?”

  He stepped back to the window. “I’m keeping the people locked in, it’s for their own protection, so they don’t get out where they can get hurt or dead. That’s my job, it keeps people safe. I’ve done most of them, so I need to finish.”

  “Jon, these people aren’t safe. Look.” I pointed to the far tree line, where the first of the horde had already begun to emerge. I heard Jon draw in a sharp breath; he saw them too. “That changes things, Jon, there’s going to be hundreds of those things, maybe even thousands. These people that you’re locking in, they’re as good as dead if they stay here. If they’re not eaten by the ‘stalkers, they’ll starve to death and that means me and Pandit here, too.” Pandit nodded next to me, seeing where I was headed. The gunfire continued around us, but Jon didn’t seem to notice as he considered what I was saying.

  “But the Colonel says were safe this way, it’s his plan, and he’s always right.”

  “But he’s not here, Jon, but if he was, he’d tell you the same thing, I promise. Listen, you want to protect these people, right?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “And that’s your job, right? To protect those people?”

  “Right!” he said, proudly.

  “Then you need to act, and do your job. Do you know what they do, Jon? Do you know what they do when they get a hold of somebody?”

  “They eat people,” he said, sadly. I’d hit a nerve; I suspected that he had seen it happen, so I pressed on the point.

  “Yes, Jon. But they don’t just eat you, not quick; they bite and claw. It’s horrible and painful and a slow way to die. Do you remember my daughter, you remember Madi?”

  “Yes,” he beamed. “I like her, she’s nice. She hugged me once.”

  I hid my revulsion. “Right, Jon, Madi is nice. But look again, there’s more of them.” More had appeared from the trees, now a wide and advancing wall of flesh. A few shots peppered the ground around the group, with more as the two armies began to notice the new threat and try to split their attention between the living and undead. “When they get here, and they will, they will kill her, Jon. They’ll kill Madi. Do you want that?” I was shouting now, over the increasing volume of nearby gunfire and screams.

  “No! No!” he yelled, “I don’t! Okay, I’ll let you two out.” He started to run towards the administrative complex.

  “Where are you going?” I called after him. “Let us out!”

  He returned to the window, assuming the patience of a father to a young child. “The Colonel doesn’t let me have the key to the jail, he keeps that himself. But I know where it is. I’ll go get it and come back.”

  He started to leave. I called after him, “If you see my bag, bring that, too!” If he heard, he gave no reply. A moment later, he returned to the window, proudly holding a single key in one hand, my satchel in the other.

  “Got it!” he announced as he unlocked the door. Pandit and I poured out; he cut to the left and away from the noise. I cut to the right, towards where I knew I’d find Madi. Jon caught up with me, running hard, and grabbed me by the arm.

  “Wait, please, take me with you. I don’t want to die.” I saw that he was crying. “And I know how to get out of here.” I carefully looked around the corner; the two groups of living humans were now fully aware of the menace that was continuing to emerge from the woods, but couldn’t trust each other enough to join forces against the common threat. Instead, they continued to battle each other while taking only occasional potshots at the undead.

  “Where’s Madi?” I called.

  “This way, I didn’t lock that one yet.” Jon motioned for me to follow. Men ran in different directions, some towards, some away; a young child stood crying in the middle of a courtyard, and was scooped up by a woman who also ran from the sounds of gunfire. Jon stopped one of the men that he seemed to know. “The Colonel told me to give this to you. Unlock the billeting rooms.” The man grabbed the offered keys and ran in that direction; maybe he’d actually let them out, but at least they’d have a chance.

  After a dizzying race, with me following Jon through the winding hallways at breakneck speeds, he stopped suddenly at a door marked ‘Home Economics’. Inside, a group of small girls sad huddled against the far wall, the oldest holding them like a protective mother, the fear in her eyes nearly glowing in the dark. Madi, thankfully, was among them, until she broke from them and ran towards me.

  “Daddy!” She called as she ran, crashing into me in a tight embrace as I kneeled to meet her. “They told me you left, why did you leave?” she sobbed.

  “They made me, honey, but I came back for you as soon as I could. We have to go, now, okay?”

  She started to follow me, but broke off and ran back towards the group of girls.

  “Madi!” I called.

  She stopped in front of the girls. “I’m leaving now, but thank you for taking care of me.” She ran next to a low wall locker and opened it quickly, taking out only her homemade bag, then back to me while the remaining girls looked on. “Okay, now I’m ready,” she said, simply.

  I hauled Madi into my arms and ran. I wasn’t sure where, but I followed Jon as we navigated the confused sea of people; they were trying unsuccessfully to comprehend and combat the two growing threats. The attackers, the human ones, had met with the undead on their flank, and were trying desperately, and failing miserably, to fight both wars at once.

  “This way, fence!” Jon yelled over his shoulder, running towards the far side of the compound away from the battles. As we broke from the relative safety of the buildings, trying to keep them between us and the attackers, I spotted Lisa and another man carrying a still body on a stretcher. They laid him in one of a long row of bodies, some moving, and some eerily still.

  Damn it.

  I called to Jon, “Jon, stop!” He slid to a halt on the grass quickly, and I nearly ran directly into him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Wait here with Madi, I’ll be right back. Stay down, both of you!”

  Madi dropped low to the ground, and looked up at me. “Okay, Daddy. Please hurry.” She wasn’t comfortable, but she listened- she still trusted me.

  I ran to the nurse’s station, where I saw Lisa treating the overflow from the medical beds. They were lying outside of the door and propped against the wall; any available surface was covered with blood or body, both the living and the dead. As I got closer, and navigated over and through the sea of the dead and dying, I saw a mixture of savage bullet wounds and uneven bite marks; the area smelled like burned and rotten flesh. I was more used to the sensation that I would have liked. I saw the first of the undead inside the fence line. The line had broken, the city had fallen.

  I pushed past the men, and now also women, that crowded the door, searching the rooms until I saw Lisa tearing sheets to form makeshift bandages for the man writing on the table. Another man was using all his strength to hold him down and keep him from falling off.

  For the briefest of moments, she looked shocked when she saw me, but she recovered when she remembered what she was trying to do. “Help me tear these!” She shouted over the screams and shouts of the wounded and dying. She thrust the sheets towards my chest, but instead of grabbing them, I grabbed her wrist. She pulled back and shouted, “Let go, I’m working!”

  I didn’t. “It’s too late, Lisa.” I pulle
d her close, and whispered into her ear. “They’re in the gate. All of these people, they’ll be dead soon, and you will be too if you stay here. We need to go. Now.”

  She pulled her arm away from me; her stern voice was betrayed by the quiver of fear. “These are my patients. Now leave.”

  I thought about it, thought about leaving about leaving; running away and leaving her to die. Against my better judgment, I couldn’t. “They’re corpses now, Lisa, each one of them; some of them just don’t know it yet. And staying here won’t change that. I have Madi with me, and we’re leaving. If you want to help someone, help the living.”

  I saw her eyes run from one patient to the next. Many, now, had fresh bite wounds. She knew what that meant as well as I; it was over, and staying would only mean that she would soon be dead, as well, and the world would be short one more doctor. She dropped her eyes, and then dropped the bandages.

  “Madi still has a chance, if you help her. She’s hurt,” I lied. “She caught a stray round in the wrist- she’s bleeding real bad and we can’t stop it.”

  “She did?” She was alarmed and stepped away from the man on the table.

  “Yeah, she’s asking for you. Please.”

  “Okay.” She said. I pulled her by the hand, leading her through the maze of back rooms, hoping I remembered the location of the back door correctly. Fortunately, I had. We burst outside, into the rapidly darkening night. Tracer fire sketched the sky and a white phosphorus flare floated lazily through the cloud, lighting up the ground and casting forbidding shadows from every surface. Ahead, I could see that Madi and Jon had stayed where I left them; they were down low on the ground, waiting.

  I pulled Lisa along, running towards the pair. “Where are we going?” she called.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  We reached the group and Lisa dove to the ground next to Madi, checking her for wounds. There were none, and Madi looked at Lisa with relieved eyes. “Hi, Lisa! Glad you’re safe.” Lisa shot looked at me with hard eyes, but didn’t go back to the medical office.

  Our small group reached the far fence. It was solid, with no gate, and menacing barbed wire at the top. “What now, Jon?” I asked.

  “This was your idea?” Lisa shot at him.

  “Yes, watch,” he smiled, reaching down to the bottom of the metal links, he pulled it up from the soil that barely covered it, then pulled, hard, out and up. There was just enough room for a thin person to crawl under. Fortunately for us, we were all thin these days.

  “Lisa, you first. Madi, you’ll crawl to her next.” The parent in me needed her to be with an adult.

  “Okay.” Lisa dropped to the ground and crawled under the fence, pushing her head into the dirt, her light hair collecting the soil; her backside caught painfully on the lower metal spine, but she managed to pull herself free and kneeled upright on the other side. “Come on, sweetie,” she offered, extending a hand, which Madi accepted, using it to pull herself through. Her small frame slid easily through the opening.

  “Now you,” Jon said. He turned to check over his shoulder and returned with a fixed grim expression. I didn’t want to know what he had seen. I scrambled under the chain links, where my daughter waited with open arms. Lost in the moment, in the joy of having my remaining family relatively safe, I forgot about Jon until he spoke from behind me. “Um… Brad?” I spun around and saw him waiting surprisingly patiently, given the situation. A small band of the ‘stalkers had noticed him and begun shuffling in his direction.

  “Let go,” I told him, and he released the fence. It sprung back into place, and I grabbed the bottom, pulling as hard as I could. It didn’t seem to bend as easily outward, but it was enough for Jon to barely squeeze through. I let go and it once again it sprung to its original shape, only the undead seeing our exit; they howled in an eager anticipation, reaching the fence just moments after Jon was through. The occasional gunshot still echoed off the hills and rock, but it was getting less frequent. Either the living were nearly done killing each other, or the undead had helped.

  We ran, seeing others doing the same, mostly women and children from god-knows-where. None of us dared to speak, so we just ran. We didn’t know where we were going, or what we would find on the way, we could only run. We plunged into the tree line, none of us actually ‘leading’, but each of us following; following each other, and following some primal instinct to get as far away as possible, figuring the only direction that mattered now was ‘away’. It was fully dark, with only the moonlight filtering through the branches above. The uneven terrain slowed us down, and I knew that the stragglers, those lone creatures that hadn’t yet found a horde to join, would be making their way towards the sound. There, too, distance was our greatest ally. Eventually, when each of us were breathing harsh, dry breaths, we slowed to a walk, and then, after we couldn’t walk any further, we stopped to rest far enough away to feel relatively safe. This night would be hard. We were alone, we were vulnerable, we were unarmed; but at least we were alive.

  We sat in a clearing, each of us afraid to speak, until Lisa broke the silence, leaning in close to whisper. “Do you think everyone would have really died?”

  I remembered the creatures that almost got to Jon; she hadn’t seen them. “Yeah. I think most of them did.”

  “Why did you come back for me, after…” Now that she was away from the Colonel she had started to reconsider her perceptions.

  “Lisa,” I stopped her. “People… people are complex.” I pulled Jon and Madi close. “Listen, let’s bed down for the night, sleep if we can. I think we can use it. Lisa, can we sleep in shifts, you and me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll watch first, you three, go ahead and sleep.” I sat on a fallen log and strained every sense as the group settled into the hard ground. Madi sprang up, as if remembering something she had forgotten, and crossed the clearing to me, stepping carefully over Lisa and widely around Jon.

  “Good night, Daddy,” she whispered, with a hug.

  “Night, Baby. See you in the morning.”

  “Daddy? Thanks for coming back for me and Lisa.”

  “Honey, you never have to worry. I’ll always be there for you. Now git.” I gently pushed her towards Lisa and Jon, while I watched the surrounding area, like a shepherd over his flock. Very quickly, Jon began to snore, but not so loudly that I needed to wake him. I could barely hear Lisa and Madi whispering excitedly to one another, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. They stopped whispering, and Lisa stood and crossed to where I sat, giving the sleeping Jon a wide berth.

  “We need to leave,” she said, directly.

  “Why? What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Madi confided something in me, and she doesn’t want you to know, but she’ll talk about it when she’s ready. We need to leave, and we need to leave Jon here. This isn’t a choice; Madi needs you to do this. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. I actually didn’t understand, but I trusted my daughter, if nothing else. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She motioned for Madi, who carefully tip-toed to where we stood. Our group, now only three strong, headed out of the clearing into the woods, walking quietly, each of us sorry for the loss of precious sleep.

  We were almost out of earshot when Jon woke up.

  “Hello? Hello!? Where are you?” I heard him call. We kept walking. “Please, it’s dark. It’s daaark!” He fell silent for a moment, listening. “Come back! I won’t do it again, I promise, I’ve gotten better, I learned my lesson! I promiiiise!” I looked at Madi, who just looked straight ahead, as we walked- she smiled a chilled smile. I was torn between hoping that he deserved what we were doing to him, leaving him in the dark, and also hoping he didn’t.

  People are complex.

  Chapter XVII: Forsaken

  At least when Washington City existed, and even when other survivors were attacking and killing the occupants, there was the small comfort that there were other people left alive- that we weren’t alone i
n the world any more. The world felt darker, but it may have just been I that was darker on the inside; I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. Either way, something had changed.

  When Madi got tired, I carried her, the three of us walking until we could find someplace safe, and putting distance between us and the events that we would relive the next time we slept. Eventually, Madi fell asleep in my arms, resting her heavy head on my shoulder and snoring softly in my ear.

  In time, we found a relatively safe place for the night. The ground was soft, with patches of green growth spreading over the soil. Low tree limbs enveloped the area, filtering out the moonlight and casting lazily waving shadows that could barely be seen against the dark wood’s floor. This is where I stopped, and Lisa, as if knowing my intention, began clearing a little-girl sized area of rocks and debris. I laid Madi in the spot, using her soft bag as a pillow. While the night had a slight chill, the stillness of the air left it warm enough to sleep, although I knew that would change before too long when we reached closer to the north and the seasons turned.

  Lisa and I slept on opposite sides of Madi, instinctively shielding her from the unknown terrors that were hidden in the woods.

  “Night,” Lisa whispered, barely perceptibly.

  “G’night,” I returned, equally quietly; I couldn’t be sure that she heard, even from this close. I lay awake for too long, until I finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, and was soon back in better times, when my family was complete.

  I woke up to high-pitched, terrified screaming…Madi… It was still dark, but I was instantly alert, scrambling to my feet. I, or my body at least, was ready to fight off the horde that I was sure was all around us, or to find Madi from wherever she was screaming; but she was still laying where I had left her, her eyes wide open, her jaw dropped into a terrified expression. I spun around. Nothing moved. We were alone. Lisa, her instincts better than my own, stayed at her level and by her side, consoling her with a panicked urgency.