Zombie Apocalypse Series (Book 1): The Fall of Man

by Jeff DeGordick

  Sarah held David by the shoulders and kept him away from Pete, still keeping the island between them. Pete was crazed, the thick froth still coming out of his mouth, making ungodly noises that churned in his throat. She aimed the gun at his head, but he was moving around so much that she didn't think she could make the shot. When she was convinced that he really was stuck, she instead took the risk and ran with David back to the front door.

  She crouched down and grabbed fistfuls of Kailey's clothes and used her adrenaline-fueled strength to move her body out of the way. Kailey rolled onto her back and Sarah jerked the door open, escaping with David. She slammed the door shut behind her, but just before she did, she caught one last glimpse of the inside of the house and saw Pete in the kitchen. He yanked on his hand so hard that it sliced itself right off the knife, splitting it in two.

  Sarah and David hurried down the steps and along the gravel pathway, heading up to the road.

  A moment later, the doorframe smashed apart and the front door flew open as Pete barreled through it. He stumbled down the steps and fell onto the gravel, thrashing about before shoving himself up to his feet again.

  They sprinted to the road and ran away from the farm toward Durham.

  Behind them, Pete kept coming. There was no end to the road in sight—nowhere to hide—and he was gaining on them.

  The undead never seemed to run out of breath, but Sarah could already feel her lungs start to seize. Her legs got tight and she knew she couldn't go on much farther. She kept glancing over her shoulder as she ran, watching Pete's bloodied figure get closer like a looming shadow.

  She could hear David wheezing badly, and saw his chest heaving up and down as he ran. His eyes were wide and he was scared. She had one round left in the gun, and she would have to use it now. She knew she would have to stop, turn around, aim, and fire, and she would have to make it count. If she didn't, that would be the end for them. But the idea was terrifying, and she couldn't work up the nerve to do it yet. But the longer she waited, the more Pete closed in.

  She kept glancing at David as they ran, but he just stared straight ahead. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn't have the words. There was no apology big enough that she could give him in that moment.

  Suddenly, David's expression changed. His wide eyes started to fall back to normal and he slowed down.

  "Keep running!" she yelled.

  But he slowed down even more. Eventually, he stopped completely and she knew that this was her one and only chance. They both turned around and faced Pete. She took a square stance and aimed the gun at him.

  His body bounded up and down with a slight left to right sway with each step. She knew she would have to hit him right in the brain, otherwise it would do nothing.

  Her arms were shaking and she didn't know if she could make the shot.

  David was calm the whole time. He took a few steps toward Pete, closing his eyes and holding up his hands, as if telling him to stop.

  Sarah's finger started to squeeze the trigger, ready to give it that final amount of pressure at the right time.

  And then to her surprise, Pete slowed down. He came to a stop in front of them and stared at them for a moment.

  She aimed at his head and he was still. She had a clear shot, but she waited. She looked at David out of the corner of her eye and watched him take another step toward Pete, his hands still held out. His eyes were squeezed tight like he was concentrating very hard.

  Pete gave them one last look before he turned and walked off toward a field. David concentrated until Pete was far away, then he opened his eyes and lowered his arms. Sarah lowered her arms, too, and tucked the gun into her pants.

  "What did you do?" she asked.

  "I made him go away. Just like before."

  She fell to her knees and hugged him tight.

  "That wasn't like before," she said. "You could never do that when you were scared, when you were running like that."

  "I'm getting better," he said.

  The two of them exchanged no more words and just hugged for a long while. They headed off down the road again looking for somewhere to hide. There were no more buildings or structures that they could see, but they came upon a storm drain near the side of the road at the edge of some woods that funneled water from a creek under the road. The creek was dried up and no water flowed through it, so the drain was okay to stay in for the night. It wasn't much, and they were exposed, but they were running on fumes and had to rest.

  They huddled together inside of it. Sarah remembered the last time she was in a storm drain. It was the night that everything changed, for the bad, and for the good. And just like last time, David was still with her. Come hell or high water, he always would be.

  16

  DURHAM

  It had been an unseasonably cold and stormy night. The rain washed through the creek and into the storm drain, causing their shoes and bottoms to get soggy. They sat shivering for a long time, praying for the rain to stop. Despite all the bad things that happened to them on their journey, somehow there was still hope left in Sarah. She had always been the one to be skeptical of Noah's Ark, or change her mind on going there, but she felt a change inside her hiding with David in the storm drain that night. It reminded her that as long as she had him, she would always have hope. He had all but given up, thinking of nothing more than surviving the night, and he insisted on a prayer to God to see them through the night and get some sleep. He said nothing of Noah's Ark or the bandits, and in that moment he only asked for the two of them to be safe. The rain abated eventually and they got a small amount of sleep. No one had found their way to them in the night, living or dead, and whether it was by the grace of God or by random chance, they lived to see the dawn of a new day.

  In the morning, the sun came out in glorious fashion and it was as beautiful a day as they'd ever seen, as if the night before had never happened. All of their supplies that they brought into the house had been lost when they fled, and the only thing that she had with her was the gun with a single cartridge left in it. They walked out into the woods next to the storm drain and stretched their legs, looking for something that they could forage to eat, but they came up unsuccessful. No berries or even some mushrooms were anywhere to be found.

  They went up to the side of the road and sat there. They were on a long straightaway and could see anything coming for miles, so they felt safe for the moment. David had been sad the whole morning, not really wanting to talk much. For a while they just sat there, looking out at the peaceful scenery. Finally, Sarah broke the silence.

  "I'm really sorry," she said.

  "It's okay," he said. "We tried our best."

  "Yeah, we did," she said. "I'm so proud of you. You did really well."

  He just sat there in silence, staring at his feet. She wrapped her arms around him in an embrace, but he didn't reciprocate, just sitting there with his arms around his knees.

  "So, are we going all the way back to Roanoke or are we just finding a place here?" he asked.

  "Well," she considered, "we could do either one of those if you want. Is that what you want, though?"

  "What choice do we have?"

  She carefully considered her next words. If she decided to say what was in her head, there was no taking it back. But she was sure. "We could always keep going to Noah's Ark."

  He looked at her. "How?"

  "We've come this far. After everything we've been through, somehow, miraculously, we're still alive. It's so dangerous out here, and if I would have known that, I never would have left the townhouses. But we're almost there. We're so close. Even I can't let that go. I thought I could, but I can't. And I can't stand to see you spend every day unhappy because we're stuck in those stupid townhouses. There are many ways that I can put you in harm's way. It's more than just letting you outside."

  "But what about the bandits?"

  "We could at least see. We can see what we're up against, and if it's too dangerous, we can turn ba
ck. But if there's a way, if there's a single way, I want to take it. Don't you?"

  He smiled. "I do."

  "Well then we better get started. We don't have anything to eat, and we need to get going. Once we're closer to Durham, I'm sure we'll find something. But we need to be careful. The closer we get, the more bandits we'll probably run into. If anything happens, anything at all, you stay behind me and you do what I say, when I say it. Understand?"

  He nodded.

  "I can't promise anything, though. You know that, right?"

  He nodded.

  "If it's too dangerous, and it could be, we have to turn back."

  "Yeah, I know."

  "Okay."

  The two of them set off down the road. They had no map, but she knew the rest of the way from here. The I-85 would lead them over the river and into Durham, and straight into bandit territory, if what Gary had said was true. The road was quiet, and there was no sign of bandits, zombies, or anyone else.

  When they got close to the interstate, they started to see signs pointing the way. They were finally out of the country and back into more populated areas. They passed some empty stores on the way, but all of them were picked clean, more than she had ever seen before. Having had a great dinner the night before, they could last for a little while without food or water, but they would need to find some.

  They came to the I-85 and it stretched over their heads on a skyway to the east and west. They followed it along on the ground toward Durham, not wanting to go on it or even get too close to it yet, for fear of any bandit presence that controlled it. They kept a good distance from it and continued on, but they didn't spot anyone.

  After another half an hour, where the interstate had sloped down and stretched across the ground for a few miles, they came to the very fringes of Durham. They passed some suburbs and came to a dense cluster of streets that were filled with old ransacked stores, each one, surprisingly, entirely free of any supplies at all. More curiously than that, most of the stores had been stripped down to the very walls, any shelves or other scraps of metal, missing. Then they turned a corner at an intersection right near the interstate and found out why.

  In the distance, the I-85 ran back up into a skyway that stretched over top of the river and into Durham beyond. Under the bridge, there was a solid wall at least fifteen feet high that spanned as far as the eye could see, made entirely of scrap metal. It ran along in front of the river and Sarah could see a few bandits patrolling along it in the distance. It was too tall to scale and it didn't look like there was any way around it. That just left the bridge.

  It looked like it extended up about eighty feet in the air and ran for half a mile or so before it came back down to ground level on the other side of the river, and the small portion of it that she could see from where she was, was filled with bandits. They swarmed around in the hot day like bees in a hive. She could see some abandoned cars, tents and little shacks on the upslope of the bridge, as well as what was at the very edge of the top, but as for what was on the bridge for the half-mile it ran at its peak, she was in the dark.

  The bandits looked just as savage and rough as the first group that they had encountered. They were all gaunt, but tough men covered in filth and tattered clothing. They wore dirty jeans and greasy t-shirts, or no shirts at all. Most of their heads were shaved bald, with some sporting the familiar filth-caked patches of hair. She even spotted one that had a mohawk. They were all armed, pistols or rifles strapped to their sides or backs, and several of them carried machetes or hunting knives. And she wasn't entirely sure, but she thought she might have even seen one with a bandolier of grenades on him.

  Sarah and David heard a noise behind them down the street. They took refuge in an old ice cream parlor and hid behind the counter at the back, poking their heads up to watch.

  "Look at him go!" a voice called from around the corner. "Determined little fucker, ain't he?"

  A short bandit with the small but toned muscles of a lightweight boxer walked past the front of the store, dragging a length of string behind him. The other end of it came into view and Sarah and David saw that it was attached to a severed human arm. The rigid fingers pointed up at the sky in a twisted claw as the arm was dragged across the rough pavement.

  Another arm came into view, this one gray and cracked. Brittle fingernails clawed their way across the pavement, pulling a zombie along after the severed arm. The zombie was missing its legs, as if they were hacked off, and it uselessly dragged itself across the ground, its eyes wide and its mouth slung open, trying to get to the meal in front of it. The man howled laughter and another bandit came into view behind the zombie, carrying a machete stained with dark blood.

  "Best fun I've had all week," the one in the front said.

  "More than when we killed those two gooks?" the other one asked.

  The short bandit considered. "No, I think you're right," he said with a wide, goofy smile. "That one takes the cake."

  The bandit behind the zombie walked up to it and it tried to turn around, spinning its torso on the pavement. It reached one of its arms out to grab him as its other arm dragged itself across the ground. The bandit stepped on its outstretched arm and pinned it to the ground, then bent over and hacked at the zombie's arm at the shoulder with his machete.

  The zombie stared up at him as he did it, its expression just as dead as its eyes and soul underneath.

  The blade came down with sickening whacks and its flesh and bones came apart, exposing each layer of its gruesome necrosis. The arm came off completely and the bandit picked it up and held it in front of him like a trophy. He laughed and took a step back, throwing the arm at the zombie's head. It bounced off and tumbled along the street.

  "Come on," the first bandit said. "If we don't get back soon, Jericho will have our heads."

  "Right."

  The one in front started walking, dragging the human arm behind him. The zombie crawled after it again using its one remaining arm to drag itself along the ground, and the other bandit followed behind. They all disappeared from view, their jeers and laughter carrying on in the distance.

  Sarah and David stared at the empty space in front of them in stunned silence.

  "We can't do this," she said. "It's too dangerous."

  "But Mom," he protested.

  "We're not arguing about this. Remember what I told you?" She grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the front of the store. "We're leaving."

  He started to cry, but she didn't care; she wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. Gary told them it would be bad, but she had no idea it would be this bad. There was no way they could make it over the fence, and there was no way they could make it over the bridge. And if they got caught, she was starting to get a pretty good idea what would happen to them.

  They crept along the storefronts slowly, making sure the coast was clear, and they started to snake their way back through the clustered streets where they came from. They turned the corner at an intersection with the bridge at their backs and stopped by a row of trees next to the sidewalk.

  She knelt down to David and hugged him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry."

  He just nodded as thick tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn't like it, but he understood.

  "Ah come on, that's all I have!" a voice said behind them toward the bridge.

  They looked up at the bridge and saw an old man wearing a tawny cloak pushing a shopping cart. A bandit stood next to him, rifling through his cart.

  "Well what the fuck good are you?" the bandit said.

  "You know how it is," the old man replied. "Sometimes things are slow out here. It's not easy getting all this stuff."

  The bandit shoved the old man. "Come on, you old piece of shit. We let you come back and forth through here, and all you got is this junk? You don't even got any jerky?" He reached back into the cart and took a handful of items.

  "Hey, hold on now! You can't take all that stuff."

  The bandit tossed the item
s back in the cart and turned away. "Aw, it's all horse shit anyway."

  Another bandit stepped up to the first one and punched him on the shoulder. "Lay off the crazy old coot. You can't fucking harass the scroungers. They're the ones that get us our shit."

  "I know, I know," he said. He muttered something about jerky and walked off.

  The man in the cloak just waved an arm and bent over his cart, re-sorting everything.

  "Go on, get out of here," the second bandit said to the old man.

  He nodded and pushed his cart down the bridge, passing the other bandits without incident. When he got to the bottom, he took a right and disappeared past the empty storefronts a couple streets over from Sarah and David.

  "Come on," Sarah said to David, impulsively grabbing his arm and running up to the next intersection in the direction the old man was going.

  "Where are we going?" he asked, trying to pull away from her.

  "Come on," she said. "Don't argue."

  The old man crossed the intersection down the block from them, muttering to himself as his metal cart rattled over the stony pavement.

  Sarah pointed out a pub just past the old man. "You see that building over there that says McGee's Tavern over the door?" she asked David.

  "Yeah, I see it," he said.

  "Stay right here for now, but when I go in there, run across the street quietly and meet me in there. But make sure there's no bandits around."

  He nodded, still confused.

  She crept down the block and stalked the old man like a cat. He didn't hear her coming at all. She came up right behind him and grabbed him by the scruff of his cloak and pressed her gun to the back of his head.

  "Don't make a sound," she said quietly.

  The man cried out in alarm, then he turned his head toward her and started laughing.

  "Hey, I said shut up!" she said.

  He laughed harder. "What are you going to do, rob me? You wouldn't be the first!"