by Jaron McFall
Julie looked over Denise’s shoulder and Adam hid his face behind Cedric’s head. Cedric felt the movement and said, “Denise, can you get some extra chairs for the fold-out table. I think Adam and I are going to join you with cards. Although I don’t like Rummy, can we play Uno?”
Ross woke up, his head still slightly hurt, but the rest of his body was functional. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, he had lost service, but it still made a good watch. He walked to where Sue was asleep and woke her up, “Come on Sue, it’s one o’clock. Are you ready to do this?”
Sue got to her feet and they walked to the far wall, “We should be able to break through this wall. The one you hit was an outside wall and a lot tougher. This one is just drywall.”
Ross nodded and knocked on the wall. The last thing he wanted to do was to hit a stud. He found the center between two of the studs by listening for the dull thud of a hollow wall. He kicked it hard. It broke through with ease and through the second sheet of drywall beyond. He pushed his hands through it and pulled pieces away. When the hole was large enough, he did the same to the second, but when he looked down through the hole into the hallway next to the office, there it was.
One of the infected was trapped in the hall. He pulled back through the wall and looked at Sue. He shook his head and pointed through the hole.
Sue stuck her head through and saw the man, large and covered in blood looking back up at her with fixed eyes. She could see a yellow-green scab covering half his face. She then pulled back, “Crud. How are we going to do this?”
Ross looked around the top of the cooler and found a piece of display material. It was a hollow piece of metal with wire product hangers on every side. Ross remembered it as an old lanyard display rack. “We fight our way when we can’t run,” he said coldly with a vague hint of fear. “Yesterday a customer said that hitting one in the head hard enough would bring them down, and that’s what I’ll do. When I do, then you climb down and we run. Got it?”
Sue’s face went white, “You can’t. You saw what they can do.”
“They,” he paused and before continuing, “but this is just one. I can take him.” Ross used his foot to press the metal wires on his crude weapon flat and went to the hole in the wall. “Wish me luck,” he said just before he jumped on top of the lockers in the hallway.
Sue ran to the hole to see Ross as he jumped from the top lockers to the ground and swung his weapon at the man. It made contact with his shoulder and there was a loud crack. The man didn’t even seem to notice as he lurched forward at Ross.
Ross jumped to the side but was still hit by the man’s flailing arm, which bruised his ribs. Ross swung again at the man’s leg and broke his knee, but again the man did not show any sign of pain. He kept jumping at Ross, though he was slower and fell when he put his weight on the leg Ross had hit.
“Hit him in the head, Ross!” Sue screamed from her perch on top of the freezer. Ross lost his focus for a moment when he felt pain in his forehead. His wound had reopened when he had jumped and had been pouring fresh blood into the apron. Ross took a deep breath and looked at the infected man who had just fallen to the floor. Ross closed his eyes for one second before he swung his metal club down onto the infected man’s head. He felt the skull give way under the blow and he just knew the man would not rise from this attack.
He looked up at Sue and waved his hand, motioning her to come down. Sue lowered herself out of the hole, and Ross grabbed her as she let go and fell. He set her down and then quickly turned toward the door. He saw through the glass; to his horror there were two more standing just beyond the door. He looked at Sue who was staring intently through the glass, “Do you still think this will work?” She asked turning her gaze to him.
“It has to,” he said walking to the office doorway halfway down the hall. “We find you a weapon in the office. Don’t hesitate like I did to hit them in the head. It almost killed me,” Ross was beginning to type the code into the office door.
Once the door was opened and they were inside, Sue began to open the safe, “They won’t miss what little money is in here,” she said pulling out the bills.
“Let me guess,” Ross said laughing, “severance pay?”
Sue joined in his laughter, though they were both only laughing to ease the tension. Neither one was in the temperance to really smile right now. After she had cleared the safe out, she went to the first aid kit and started removing its contents. “Come over here, Ross,” Sue beckoned. When Ross got to where she was, Sue began again, “We need to clean your wound out. Maybe we can get it closed up good.”
“I don’t know,” Ross teased, “I kind of like this new bandana I have.”
Sue responded by smacking him on the shoulder before taking the apron off his head and commanding, “Sit down across from me.” She could see where it had reopened. She poured alcohol on the gash and put antibiotic cream on it before placing a few gauze pads on it. She then topped it off by wrapping an Ace bandage around his head tightly. Sue then dropped two pills in his hand, “These will help the headache and pain in the gash,” she said when he looked at them.
“What are they?”
Sue stood up as she said, “Migraine meds. It will be like taking a Tylenol, ibuprofen, and caffeine tablets at the same time. Relieves pain fast.”
Ross obediently took the pills. He hated swallowing pills without something to drink but his options were very limited; take them now without water, or don’t take them at all.
Sue grabbed the broom from the corner of the office and screwed the head of it off. “Is this a good enough weapon?” She asked looking at Ross. “It's solid wood.”
Ross nodded as he picked up his own weapon and began pacing the office. Sue had just gotten her purse and began moving all the useless items from it to the counter and putting the money and first aid supplies in it. After she fastened it closed, she threw the strap over her head so it held to her like a messenger bag, “I don’t want to lose the money,” she said when Ross looked at her.
“It’s not that. I was just wondering if we make it to the car, what good would paper money do us. Everything has probably fallen or will probably fall. I’m not sure that money will get us anything,” he said with a grim look.
“I would rather have it to find out we can’t use it than to not have it and find out we can,” Sue said.
Ross pulled Sue’s broomstick toward him and examined it. “I don’t think you should swing this. Want to trade? I think this would do you better.”
Sue reached for the metal rack and looked at it. She did think that she would have an easier time using this, rather than the broomstick. She looked worried as she said, “Will you be able to use the stick?”
Ross nodded and said, “Do we have a deal?”
Sue nodded to and Ross immediately broke the broomstick in two by jamming it into the safe door. Sue looked puzzled at him but then realized that as a broomstick it was too long to swing. She realized that as two shorter sticks he would be able to use it much more effectively. Plus, now, the ends of the broom were like sharpened stakes.
Ross started to walk to the door of the office but turned to talk to Sue, “I will lead us out. Follow my lead. We start to your car if we can, if not then mine. If we can’t make it to either, then we run, follow me. We will find somewhere safe. Just so I know, can you climb a tree if we have to?”
Sue shook her head and said, “That would get us nowhere. If we climb a tree we are stuck for good.”
Ross nodded and said, “Are you ready?”
“I guess I have to be,” she responded and they walked to the door. They could both feel the excitement of what they were going to do, though it was unwanted excitement. Ross peered through the glass of the hallway door and said, “I only see the two, but there may be more around any corner. Keep your eyes open, and if you see anything, swing your club.”
Sue nodded once as he pulled open the door and ran out into the store. To Ross, everything seemed to be moving
in slow motion, his eyes adjusting and focusing on everything far too quickly. He felt his legs moving faster than they ever had. He turned his head over his shoulder to see that Sue was not able to keep up and was falling behind.
He looked back ahead of him and saw the two infected ahead. Ross tightened the grip on his sticks just before he was on them and swung. The stick in his left hand made contact with one of the men and he stumbled. He punched the other in the back of the head and then smacked it on top of the head with one of his sticks. Neither one of the men seemed to notice they had been attacked, but simply turned and started for Ross. He started backing away swinging his stick madly hitting the men on the head with as much force as he could, but the sticks were not able to deliver a hard enough blow. An idea struck Ross that he didn’t have time to think about, just act.
He rammed the stick as hard as he could like a spear through one of the infected men’s mouth and out of the back of his head. The man collapsed. Ross hadn’t noticed that the other man was almost on top of him when a loud, low-pitched thud came from the man’s head. Sue had just arrived and had hit him with her metal weapon.
Sue grabbed Ross’s arm and started pulling him, running toward the door. Ross stumbled at first but regained his footing and ran with her. As soon as they exited the store, they saw what kind of damage had really been brought on. The streets were littered with bodies and wreckage. Cars were smoking at every cross section where they had wrecked. No living creature, infected or not, could be seen. It only took moments for the scene to sink in before Ross and Sue were running for her car. She reached in her pocket and pulled out the remote clicking the button to unlock it. The car was covered in filth and blood, but otherwise OK. They jumped into the car: Sue in the driver’s side and Ross in the passenger’s side. Sue cranked the engine to life and immediately sped out of the parking lot.
Every bit of Ross’s energy was gone. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything substantive for almost twenty-four hours and had lost a lot of blood. He reclined his seat back and closed his eyes. “Where to now,” Ross asked.
“Wherever we can.”
Ross fell asleep while Sue drove. While she was driving, Sue saw the destruction of the city. People lay dead in the streets. Others were shambling about, seemingly mindless. She didn’t know what to think anymore. Sue pondered at where to go, her house was almost an hour away and the streets were dangerous. She needed somewhere close and enclosed. Sue pulled her small car onto the highway to see that there were roadblocks set up everywhere, the policeman that had manned them were nowhere to be seen, but some of the lights still flashed on top of the cars. She drove onto the shoulder of the road to avoid them and kept going.
After a few minutes of driving, she pulled into the parking lot of a Shell Station and up to the pump. Her tank was almost empty. She tried all the pumps but nothing came out of any of them. Electricity, she thought as she realized the digits were not popping up on the screen. How could she get gas if the pumps would not activate? She got back into the car and shut the door, which woke Ross up.
“Where are we?” He asked as he rubbed his eyes.
“The Shell just outside of town. The pumps won’t work.”
Ross looked around and seeing nobody, opened his door. “I’ll be back,” he said getting out of the car. He walked around, the metal rack gripped in his hand, and peered inside the station. The windows were broken out and the door half off its hinges. He took a tentative step inside and yelled, “Hello?”
There was no answer, so he walked in looking everywhere. He saw what he was looking for on a shelf next to the counter. He picked up the package and walked swiftly out into the parking lot as he opened the siphon and pulled it from its package. He waved for Sue to drive the car to where he stopped. Ross busted the window out of an abandoned car. He popped the gas door and pulled the cap off. Sue did the same for her car. They siphoned the gas out of two cars to fill Sue’s tank. As they were getting back into the car, they saw a man running down the street.
He wasn’t running like the infected had but they did not want to chance it so Sue took off, leaving the man to his fate. In the rear view, Ross could see the man running into the parking lot of the gas station. He tried to start several cars before a small group of others came into view. He recognized the way this group was running and was thinking that the man was not going to make it when an old, beaten up truck drove straight through the middle of the crowd and onto the road. He had managed to find a vehicle. Ross watched the truck through the mirror, but after only a half mile, it swerved off the road and hit the guardrail.
“I bet he was bitten,” Sue said adjusting the windshield mirror. “From what I saw on the news it takes thirty or so minutes to begin to feel the effects. He must have been bitten before we saw him. Good thing we didn’t stop for him or we would be dead too.”
Ross didn’t respond but stared straight forward. They drove in silence for a while before Sue saw the Rogersville exit. She thought for a moment which direction they should go and then passed the exit up.
“Where are you going? Isn’t your home that way? In Rogersville?” Ross asked.
“We are going to Sneedville.” Sneedville, Ross knew, was a small town tucked away in the mountains. “It’s a lot less populated. We should be able to find somewhere to hide there,” Sue said looking at Ross. “I hope my family has already barred the house up. I hope they’re safe. I don’t want to risk them opening it up for me.
Fifteen minutes later, they came to another roadblock, but this one couldn’t be driven around, and it was the easiest way to Sneedville. The only two good routes were either up the four-lane highway on this mountain or the two-lane back road, covered in switchbacks, on the other mountain in Mooresburg. The four-lane was definitely better, but she turned the car around and drove until she saw a house with a garage door open. There was an Oldsmobile parked inside it but there were no infected in sight. “Ross,” Sue said tentatively, “Do you think you can get that car out of the garage safely?”
Ross followed Sue’s gaze and saw the car she was talking about. He knew what she was thinking. Park in the brick garage for the night. Ross nodded and said, “Get me closer, into the driveway. I’ll get it out.”
Sue pulled into the long driveway close to the garage. Ross jumped out of the car, metal club in hand, and walked to the car. It was unlocked. He jumped inside it and locked the doors. He saw Sue pulling away and turned underneath the dashboard. A trick he had learned in school was how to jump a starter on a car using a set of jumper cables, but he never learned how to hotwire it. He saw that there were at least thirty wires and had no clue which ones to cut and jump.
He looked around the garage and saw a set of jumper cable hanging from the wall, that’s more like it, he thought as he jumped out of the car and popped the hood. Using the jumper cables he sparked the battery to the starter solenoid and the car fired to life. He smiled broadly. If this had been a newer car, that wouldn’t have worked. But old carbureted cars were easy.
Cedric heard a car horn blaring in the background. He turned to see three infected men running at him, and with a pain in his stomach, realized he did not have his club. It was in the Oldsmobile. He turned and ran to the car door, but when it had started, the doors automatically locked.
“Crap!” He shouted as he slammed the hood shut. With his elbow, he hit the glass as hard as he could and it cracked. He hit it again and it shattered, but he was too late, the infected were at the opening to the garage. There was not enough room for all three to come at him at once, so two filed in behind the other and came at him. Ross kicked at the front man as hard he could in the groin, but it barely slowed him. He reached through the shattered window and swung the car door open, which hit the man, but it too had no effect. It did, however, lodge him against the wall.
Ross then found his hand on the table at the back of the garage, an ashtray in his hand. He picked it up, his hand cupped over the glass and struck the man in the forehead with
it.
The man stumbled backward and collapsed on the man behind him. Ross used this moment to look on the table and found a bag of golf clubs leaning on the side of it. Ross pulled the one with the largest head out. He swung it at the last man standing which took him to the ground. Ross then hit each one on the top of the head for good measure before he walked to the car and climbed inside. He drove it out of the garage and into the grass as Sue pulled up.
She jumped out of the car and screamed, “Oh my god. I was so scared. Are you OK? I felt so helpless.”
Ross looked above him on the sun visor and pulled the garage door remote off. He threw it to Sue and said, “I’m fine. Took them down easy.”
“It didn’t look so easy when you locked yourself out.”
Ross laughed and went to drag the men out of the garage. When he completed this task, Sue backed her car into the garage and closed the door. “Want to see if they have any food?” Sue asked rubbing her stomach. She, like Ross, hadn’t eaten in over a day now.
Ross got himself a new golf club since his was now bend out of shape. He then handed Sue two golf clubs and said, “Do you play golf?”
“No,” she said simply, “I always took large clumps of dirt out.”
“Good. That means you can hit hard enough. Just aim for the head, not the ground this time.”
The door into the house from the garage was locked, but Ross kicked it open and looked around. The house seemed to be empty. They made their way through the hallway and into the living room. There was no sign of people still in the house. Sue walked into the next room while Ross looked at the pictures on the wall. A family of five should be here, but where were they? Then he saw a picture of the oldest son from the family portrait with his “Ole’ Miss” jersey on and realized he was probably gone to college.
“Come in here Ross,” Sue called from the next room. “This is the kitchen.”
Ross walked into the next room where Sue had gone and saw a note on the counter that read: