by Jaron McFall
The next noise came a half a second later, a metallic clunk twenty times louder than the chains had been. The tires of the Silverado slung mud as Charlie pressed the accelerator and the truck shot onto the bridge. The truck made contact with bodies and the sound echoed in Denise’s head. To her, it was like she was still out in the rain and each thunk on the truck was a bite on her skin. After only a few moments, she fainted.
Cedric sat in the crate in the truck with his eyes closed, trying to picture what was happening at the bridge. He heard the first horn blow, then the second, third, and fourth. He knew this meant the sound of the bridge should come next. He waited. What’s wrong? He thought to himself, she should have already pulled the release. He then heard a scream that he knew instantly was Denise.
He pressed his shoulder hard on the top of the crate breaking it open and jumped out to see her running for the truck. Everything was going right, but why did she scream? He asked himself in his head. He then saw the bridge smack the ground and heard a horn blow behind him. He turned to see his mother in her Jeep behind him waving her hand for him to come get in the Jeep with her. He was out of his box with no protection.
Cedric shook his head and jumped back over the tailgate. He felt the jerk of the truck as it took off after the others. He looked back to see the shocked expression on his mother’s face through her windshield as she also pressed the accelerator of her vehicle and began to drive. Cedric pulled his pipe up from his belt and readied himself. “There,” he said as he began swinging his pipe knocking the infected across the head. He could feel the force from the moving truck add to his swings and it rattled his arm.
Cedric fell sideways some as the truck took its turn onto the road. The thick welding jacket he was wearing cushioned his fall. He sat back down as he felt the truck accelerate to normal speed and the rain felt like needles on his face. He maneuvered the crate to pull it out from under him and threw it out of the truck bed and onto the road. It shattered as it hit the pavement. Cedric began checking his equipment to make sure it was all still intact. After another five minutes of driving, Jack’s truck and the Jeep came into view. They caught up with the other two and they all maintained the same speed driving.
Cedric had been in the truck bed for more than twenty-five minutes before he finally noticed they were almost to the place he had thought of. He saw the other three vehicles turn off into a large parking lot that completely circled a huge building, but this wasn’t the area Cedric was interested in. Almost there. He kept thinking to himself. He felt the truck take a turn and then speed up.
The tires of the Ford F-150 slid across the wet asphalt as the truck came to a sudden stop. Cedric jumped out of the bed of the truck holding his steel pipe. His silhouette was outlined in the darkness by the moonlight. Cedric’s fingers wrapped around the handle of a stout knife on his belt. He yanked it from its sheath. The cold autumn rain had soaked through his welding jacket and was making his entire body shiver. Goosebumps ran up his back and down his arms.
Cedric ran to a metal door set into a brick wall and slid the knife in the crack just above the hasp of the door. He flicked down with the knife as he pulled on the knob. A sharp pop sounded as the hasp broke and the door swung open. He ran inside, the light strapped to his head shining down the side hallway of a mechanics shop. He took a glance around but didn't see anyone. Cedric pulled a stick from his pocket and jammed it into the hole on the outer clasp of the door so it couldn’t be closed. He heard the tires of Ben’s truck squeal to announce that it was pulling away.
"First step," he whispered to himself as he slid the knife back into its sheath. Without wasting a second, Cedric put the section of pipe in his mouth like a horse’s bit. He stuck his foot on the wall of the hallway and his other foot on the opposite side. He began pushing himself up the walls using the short width of the hallway to his advantage. When he had reached the top, he undid a hook from a belt loop which was connected to a piece of chain wrapped around his middle. He secured the hook around a thick electrical conduit that ran along the ceiling before he settled into a better position. He grasped his short steel pipe in his hand again. He felt his heart pounding in his chest. Cedric took a deep breath, pounded the conduit with his pipe, and yelled, "Come out everyone!"
He paused. For a few seconds, he didn't hear anything. A small moan came next though. After that came what sounded like twenty drunken men running through the shop knocking tools and metal from the tables and shelves.
Cedric let out a sigh as he whispered, "And that's step two."
He pulled a small red flare from his back pocket and struck it on the wall before carefully dropping it right in front of the door.
Jack drove his truck in the direction Ben had just driven from. He pulled the truck about fifteen feet away from the building and cracked his window about an inch and waited. He then saw the sign he was waiting for: the light from a flare. Jack yelled, “Hey, I’m out here!” He then started hitting his horn in short bursts and continued yelling short sentences. After a very short moment in time, the door rammed against the outside wall as it was forcefully shoved open.
Jack pressed the accelerator lightly and slowly drove away, keeping the infected only a few feet behind him. He drove onto the road continually looking in all his mirrors to make sure that he did not lose them yet. He kept his slow pace for almost two miles before he floored the accelerator and shot off as fast as he could. “Whelp, that’s my part in this road show,” Jack said to himself as he stuck a cigar in his mouth and lit it.
Cedric heard Jack yelling from just outside. He glanced down to see if the infected would react. Just as he had planned they all began running after what they thought was food.
Once all the infected in sight were gone, Cedric undid his safety chain and lowered himself down. He slid his shoes back on and pulled the stick from the clasp, closing the door. He picked up the flare and made his way through the shop looking in every direction with his pipe raised for a fight. It seemed his plan had worked and nobody was left inside. He left the shop area and climbed the stairs to a carpeted hallway with rooms lining its length.
Cedric opened every door to make sure every classroom was cleared. This building was his high school vocational building. The one place he knew better than his own home; the reason he knew how to get through the side entrance without a key and that he could climb up the hallway. He used to climb the hallway and drop eggs on people. Sneak in at night and hide Spam in the vents—until they busted him and installed an alarm, that is. Every typical senior prank he did was in the vocational building.
He made his way upstairs to the classrooms above the shops. He again opened every door and looked inside. Three classrooms down he saw a body on the ground, but when he checked it out, it was definitely dead. It seemed to Cedric that the building was completely clear. Some people were using it as a shelter the first couple of days, but they were now chasing Jack. And they had a ton of stuff left behind. Cedric pulled a CB radio from his belt and turned it on to channel six.
Charlie was sitting with his truck running. His in-dash CB radio clicked and he heard his brother’s voice say, “Come on. I think it's empty. I checked every room. Are you ready for pickup?”
Charlie picked up the microphone for his CB and pressed the button on the side, “Yeah. We are ready out here for the next step. Jack is long gone from the school and we are sitting here waiting on you. You have one minute to get back to the door. Sound good? By the way, when you’re done speaking you're supposed to say over. Over.”
Cedric‘s voice came back over the radio, “Is this really a good time for a lesson? Yeah, one minute sounds good. I am at the staircase right now. I have one dead body in here. It's mostly gone but not infected. We can take it outside in the morning. Don’t forget the plan. Over. Happy?”
Charlie smiled as he said, “Good. One minute then. Over and out.” He placed the microphone back onto the holder and turned his truck lights on. He drove toward the building. He loo
ked in his mirrors to see that Ben and Eliza were following him, as planned. As soon as he pulled in front of the building he blew his horn once and then leaned over to the passenger side door to open it.
Cedric came out of the side door he had entered through and shoved the stick back into the clasp. He then yelled as loud as he could through the doorway, “Anyone left?” He listened as hard as he could but could not hear anything. “Hey!” He continued to yell for over a minute but nothing happened. He turned and started to walk to the truck when Charlie tapped his horn and pointed toward Cedric. Cedric turned on the spot to see a dog. The dog acted normal enough for a scared dog, but Cedric didn’t want to take any chances. He slowly backed toward the truck and climbed into the seat, closing the door. He looked back at the dog.
“What do we do? Do we just shoot it?” Charlie asked.
Cedric shook his head, “I don’t know. All I do know is that we need to move in a hurry. Like now! We don’t have to shoot it. Just shoot the ground next to it. If it attacks, then it's probably infected and we kill it then. Okay?”
“Okay, but there was nothing else?”
“No. Now let's move.”
Three doors on the truck opened. Cedric and Charlie climbed out from the front two seats while Denise, Julie, and Adam climbed out from the back. Cedric glanced over to see Ben and Sherry climbing out of his truck but nobody climbing out from the Jeep. Sherry got into the driver’s side of the small Ford and Denise into the driver’s seat of her husband’s truck. Charlie took Julie’s hand and Cedric grabbed Adam’s before they followed Ben through the doorway inside of the vocational building.
“Up those stairs,” Cedric demanded as he pulled the stick from the door clasp and shut it. The group went up the stairs directly in front of the door and entered the first classroom they saw. They double-checked every area of the classroom for anything that might be a danger. “Remember Ben, don’t open the door no matter what happens.”
“I know,” said Ben as Charlie and Cedric went out of the door again. As soon as they had stepped out, Ben closed it. He turned the lock and then moved the teacher’s desk in front of it.
Cedric lead Charlie toward the auto mechanics shop, where there was one car spot open and they busted the lock. When they cranked the door open a small notch, Cedric got on the floor and shoved a small flashlight under it. The Jeep pulled up and hit the horn once. This was the signal for an all clear. Charlie began pulling a long chain like a curtain rope cranking the door open while Cedric went to the next shop over. The vocational building had multiple shop classrooms which were like giant garages. The next shop over had a spot large enough for the other two trucks. He began breaking the lock off of this chain.
Once the lock was broke he ran over to the other shop where Charlie was. “I busted the lock off the other one. I will give you the all clear to open it.”
Cedric went out of the large door before Charlie closed it back and went to the door that he had just busted the lock. He waved for the two trucks to pull closer and guided for Sherry to drive in first. He banged twice on the metal door with his pipe and yelled, “All clear!”
He heard the chains bringing the door up. That’s when he noticed it: the dog from earlier was barking at something. Cedric turned to see a movement coming from the road that wasn’t large enough to be a car. He squinted in the dark and the shape came into form.
“Shit,” he breathed as he held his pipe tighter.
Five infected were running at full speed toward him. The door was opened all the way by the time that the infected were only fifty yards away. Sherry pulled into the shop and to the side so Denise could also pull in behind her.
Cedric took a deep breath and then ran. He knew that Denise wouldn’t have enough time to pull in if the infected weren’t at least slowed down. Cedric ran away from the building. He was waving his arms and yelling. The infected left the course they were on and instead followed Cedric.
Once he saw that the infected were gaining distance on him, and that Denise had pulled inside the shop, he turned around and stopped running. He jumped onto the hood of a nearby car and waited. A few heartbeats later one of the infected jumped at him as he jumped from the hood to the roof of the car. He knelt down and smacked the infected man on the back of the head with his pipe. By this point, the other four had reached him and a hand grabbed his foot. Instead of pulling away, he dropped to a sitting position and kicked out with the foot that had a hand around it. He kicked the woman with his heel right on her forehead.
Cedric spun up onto his knees, breaking the hold. He hit another infected on the side of the head with the metal pipe. He then grabbed the hair of another with his left hand and slammed its face onto the car with three quick, but hard, crashes.
Cedric had lost sight of the fifth infected human. He turned on the spot to see that it had climbed on top of the trunk and was now almost to him. Cedric tried to escape but fell backward off the car and onto the hard pavement.
The last infected jumped onto Cedric’s chest, knocking the breath from him. Cedric raised his pipe at the last moment to catch the human in the mouth, like a horse’s bit. Cedric tried to push the infected off of him, but it kept smacking and trying to claw at him. Cedric’s clothes kept the infected man from doing any damage, but he knew that if the man continued, that he would do some harm soon enough. Cedric heard a gunshot and the infected human on top of him went limp. He rolled the man off of him and looked to see Jack holding a rifle out of his truck window.
Jack smiled and said, “Am I late?”
Chapter Eight:
A COLD EXTERIOR
Sue carefully stepped inside the front doorway of her house with Ross and Danny following, their golf clubs in hand. Ross had noticed the look of fear that lined his boss’s face when they had been driving down the long dirt driveway. Sue didn’t say anything when Ross had asked what was wrong, but he thought he knew what was up. There were no other cars parked in front of the house. He noticed that there was no garage that a car could be parked in either. And since there were no signs of a fight or struggle, Ross thought meant that Sue’s family must have left the house.
As they wandered quietly into the main area of the house, Ross noticed that, like the first house they had stolen provisions from, this one too had been emptied of all the food from the cabinets.
Nobody said anything as Sue looked into the cabinets before falling into a chair at the kitchen table. She began to sob.
Ross didn’t like the feel of this situation at all. He had been hoping that this would be a safe haven for them with Sue’s family. He knew they now had nowhere to go to. But more than that, he was worried for Sue.
Ross made his way to where Sue was and put his hand on her back, “Do you have any idea where they may have gone to?”
Sue had her face buried in her hands. She just shook her head.
“Guys,” Danny said quietly, “I hear something outside.”
Ross looked up and tightened his grip on the club as Sue shot up from her seat picking hers up from the floor. Danny peered out of the window and asked, “do you want to stay here, or what?”
“No,” Sue responded immediately. “My husband, Rick, would have secured the house if he could have. He didn’t for some reason. Either he thought it wouldn’t be safe, or we didn’t have the materials. If he couldn’t, we probably can’t.”
“Well,” Danny said moving from the window, “if we aren’t staying here, then let's look for food and leave. Your family may not be here, but at least they’re not here and dead. So that’s hope.”
Sue nodded as she started looking in the storage areas of the kitchen. The kitchen was completely emptied out but Sue did use this opportunity to grab extra clothes before they met back at the front door.
Ross was looking out of the window when Sue walked up to the door with a duffle bag in her hand. “I got some clothes from my son’s room for you Ross, and some of my husbands for you,” she finished looking at Danny.
&n
bsp; “Thanks,” they both said at the same time and Danny continued, “Are we ready to leave now?”
Sue nodded as she pulled a pistol from her bag and held it out to Ross. He looked at her and she responded, “Rick’s away a lot driving a truck, but I’m a bad shot.”
“Okay,” Ross said as he took the pistol from her and pulled the slide on it. Ross slowly opened the door and stepped onto the porch holding the pistol up like he had seen the cops do in movies. He had shot before, but never had to move around with a gun like this. He looked around but didn’t see anything. Ross walked to the car and started the engine. By the time he had the car turned around, Sue and Danny were next to it, opening their doors.
Ross began to drive the car down the driveway to the road. “Where to?” he asked looking at Sue.
She shook her head and looked at Danny, “Any ideas?”
“A small house somewhere. That’s the only thing I can think of,” Danny replied as he turned in his seat to watch out of the back window of the car as it started raining.
“Walgreen’s,” Sue said after a few minutes of silence.”
“Listen,” Ross started, “Boss, we don’t need to go back to work. I am sure that they won't even notice our absence at work today.”
“No. I mean that we can go to the Walgreen’s here. I have the keys to the Rogersville store because I cover shifts here. We can get in and be safe there.”
Danny had turned back around in his seat to face the two in the front before replying, “But there is surely some of those zombies there. They are everywhere.”
“No, they didn’t open up the day that everything hit us. Those people… or whatever… wouldn’t have been able to get in,” Sue stated.
“And the store will have at least a good portion of things we need since they were closed down for a few days. They may still have some food, and definitely medicine and water,” Ross added. “I like that plan.”