Surviving

by Jaron McFall

  Cedric turned back to the other three, opened the nearest door and motioned them inside. As soon as Ron, Charlie, and Sue were inside, Cedric said, “Stick with the plan.” He jumped back into the hallway.

  Charlie heard Cedric fire two shots and start yelling, “Hey! Come on! Fresh meat!”

  Charlie was furious, but by the time he got back to the door, the infected were already running down a different hallway. He hoped Cedric knew what he was doing, but he was unsure. He then looked down and saw Danny’s lifeless body in the floor. Unlike Cedric’s view, there was nothing to stop Charlie from seeing Danny’s full features—or what was left of them. He did see what Cedric had fired at though. In the middle of Danny’s forehead were two small holes: twenty-two caliber sized, to be precise.

  Sticking to the plan, they waited until it was silent again. Slipping out into the hallway, Charlie looked for anything that might attack. “Clear,” he grunted. The other two followed. Sue sobbed silently to herself when she saw Danny.

  Leaving their carts behind for the moment, Charlie peered around the corner. He saw it was clear now. When he looked down the hallway Cedric had run, however, he saw a backpack laying on the floor.

  “Jerk,” Charlie said as he picked it up. He knew Cedric had dropped it on purpose. He also knew what that meant from Cedric. “Stick to the plan,” Charlie said as he dropped Cedric’s bag onto Sue’s crash cart. They began rolling them down the hallway Danny had died in.

  “Help,” Charlie heard as they rolled past the nurse’s break room door. He instinctively pulled his gun from its holster only to see a nurse peeking out of the crack in the door. She was young. Eighteen, maybe nineteen, Charlie thought. He didn’t lower his gun, however. “Have you been bitten? Scratched? Anything?”

  “No,” the nurse replied. “None of us have. But we are out of water. We’ve been out of food for a while.” Charlie heard a rattle like they were unbarring the door. She opened the door completely.

  Charlie peered into the room to see another nurse, a doctor, and what looked like the secretary. The secretary was the only other woman of the group, the other two were both men. “Can you walk? Can you run?”

  “Yes, I think we can,” the male nurse replied and the doctor gave a short nod. The hospital staff pushed the carts with Sue. Jack and Charlie carried the lifeless body of Danny. They had quickly decided, without question, that he deserved a funeral. They pushed through the lobby and out of the main door.

  Once outside, Jack leaped from the Jeep to help. He glanced at Danny and gasped. Jack did not comment but rather went to work. He first helped the two nurses and secretary into the Jeep while Charlie helped the doctor climb into the truck. “Where’s Ced?” Jack asked.

  “Took off running like a freaken’ idiot,” Charlie said. “He was leading a group away.”

  After this, they continued in silence. Once the medical equipment had been loaded into the ambulances, the drivers took their seats and the caravan headed back to the school. From the moment Charlie saw the backpack, he knew what message Cedric was leaving. I’m not meeting you back at the truck. Go ahead.

  Chapter Sixteen:

  WHEN THE HAMMER DROPS

  Cedric burst from the emergency exit and into a partially closed off rear entrance. The hospital walls enclosed a section of parking lot. Behind him, there were at least two dozen infected people running toward him. Inside the hospital, he was about to shoot the infected humans who had killed Danny when he spotted more coming toward his group. This is what had changed his plan entirely. He had tunnel-vision on Danny and hadn’t seen that the group of infected were trying to get into a room down the hallway. He needed to lead them away.

  Once outside, Cedric saw six infected people blocking the main parking lot. He continued to run forward; he knew he couldn’t stop. Cedric managed to swing his pipe and knock one in the temple. The next closest of the infected was too close for Cedric to swing his pipe.

  He impaled the man directly in the eye. However, this had an unintended effect: his pipe was stuck. He yanked hard on the pipe but the gore on the metal made his hand slip. Cedric was already off balance when an infected woman bowled him over. He made a fist and used his lightly armored knuckles to deliver a blow to the woman’s jaw. He felt it shatter. This, however, did nothing to the fact that she was keeping him pinned to the ground. It merely meant she couldn’t bite him.

  With less than a second to spare, Cedric heard gunfire. Or, at least what he thought, for the briefest instant, was gunfire.

  Cedric’s eyes lit up with blinding light as a mortar-style firework exploded three feet from his face. His ears rang and he couldn’t think. Cedric clamped his hands over his ears as the first explosion was followed by a quick barrage of gunfire. As Cedric’s vision began to clear, he saw shadowed figures walking around him.

  “…about the boy?” Cedric heard a voice say. His hearing was muffled and he could only hear snatches.

  “Take…” a female voice answered before the ringing got louder.

  This, Cedric thought, was a cue that he should run. He tried to stand up but was kicked violently in the chest before he could finish standing. While his limbs, head, and neck were covered in a thick aluminum armor, his torso was not. He felt the wind leave his lungs with force.

  Before he could manageably catch his breath, Cedric felt rope begin to wrap around his hands and ankles. He was then unceremoniously dragged across the concrete and thrown into the trunk of a car.

  Within five minutes, Cedric felt the car start to accelerate. The first thing Cedric began to do when he had caught his breath was to dig the knife from his boot. However, Cedric was no small human being. He had already decided that this car must be a small two-door coupe because the trunk barely had any room. However, by the time the car was in motion, Cedric had finally dug his knife out and was beginning to slice the ropes binding his wrists.

  They make this look so freaking easy in the movies. No way is this easy. Cedric thought to himself as he sliced the cold blade into his skin for the fourth time. However, before there was a fifth cut, Cedric’s hands were unbound. From there, it was short order to cut his feet free.

  Cedric then used his knife to quietly cut the carpeting and pry a taillight out. He saw that there were no other cars behind the one he was in. Good, Cedric thought, this car must be in the rear. I doubt it’s the only one.

  One thing Cedric was grateful for was that this car was manufactured fairly recently as there was a glow in the dark trunk release handle. Cedric slid his knife back into its sheath and held the handle waiting for the car to slow down. He knew where the car was at on the road. It has to slow down for this turn or it will end up in the ditch, Cedric thought.

  Cedric watched out of the hole in the taillight. He noticed the tax service with the Statue of Liberty that marked the end of the road. Then he felt the car decelerate slightly. When he felt his momentum shift, Cedric pulled hard on the trunk release mechanism and shoved his shoulder on the lid of the trunk. He quickly found that shoving his shoulder into the lid was far in excess as the lid would have popped open on its own. This extra force started his hurl out of the trunk before Cedric could gain a bearing on his surroundings. He quickly tucked his knees up and covered his head with his arms as he tumbled out of the car.

  Again, Cedric felt the wind leave his chest as he rolled across the pavement, though not as bad as the last time. Cedric quickly started to stumble to his feet out of breath and dizzy. It took less than three seconds to take in his surroundings, but it felt like an eternity.

  Looking back toward the direction the car had just come, Cedric saw a small herd of infected running toward him. Looking to his right, Cedric saw a small caravan of vehicles going toward Main Street. To his left, he saw the ruins of a burnt out church and a collapsed bridge of rubble. When he turned around, Cedric saw the still smoking ruins of shops and apartments. The car Cedric had been in came to a sudden, screeching halt. Cedric made the split-second decision to run
toward the dilapidated bridge and jump across the creek. He knew the creek was less than five foot and he was sure he could jump it.

  As Cedric was running, his back to the car, he heard the female voice he had heard earlier come from the car, “You’re head’n to the badlands, jackass!” The tires of the car squealed as the driver slammed on the gas pedal again and the car took off.

  Cedric wasn’t sure what the woman had meant by the badlands. However, he had no other choice, he jumped. Knowing the roads, he turned right at the next intersection as he ran. This road veered back toward the highway that the Walgreen’s and, much further down, the high school were on. Three minutes running up the hill, however, proved that he had made a fatal mistake.

  A wall erected of cars, trees, and what looked like bodies was blocking the road. On the left side, there was a steep rise up the mountain making it physically unclimbable. Cedric looked over the guardrail to his right at the sheer drop of nearly thirty feet. Even if there was a way to reach the bottom of the mountain, a similar wall had been erected along the backs of the restaurants and the stores along the highway.

  Cedric had just driven by these restaurants and stores hours before but only saw them from the front. The walls, from their positioning, would hardly be visible from the main highway, Cedric thought. Cedric walked close to the makeshift wall to see if he could climb it, but when he did some of the bodies began to move and groan. “Shit,” Cedric said aloud, “infected.”

  The infected humans were wedged and stuck in the wall. Even if Cedric could climb the nooks of the wall, the infected would surely bite and tear into him. Cedric turned to go back the way he had come but saw exactly why the woman had called it the badlands.

  Thirty, possibly even forty, infected humans were shambling toward him. These looked different to Cedric than the ones he had already seen. All of these infected humans had peeling skin, no hair, and were covered in marbled green and red flesh. All of the infected humans were still fifty yards or more away from Cedric. Even at this distance, Cedric could see all of the details clearly. Not a single one of the infected humans was wearing any clothing. It had all been burned away.

  “The road is blocked and I can’t climb the wall. The mountainside is muddy and even if it wasn’t, it is still too steep to climb up. Infected coming my way and covering the entire road. God, I’m going to hate this.”

  Cedric climbed over the guardrail. He looked at the near sheer drop to the gulley below. He knew that the creek, at this point, was only about three feet deep. It was not nearly enough to break a thirty-foot drop. Cedric lowered his feet down holding onto the metal post of the guardrail. He dug his fingers the best he could into the mud with one hand. Cedric took a deep breath in and let go of the post.

  He didn’t drop like a rocket but rather started slow like a train. He felt every root, rock, and limb on his path as it hit his body. After the first five feet, Cedric’s fingers hit a sharp rock and sliced his skin. He let go of his already weakened grip and his progress sped up. With his free and uninjured hand, Cedric quickly grabbed the knife from his boot and jabbed it hard into the dirt. His progress down the mountainside paused momentarily as his entire weight jerked on his arm.

  Cedric screamed as his shoulder abruptly popped out of the socket and he continued to fall the remainder of the fifteen feet. The only difference in the last part of the descent was that this time, he was not touching the mountain, he was free falling in the air.

  Cedric’s back hit the water, and a half second later the silt of the creek bed. For the third time in less than twenty minutes, Cedric had the wind knocked out of him. This time, however, it was replaced by water and mud from the disturbed creek bed. Cedric began to cough and struggled. He managed to grab a tree root on the bank with his cut hand and drag himself out of the water.

  Coughing and expelling water from his lungs, Cedric continued to try to drag himself onto the bank. When he did, he noticed that his left leg was throbbing with pain. He looked down to see his knife had wedged itself at least two inches into his thigh.

  Barely able to think, Cedric just stayed on his knees and one elbow as if he were praying while he tried to catch his breath. After a few moments, Cedric tried to push himself up with his hands, but his right shoulder could not support any weight or pressure. He collapsed and rolled onto his back in pain.

  Tears streaming from his eyes, Cedric gasped in pain. He grabbed a stick with his left hand and put it in his mouth. He bit hard as he forced his body to sit up. Cedric grabbed the knife sticking in his leg and yanked it out.

  He screamed through the stick. His back felt shattered with the pain he had endured in the fall. All Cedric could think of was his pain until a single sound broke into his mind: Splash.

  The first was followed by a second, third, and forth. Cedric looked back toward the road on the mountainside and saw that the infected were following him down. While the first four were not moving, Cedric knew it would only take one to survive the fall and reach him to end his life.

  Cedric kept the stick in his mouth, biting hard, as he pulled himself to his feet. His entire body felt like it was on fire. Every step he took felt like nails being driven into his bones. Through his tear-blurred vision, Cedric saw something he had not seen from the road: a ladder. On the rear wall of Taco Bell, there was a service ladder that led to the roof.

  There was one problem Cedric noticed: a cage around the bottom ten foot of the ladder that required a key for entry. Cedric reached for his gun but remembered that it had been taken when he was tied up. His knife was back at the creek where he dropped it and his pipe in the skull of an infected at the hospital. Why didn’t I bring the knife! Cedric chided himself.

  He turned to see that two infected had now survived the fall and were crawling toward him.

  Cedric was, in essence, defenseless and had no way to bust the lock on the cage. He stumbled to a car that was helping to build this wall. Unlike the wall on the road, this wall did not, as far as Cedric could tell, contain any bodies—infected or otherwise. The car Cedric had gone to was crushed, but the lid to the trunk was missing. He was able to yank on the carpeting and remove the covering of the spare tire well.

  “Thank God,” Cedric said after he spit the branch from his mouth. He grabbed the tire iron. It wasn’t exactly a crowbar, but it did have one end that was used to pop the hubcap off of the wheels. Cedric returned to the gate and shoved the tire iron in the crevasse between the gate door and the gateway. He put his left shoulder on the other end of the tire iron and pushed his entire body weight and leg force into the metal. With a sharp pop, the gate flew open.

  Cedric quickly shoved the tire iron in his belt, shambled inside, and began to climb one-handed. When he was more than halfway up the ladder, Cedric looked back toward the creek. There were at least five infected that Cedric could see were crawling and shambling to where he had rested, and bled, next to the tree on the bank. Cedric turned back to the ladder and climbed again.

  When he reached the top of the ladder, he walked to the other side of the roof. He couldn’t see anything on the main highway. However, he also couldn’t see any good way to get down on this side of the wall. He saw that there were three cars in the parking lot, all haphazardly parked.

  Cedric didn’t want to stay where he was, however. He knew that there was no water, no food, and no real way to stay alive on top of the roof of a Taco Bell. He assumed it was close to three in the afternoon and the roof was extremely hot. He was sure he would die from exposure if nothing else.

  What was it? Cedric thought. “Three hours of exposure can be fatal,” he remembered. One of the activity periods he had taken freshman year was Outdoorsmen’s Club. He learned how to tie knots, CPR, survival ratios, and how to do first aid. He was thankful because he was about to put it to use.

  Cedric shambled to where the roof-top central air system was located. He used the tire iron to pry the guard off of the system so he could get to the wiring and the blades. He had orig
inally thought he might could use the blades from the unit as a weapon but found that they were bolted tightly to the unit.

  One thing Cedric did notice, however, was that the sheet metal covering the unit seemed to be somewhat loose. He began using the tire iron to pry it free from the housing of the unit and, within five minutes, had a four foot by three-foot sheet of dented, bent sheet metal. This metal was a lot thicker and sturdier than the aluminum armor he had made for himself.

  Cedric then began to pull wiring from the unit. Any long piece of wiring he could find, he yanked it free. As soon as Cedric had enough wire, he began to tie it around his right wrist: the wrist attached to the dislocated arm.

  He calmly walked to one of the metal exhaust pipes on the roof that was five foot tall. He grabbed the pipe in his right hand and began to tie the wire to the pipe. Once his hand was completely tied to the pole, he took his belt off. He folded it in half and stuck part of the leather in his mouth biting hard on it like he had done with the stick.

  Cedric began walking backward. Groans of pain slipped up his throat as he slowly pulled on his shoulder. With an audible pop that sounded like a flyswatter on marble, relief flooded in his shoulder. Pain was still present, but much of the sharp pain had left with the pop. It did leave the sensation of thudding pain with every pump of his heart. This is a much better pain than the sharp pain, Cedric thought.

  He dropped the belt from his lips and it fell to the graveled rooftop. He untied his wrist from the pole and turned back toward the air unit. Cedric began to get back to work again pulling wires from the unit. Now that he was able to use both hands, it went faster. Once he had doubled the amount of wire he had, he began using his tire iron to punch holes in the sheet metal. It went slow, all the while Cedric’s energy slowly draining.

  His shoulder was still in pain, but usable now. His back was becoming stiffer by the instant. It took nearly fifteen minutes, but Cedric had finally punched two jagged holes in the center of the metal, roughly six inches apart. He lashed the wire through the holes and made a makeshift handle for the metal sheeting.