All of them spent those early days in quiet distraction, trying to hide from the world. In the street outside, lots of creepy people, who she understood were boogeymen of some sort, were starting to gather and wait. She and Danny were discouraged from taking peeks out the window as the adults did, but she managed to look under an arm on occasion to catch glimpses of them. Jules easily surmised those people were looking for her and the others, which was why they had to be extra quiet, just like during naptime at her old school. It was hard sometimes, but she did her best.
After more days than she could count, it was decided that they had to get out of the house and away from the creepy ghouls, whose smell and noises were making Jules and everyone else sick to their stomachs.
Since then, they had been on the run, moving from hiding place to hiding place like scared mice avoiding hungry owls. It had all become routine to them in a twisted, grisly way.
That all changed for Jules when Meghan was killed. If Jules were older and more insightful, she would likely feel that Meghan was a victim of the complacency brought on by the routine of survival. She, like the rest of them, simply got too comfortable and had paid the ultimate price.
Jules was sad for herself but was even more sad for poor Neil. He loved Meghan; Jules could tell by the way he looked at her and the way he talked to her. Neil talked to everyone really nicely, but to Meghan he talked quiet and soft like the way Jules’ mom used to read fairytales to her at bedtime when she was younger. Neil was her prince and Meghan was his princess. He hadn’t been the same since they left her body under a pile of stones along the side of the road. None of them had been.
Jules barely had time to grieve before she and the others had to face another crisis. Shortly after Meghan’s death Jules, along with Danny and two other children, were taken to some kind of survival camp in a place called Soldotna. The people controlling the camp, located in what had once been Skyview High School, were self-styled militiamen willing to embrace truly despicable acts of brutality and oppression in order to further the agenda of their leader. They had a lot of guns and were the meanest people Jules had ever been around in her life.
If it hadn’t been for an audacious and daring move by Neil, Jerry, and Emma, Jules and Danny would likely still be in the militia’s brutal hands.
Behind the cover of night and a ruthless wave of undead, Neil and the other adult rescuers swept into the school to the children’s salvation. It was a bittersweet rescue for Jules. She had recently been reunited with her oldest brother Alec, who had gone missing from the moment Jules’ parents had driven young Martin to the hospital in Anchorage. He was lost; or so she had thought. He had been lost in the hectic melee at the school and was never seen again.
The loss of Alec, the last living member of her immediate family, was a tragedy to be sure, but by that time Jules had become numb to such sorrowful events. She was sad but her grief was lost amid layers of recent calamity, which had so scarred her young mind as to dull her emotional response to any stimuli. Jules would miss Alec, along with her mom, her dad, and her brother Martin, but she had no tears to shed. Her eyes became fixed and distant and her affect as flat as a pane of glass.
After the dramatic rescue, Neil took their group, now driving in a compact car, back onto the highway and toward some place called Whittier, where they had been heading prior to the abduction and Meghan’s death. They drove into the darkness, heavy with a gathering snowfall that filled the car’s headlights. Finally, Jules was getting her snow, but she barely noticed. Along with her sadness, Jules’ joy was also blunted and absent.
When Neil stopped the car and turned off the lights, everyone sat up and stiffened. It was still dark and the side windows were white with fog from the cold air on the outside. Jules had been dozing, snatching short moments of restless sleep like an uncomfortable airline passenger. She adjusted in her seat to look through the defrosted front window.
It was dark and getting darker with each passing moment, most of dusk’s purples having faded irreversibly into night’s lonely black. Neil’s quiet and unanswered announcement that they would wait until morning to go on calmed all of them somewhat. The warm interior of the car and the open, still empty road were too inviting to be discarded for the cold, unpredictability of the Portage Highway stretching itself out in front of them.
Despite the darkness, Jules could tell that it was along that stretch of winding road where they had left Meghan’s lifeless body. She vividly remembered that sad day not too long ago and could see in Neil’s eyes that he was remembering it as well. She wished there was something she could do to help ease his pain, but she understood that he needed to be left alone with his thoughts. Instead of saying anything, she looked away and gave him his privacy, much the same as everyone else.
Silently, each of them surrendered their consciousness to their exhaustion. Neil, the last to close his eyes, reluctantly turned both the car’s lights and engine off before he allowed himself to drift off to sleep. He looked at everyone in the car before he closed his eyes. Jess, sitting next to him in the passenger seat, was already asleep and snoring. In the back seat sat Emma and Jerry, with the three kids draped across them in uncomfortable knots.
Neil’s slumber was interrupted by bouts of cold sorrow and hot tears. He hadn’t truly lamented Meghan’s passing. It happened suddenly and was followed by frantic action, preventing him from dealing with the loss. Jules could hear his sniffles and his loud, dry swallows as he tried to stifle the noise. His crying finally brought tears to her eyes as well, as it did to everyone else in the car. They had all lost so much in such a short time.
Chapter 2
The next morning the dawn was barely able to break through the sullen clouds. Jules awoke slowly and was surprised to find Neil’s seat empty. Everyone else was still asleep, so she shook Emma awake and pointed at the empty driver’s seat. Helplessness and fear rising in her throat, Emma leaned forward and relaxed somewhat to see that the vehicle’s keys were still in the ignition.
Emma’s and Jules’ relief was tempered at best, however, due to Neil’s absence. Scratching a hole through the ice-crusted window, the two looked out into the road hoping to see Neil.
“Oh shit,” Emma whispered.
There were three shady figures drifting in the dispersing storm. The cadence of their gait, erratic and broken, meant only one thing: they were the undead. Emma reached over her shoulder and laid her hands on her M4 assault rifle, lying on its side across the car’s two rear speakers. Not long ago a firearm such as that would have made her more than a little uncomfortable. She had never seen the need for such hardware. Those days seemed so long ago. The touch, smell, and weight of the rifle welcome to her now. She hoped she never had to do without it. Slipping a full magazine into the rifle quietly, Emma quickly had the gun ready for action.
Emma placed a calming hand on Jules’ shoulder and used her eyes to let the child know they would be okay. They didn’t share a word but the message was clear. Emma pointed to the others and peered back through the frosty window.
Jules quietly roused the others in the car for the coming confrontation. As deftly as she could, Jess slid over into the driver seat.
She got her hand onto the key but hesitated when Jerry cautioned her to wait. It didn’t look like the zombies knew they were in the car. They had likely been drawn to the sound of the engine during the early morning hours but were now merely drifting rudderless without the noise to direct them.
“Everyone, just stay quiet and don’t move,” Jerry whispered. “Maybe they’ll pass us by.” He added with a bit of anxiety in his voice, “Where’s Neil?”
As if in answer, they heard a commotion from the street outside. Emma, feeling very anxious and fairly vulnerable in the car, tried to look back outside before stepping out, but their peek hole had already frosted over. She shifted Jules onto Jerry’s lap and threw open the door.
She emerged just in time to see Neil finishing off the third ghoul with his bat. He s
wung it around his head in a wide sweeping motion, striking the creature just below its left knee. It wasn’t a lethal blow, but it was enough to knock it from its feet.
Emma winced at the impact. If she were struck in the same manner, the pain would be excruciating. However, the zombie Neil hit was quick to try and get back to its feet. When it became apparent that was not an option on its now broken and twisted limb, the thing tried to wriggle and crawl toward Neil, but he wasn’t waiting to give it second chances.
Circling aggressively like a shark ready to pounce, Neil brought the solid aluminum bat down upon the back of its skull, which imploded like a rotten melon, spilling brain matter and dark, congealed blood onto the icy pavement. The other two had been dealt with similarly and lay in their own horrible mess of necrotic fluids. Neil stepped through the jellied fluids, which clung to the bottoms of his boots like barnacles. Each sticky footstep produced stringy umbilici, connecting his feet to the ground.
Emma winced at the sounds of Neil’s sticky footsteps. They reminded her of feet passing through a busy and seldom-cleaned cinema with a full day’s worth of spilled soda and dropped popcorn on its floors.
She scanned behind Neil and then all around the car. Nothing. Not a damned thing. For the right person, this brand of isolation would be heavenly, but Emma was not one of them. Or rather, she hadn’t been one of them. She wasn’t entirely sure what kind of person she was at the present. For the moment, she decided she would settle for being a live person and that seemed to be enough for now.
By then, Jules had gotten enough courage to peer out too. She saw Neil walking through the motionless corpses and breathed a sigh of relief along with everyone else in the car. Neil wiped his blood-caked bat on his latest victim’s tattered sports coat and smiled over at her. He said that he thought he was getting better at using his bat and struck the pose of a major league hitter swinging for the home run fence, making Jules smile despite the grisly circumstances.
Neil climbed into the passenger seat, dropping himself heavily into it.
“I scouted ahead of us a bit up the highway,” he said. “It looks clear up the road, so I think it should be smooth sailing up to...” He stopped short of finishing his sentence because of the painful memory that accompanied it.
Both Jerry and Emma, companions of Neil’s since the beginning, understood. They shared a glance with one another and allowed the moment to pass. None of them were without pain. They understood how the simplest thing could steal away the breath or dispel a thought. Jerry’s relationship with Claire had been only days old, but his heart split every time he thought about her or adjusted the green and gold University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves hat he words, his sole remembrance of her. She had been mutilated and butchered by a lunatic and had to face his wrath alone.
Emma too suffered from the still very recent loss of Dr. Caldwell, who had saved her life and the lives of several others along their arduous trek to safety. Tragically bitten, the good doctor was, in Emma’s mind, abandoned and left to face his fate alone as well. They each shared in a common tragedy.
Somewhat oblivious to the looks and the nods, the newest member of their group, Jess, sitting behind the wheel said, “Are we ready to go then?”
Jess was grieving as well, although her grief was from not knowing. Her teenaged daughter was out on a fishing trip when the world had soured and was now a missing shadow in Jess’ life. Now and again, Jess imagined Syd riding next to her in the car or sitting with her during the quiet moments. She went so far as to conduct full conversations with her daughter, sometimes out loud and sometimes in her mind. Syd was never far from her thoughts and the not knowing was like an icy dagger digging at her heart.
They drove slowly along the highway toward Portage Lake and Whittier beyond, a quiet reverence settling over all of them. This road was painfully familiar and thick with regret, like the scene of a crime. They passed more than a couple of the walking undead, heads turning almost wistfully to watch the car continue on its way.
Neil was a little surprised to see the ghouls. He had not encountered any of them, at least he did not think he had. He wondered how close he had come to them in the snowstorm that had passed by then. Remnants continued to flutter, occasionally dancing erratically when a quick, unexpected gust lifted the flakes. The monsters had likely been lurking in the several campground turnoffs or other parking areas along the main road. They looked like the dazed and confused survivors of a natural disaster emerging after the storm, but their wretched appearance and hungry disposition belied a more threatening reality.
Concerned by the growing number of gray-skinned devils crawling out onto the road, Jerry asked from the backseat, “Where’d you go, Neil?”
“I wanted to check things out. Make sure we had a smooth ride ahead.” The truth was not nearly as simple as that, but Neil wasn’t willing to acknowledge it to either himself or those with him.
Suspicious that there was more to it but unwilling to press, Jerry answered with a nod and a soft touch to Neil’s shoulder.
Danny, not yet a teenager and not possessing the filters that come with age and experience, asked, “Did you see Meghan’s grave?”
With a remorseful sigh, Neil answered only, “Yeah.”
Danny may have been young, but Neil’s response was enough for him to cut off any further questions. Though slow to understand, he wasn’t dimwitted or without empathy. He could sense something in Neil’s voice that encouraged him to leave well enough alone.
“The ground is frozen now,” Neil said. “We should be able to drive around all the stuck cars ahead. We’ll just have to be careful that we don’t end up at the bottom of a ditch. With any luck, we can probably drive right up to the tunnel. We have to be careful though.”
“And what about the tunnel?” Emma asked. “It was closed last time we saw it. How are we gonna get onto the other side?”
Neil rubbed his chin. He said with some hope in his voice, “When we were here yesterday, DB said that there was a service trail that went over the mountain. He had worked on it a couple of times for the state. Doing maintenance, I guess.”
Neil looked over at Jess and explained, “Our plan all along was to get to Whittier. We thought that maybe it would have been cut off from the road system in time to keep it free of...whatever the hell is causing all this. We came down from Anchorage hoping to get into the city. We were all set to make a go of it when those bastards you were staying with down in Soldotna attacked us. It kind of set us off course. DB was with us then. He was a guy who just showed up one day and was gone a couple days later. Nikki back there was with him. He told me about the path, where to find it, and that if we hurried and beat winter, we could make it to the other side.”
“Sounds like a solid idea,” Jess said hesitantly. “I don’t know about the rest of you though, but I’m no mountain climber. Are you sure we can make it?”
“And that’s a pretty big mountain,” Emma chimed in.
Neil looked back out the front windshield and asked, “Do we have a choice?”
When they passed Meghan’s rock pile, Neil couldn’t bring himself to look over at it. He chewed his chapped lower lip and stared out in the opposite direction. There was nothing much to see aside from Alaska surrendering itself to winter. The not too distant mountains were already blanketed in white with only the most stubborn rocky promontories resisting the snow. Glistening in coats of the new powder, the thin trees and sparse bushes in the frozen wetlands along the road looked like they had been planted according to some kind of plan. An occasional bird, finches and robins that had different plans than heading south for the winter, flitted from branch to branch looking for the last berries to be plucked for the season. Soon there would be nothing left and most of the area’s wildlife would have moved on.
Neil was right. The ground had frozen sufficiently enough to allow them to skirt the wrecks and ad hoc roadblocks. Along the highway in scattered groups, the frozen carcasses of the recently dispatch
ed undead littered the pavement. The haggard remains didn’t resemble human beings in the slightest. When Jess slowed the car to pass particularly bad patches of snarled vehicles and the corpses could be better examined, the sorrowful piles of bones reminded Neil of old black and white photographs he’d seen in books of concentration camp victims butchered and murdered by the Nazis during World War Two. They had lacked any color. Neil and his group were responsible for most of those bodies. There were quite a few, more than any of them could remember having encountered.
Emma and Jerry, sitting in the backseat with the three children, did their best to keep the kids distracted during those stretches though there was little point. In those areas where the bodies were especially heavy and there was little option other than driving over the rapidly deteriorating carcasses, Emma and Jerry told the children to look down. Not seeing the gory results did not insulate them from the horrific crunching and popping sounds coming from under the car as its tires drove over heads, limbs, and torsos. It also couldn’t erase the horrifying memories each harbored from just over a day earlier when the bodies were still animated and threatening to kill and eat them.
When they came to a particularly tight passage around a large group of stalled vehicles or the tail end of the overturned tour bus, Neil and Jerry would climb out and help Jess to maneuver the car. Amazingly, the two men didn’t hesitate to leave the relative security and warmth of the automobile and walk along the car’s sides for added navigation and protection. At one point, both men discharged their firearms and unceremoniously killed two of the creatures that were approaching with too much enthusiasm. They didn’t like using their guns, but neither wanted a close encounter with the monsters.
They drove slowly and deliberately along the highway, the tunnel never seeming to draw any closer to them. The road felt like it was stretching out indefinitely, teasing them with fleeting promises of an end to their journey.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 4): Resolution Page 2