by Joe Schlegel
15.
Ben Arrives
Ben huffed and panted from the uphill bike ride.
Yet, alarmed, he pedaled vigorously.
His rifle sat cradled under one arm, and he steered the handlebars with the other. He searched around, alert for the source of the echoing shotgun blast.
He crested the Detroit hill, and the corner at Prugh Avenue rose into view.
Near the intersection, William pulled a pistol from the small of his legs. Then he aimed it at Seven – Rhea hid immediately behind her back.
Ben erupted, “The hell do you think you’re doing?!”
Everyone flinched, startled by the loud bellow.
Wesley scrambled wildly around the stand-off to intercept Ben. He raised his hand warningly, “The girl is infected!”
“No, she’s not,” Seven snarled. “That cut has nothing to do with them—”
“That wound is too deep to be innocent,” Wesley shouted over her voice.
Ben sped toward the group. He churned the gears near his ankles.
With his foot on the pedals, he pushed off from the seat. The bike launched into Wesley and knocked him backward several steps.
But Ben landed solidly.
He raised his rifle up to aim at William’s face, “Drop your goddamn gun!”
Rhea flinched at the sound of venom from his normally warming voice. She clutched her mother’s shirt and leaned in closer, frightened.
“That girl is one of them,” Wesley reasoned as he rushed to his partner’s side. “You can’t let her loose!”
“Ben, she’s just fine! It’s a scrape from when I lifted Rhea through a window! She didn’t even feel it—”
“Stop pointing that gun at my family!”
Ben’s finger twitched. It craved to squeeze the trigger.
He caught sight of Rhea’s shadow as she clung to her mother. She’d already seen so much tragedy...
“We can’t allow the infected girl to jeopardize this community! We can’t wait around for her to attack us!”
“David talked some crazy shit, too,” Ben recalled. “He spouted some paranoid shit about Lily’s scuffed knee! He’s wrong! And Rhea isn’t sick, either! She hasn’t turned!”
“YET!”
“If you don’t drop your weapon, I will open fire!”
“Ben,” Wesley warned, “walk away!”
“That is not going to happen!”
“Ben, please see reason—”
“Get the fuck away from my family!”
Anika peered around the shaggy front yard of the transportation department’s compound. Shrieks and babbles echoed out onto vacant Detroit Street.
Mohammad prompted quietly, “Anything?”
She hardly expected the clear route to remain clear for long, and she shook her head. She opened the door wider, then forced herself to step out into the open, vulnerable to the hungriest.
Mohammad followed before his courage wavered.
He closed the door behind them.
They crept to the parking lot, yet gradually stalked sideways from the building through the wild foliage. Massive, unchecked weeds towered like Germanic castles overseeing their domains.
As she walked, Anika craned her head to peer around the corner of the office building.
Mohammad checked her progress, but he kept his dutiful watch behind and beside them.
They marched diagonally toward the street.
Their feet stepped onto the gravel of the driveway. Anika cringed as the rocks crunched and grinded beneath her shoes.
Finally, after several more trepidatious steps, they spotted one of them. Oblivious to the students, it pushed and scrambled within the horde of others that pounded and kicked against the building.
Her natural instinct to run stuttered, saddened to identify and recognize so many of the missing survivors. The faces of friends, twisted by death, fell enslaved by an unquenchable hunger.
Regret and sadness threatened to implode her strength. Anika’s sister and the others had a chance to survive their personal Hells, she knew, but she had to draw them away from them.
More of them panned into view as they stalked.
Mohammad grimaced each time the gravel crunched loudly beneath his feet. He watched the building, then all around them, too.
Abruptly, Anika drew a deep breath.
“Hey!”
Mohammad jumped, terrified to be near the source of the noise.
“Over here! Hey!”
Several of them looked her way.
She tugged at Mohammad’s shirt and scampered toward the road. “They see us! Let’s go!”
Several of them pushed off of the building, and they charged after the students.
Then several more followed them.
From around the sizable garage and within the round buildings, more of them emerged, already in a wild sprint.
Anika and Mohammad rushed to Detroit Street.
They turned right and aimed for the entrance to the baseball diamonds just over the shallow ridge. As they crested the top, however, they spotted a tense stand-off at the Prugh Avenue corner.
16.
The Detroit Chase
William glanced past Ben. He spotted Mohammad and Anika, who sprinted over the shallow ridge toward them, toward their bikes sat just outside the sports park.
Behind them, one of them scrambled in chase.
Then two more raced over the ridge after it.
William settled his dire gaze on Ben. He spoke imploringly, “For the safety of our community...”
Ben’s eyes narrowed. He recognized the finality in the man’s plea.
Rhea peered around her mother.
She spotted them headed in their direction.
And she shrieked, “BAD MEN!”
Ben shoved Wesley in his chest. He fell into William.
The gun fired, yet the shot flew wide and off course.
“Get on your bikes,” Ben rushed Seven. “GO!”
She picked up her daughter and scrambled to their bikes—
Then she saw them.
Ben kicked William in the stomach before he pushed back to his feet, then punched down into Wesley’s jaw to keep him disoriented. “My goddamn family, you psycho fucks?”
Five shrieked and babbled as they ran from over the shallow ridge. They sprinted directly toward the intersection as the altercation boiled over and descended into chaos.
Seven screamed behind her, “Ben! There are too many! They’re getting close!”
She clutched her daughter to her chest. Rhea dutifully wrapped her arms and legs around her mother.
“Come on, Ben! Let God sort these two out!”
Seven pulled the rope loop beneath her bike seat, and the child carriers slumped, untethered.
She stood on the pedals and scrambled down Detroit Street toward town. She left behind the child carts and her daughter’s bike.
Ben flung William’s bicycle into a front yard.
He mounted Wesley’s and pedaled furiously after Seven.
Wesley staggered to his feet. He picked up Ben’s launched bike nearby, on its side after it slammed into him moments earlier.
Coughing and gagging from the kick, William rushed for his bike thrown into a front yard. He spotted more of them rush up from the other end of Prugh Avenue, lured by the sound of the wild gunshot. Eight ran from over the shallow ridge at a frightful speed, a staggered, growing group.
Beside the sport park’s entrance, Anika and Mohammad reached their bikes, panicked by the horde that followed.
They unlatched the carriers swiftly, hardly wanting to slow their pace or endanger the towel-swaddled security units.
William pushed through the pain in his abdomen to outrace them, and they charged nearer the intersection.
In the lead, Seven pedaled desperately away from the ridge, away from the sudden surge of more.
And Ben pedaled harder just behind her. He shifted the gears as he gained speed.
We
sley scurried close behind him.
They reached the intersection just as William, far behind the group, finally rounded the corner onto Detroit. Desperate, they swatted and swiped only a few feet behind his back wheel.
The scar over his left eye drained to pale.
Still more ran over the ridge, in chase of their own noise and racket. A green light on the students’ security unit, strapped near the open gate of the sports park, flickered to life.
Ben pedaled furiously.
He caught up with Seven as the Detroit hill curved slightly upward, “Hand her to me!”
Rhea reached her arms out for him.
Ben grabbed her. She leapt from her mother.
She wrapped up tightly around Ben.
He pedaled harder, “Jesus Christ, why is this uphill both ways?”
Wesley scrambled up the incline, close behind the trio. He watched in horror as the girl transferred from one adult to another.
Back at the intersection, the green light on the security unit flashed three times.
It emitted a loud, shrill shriek.
Several of them who lagged behind redirected automatically toward the piercing noise.
The unit’s green light flashed three more times.
It fired a flare high into the air above it and marked from a distance where a non-animal disturbance interrupted the unit’s slumber. And it continued its shrill cry as they beat and pounded into it, distracted from the chase.
When it finally broke and fell silent, they rushed back to follow the screams and babbles further down Detroit, their ranks more staggered than ever.
Mohammad and Anika overtook Wesley and pedaled closer to the trio.
Seven pumped the pedals uphill, but she steadily lost momentum. She started to fall behind Ben.
They only sounded nearer – fatally so...
Reactively, he reached out and scooped her up off her road bike.
The tires on his bike flattened a little deeper, and his legs cycled ever harder.
Seven climbed onto Ben’s back.
His knees flailed out sideways to stabilize the added weight.
Mohammad scrambled closer to help them.
“Don’t get any closer,” Wesley shouted overtop the buzz of the tires on the road. “The girl is infected!”
Rhea peaked around Ben’s shoulder, and Mohammad studied her. She lacked the decayed appearance and hungry drive which marked the infection’s onset and the terror of the recently bitten. Doubt set in immediately.
Then Seven craned her head away from Ben’s ears, “It’s not true! There’s nothing wrong with her!”
“Keep your distance from that heathen!”
Mohammad glanced back at Wesley. Above his dirty green polo, his pudgy face twisted into a maniacal expression of rage. In the background, they surged ever closer immediately behind William, who wheezed harder than the others, still sore from the kick to his stomach.
“How do you know,” Mohammad demanded.
“Her wound!”
“It was from a window,” Seven objected.
“Tainted glass!”
Unconvinced by Wesley’s appeal, Mohammad rushed closer to the trio.
Ben wheezed and breathed deeply. Sweat streaked down his reddened face. His eyes narrowed and focused on the crest of the hill, just a few dozen feet ahead of them all.
“I got you,” Mohammad called to Seven.
She reached out, and he grabbed her hand.
Then she lunged onto his back.
Ben’s load lightened. His pace quickened.
Anika grouped protectively closer to the others.
They finally crested the top of the hill.
Ben’s thighs nearly cramped. He stretched his legs out wide, cringing from the ache.
As his bike accelerated gradually with gravity, he held his fingers over the handbrakes, poised to maintain control amid the wind-blown trash and discarded debris.
He veered around an abandoned pickup truck.
After a few seconds, he positioned his feet onto his pedals.
Wesley continued to pedal downhill, too. He glared maniacally at Ben’s back as he approached.
He studied Rhea’s hands clasped around him for safety.
Last in the pack, William finally crested the hill, as well.
They followed close behind him. Their screams and babbles desperately announced their hunger.
Vehicles and obstructions forced the bicyclists to ride their brakes and slow their descent. Behind them, they weaved around the same obstructions at full sprint.
Seven watched Wesley’s progress. She craned her head away from Mohammad’s ear and yelled to Anika over the buzz of their tires, “He’s trying to hurt Rhea!!”
Anika looked over at Wesley, startled. She recoiled from the maniacal visage that warped his pudgy face.
“She is infected! We must protect the community!”
“She’s not infected,” Seven shouted again. “Ben wouldn’t take her back into town if she was!”
Resolute, Anika swooped in closer to Wesley.
He frantically reasoned, “Don’t you understand what is happening here? They are protecting our greatest threat!”
“You’re not going to hurt that little girl,” she countered.
“SHE CANNOT THREATEN OUR SURVIVAL!”
Anika swerved sideways and rolled within striking distance of Wesley. She recoiled her leg.
Wesley braced.
She kicked at his bike frame.
He swerved sideways as she pushed him away, and he squeezed his handbrakes down to the handlebars.
Just as his tires squealed, he slammed into the back of a moving van.
Wesley stood up dazed and fought through a wobble to mount his bike.
Then William sped past him.
A moment later, they lunged on Wesley and pinned him against the back of the van. They bit and tore into his neck and chest and arms.
Several of the others tumbled and fell as they scrambled downhill toward the rest of the escaping bicyclists. Patches of bloody skin remained, so violently scraped onto the asphalt.
Ben, Mohammad, and Anika leaned forward from their seats. They picked up speed.
They weaved around vehicles and obstacles.
The intersection at the bottom of the hill loomed ever closer.
Their suspensions smacked and pushed against littered debris. They stiffened their arms against the handlebars – they forced their vibrating tires to remain steady.
Desperately, they pedaled to hasten their momentum.
Then they sped through the intersection.
They nimbly snaked through the abandoned cars and trucks in the road, quickly toward the center of the clustered town.
As they drifted to the right to avoid the overturned caboose just past the unpowered traffic light, they tapped their brakes. Yet at high speeds, their brakes brazenly screeched their painful protests.
The shrill cries echoed down along the empty streets.
Back behind the others, William’s tire wobbled as his bike careened down the hill. He fought to hold his handlebars still.
He pedaled feverishly to place more distance between himself and them, and he wheezed just as heavily.
His tire caught a large chunk of rubble.
Then his handlebars twisted sideways and spun.
The bike slid out from under him. He collapsed.
He spilled out into the intersection and slid to a stop on his stomach.
William pushed himself up from the street— but a broken leg prevented him from moving.
They reached the bottom of the hill.
One by one, they jumped on William. They bit and tore at him.
Even more of them appeared from around the nearby bike hub, alerted by the squeaking brakes and William’s screams of torment.
As Detroit Street rose a little again, the bicyclists pedaled to maintain speed. Ben pushed through his throbbing legs.
His front tire rolled over a
chunk of debris. And his aching foot slipped from the pedal.
Abruptly, his bike tipped beneath him.
Ben promptly released the handlebars. He wrapped his arms around Rhea.
He braced her head in his hand. Then he twisted his body as they fell.
They slammed down onto the ground.
His arms stiffened and protected Rhea from the impact.
He rolled with their momentum.
Mohammad, unable to avoid the collision, ran over Ben’s back wheel.
He ramped into Ben’s side.
As Mohammad flipped, Seven sailed over his back.
Ben crashed back onto the ground. He held Rhea tight as he rolled several more times.
Seven and Mohammad tumbled from the air.
Anika squeezed her handbrakes.
Her bike slid to a halt.
She unmounted and scrambled to Seven. Her ripped, torn clothes moistened from dabs of blood.
Rhea, perfectly safe and unscathed, scrambled from Ben’s embrace.
She tugged at his arm, “Come on, Ben! The bad men are coming! Get up! Get up!”
He rolled over stiffly.
Ben groaned encouragingly, “Go get help. Scream to the heavens.”
“Where is help?”
“The generators, in front of the courthouse.”
Rhea chanced a look up near the Detroit hill. Several of them sprinted ever closer, some not from the same direction but from every direction.
She jumped up on her short legs.
Rushing to her mother, she urged with a frenzy, “Mommy, get up! They’re coming! The bad men are coming!”
Seven hobbled to her feet with Anika’s help. Mohammad pushed up from the ground tenderly.
Rhea turned to face the center of town, her jaw set and determined as a perfect twin to her mother.
She sprinted as fast as her short legs carried her.
“Bad men!”
Rhea curved around a car.
She fiercely concentrated not to trip over any trash and debris.
“Bad men!”
Her short legs pumped fiercely, and her little voice echoed between the buildings.
She craned her head up to the rooftops.
“Bad men! Bad men!”
...Yet no activity perforated the edges of any roof.