The bridge was full of zombies, and the road on the other side leading to it was awash with them as well. The site suggested that someone was herding them towards the bridge. For what purpose, I didn’t know.
“Fuck,” I said, backing away from the roof’s edge and plopping down in a lounge chair someone had left up there.
“What… How…” Kayla tried to say. Her eyes never left the massive horde flooding onto the island.
“I don’t know.”
I pulled out my walkie and radioed Jasper.
“I see it,” he said.
“Any ideas about what’s going on?” I asked.
“Not a one. Can you guys get back here?”
“Not anytime soon. Those things are everywhere. And they just keep coming.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re on the roof of an apartment building. I didn’t get the name of it. The building seems quiet. I think we can stick it out a few days. Surely, we won’t be here long. We took plenty of weapons, but not enough to take on that many at once. I also don’t know if Kayla is ready to face even a few of them, let alone a horde.”
“I can fight,” she said, not looking back at me. Her voice trembled, but there was steel in her tone. That last told me that she might be able to hold her own against those things when we started to make our way back to Shore Haven.
“I see a few buildings, but I don’t know which one is yours. Zombies surround the buildings near the bridge.”
“We know. We’re on one of the roofs.”
“Do you think you’ll be safe there?”
“We haven’t checked the building for zombies, but I think so.”
“All right. I’ll keep watch and let you know when it might be safe to leave.”
“Thanks. I don’t think I can stay up here and look at the zombies anymore. We’re going inside for a bit.”
“Be safe,” Jasper said, letting the line go silent.
When I looked up at Kayla after pocketing the walkie, she was staring at me. Her hands shook, but her eyes were bright.
“We’re stuck here for a bit, so we might as well make ourselves at home,” I said, rising from the chair.
She only nodded and followed me back into the building.
By the time we’d swept the top floor, it was evident that someone had already cleared the place. We didn’t find any bodies. We saw bloodstains, but ones that someone had tried to clean. We didn’t uncover any food or weapons.
Before I opened the stairway door to the next floor down, I looked at Kayla and said, “Keep your gun out. I have a feeling someone’s still alive in the building. We don’t know what kind of person they are. If they pose even the slightest bit of threat, you shoot first, ask questions later.”
She nodded, but the fear in her eyes said that she wouldn’t be able to kill a live person. That was all right. I was sure I could if the individual threatened our lives.
The next floor down was just as empty as the top floor. As was the floor beneath that.
“We can’t stay here long without food and supplies,” Kayla said, as we prepared to go down to the next floor.
“We might not have to. After we scout the building, we go back to the roof to see if the zombies’ numbers have thinned any. We’ll give them a day to move deep into the island. There isn’t anyone for them to feed on, so they should die out quickly. We should be able to go to the next building by tomorrow afternoon.”
Halfway through the next floor, we found who had cleared the building. To be accurate, Russ found us. The boy was leaning against the wall opposite an apartment we were searching, waiting for us to exit. He had a few knives strapped to him, a handgun in a holster around his waist, and a baseball bat in his right hand. His stance said he didn’t deem us a threat, but he wasn’t taking any chances with us either.
Kayla didn’t yelp at his appearance, but she did cry out when I jerked her behind me.
“Are you the ones who dropped the bridge?” Russ asked, not shifting from his casual position.
“No. We were a few blocks away when we heard it come down. We got here in time to see the horde coming across it. There were so many of them that we knew we wouldn’t be able to make it home before they overran us. This building was the closest place for us to hide,” I said, holding my defensive stance.
The boy was too calm for comfort.
He nodded.
“Did you see it happen?” I asked him.
“No. I heard it. I rushed to the roof, but I didn’t see anyone running from the area. I did see the horde waiting on the other side. I took one look at them and hid in the basement. That’s where I’ve been waiting this thing out.”
“You’re the one who cleared the building?”
“Yeah. Nothing else to do. The smell was getting ripe, so I got rid of the bodies and took everything I needed.”
“Have you been outside this apartment building at all?”
“In the beginning, I was out a lot, trying to find help and answers, but after the first week of finding nothing, I’ve stuck close to home. I only go out if I need something. Most days as far away from here I go is next door. I’m working on clearing that building now.”
Russ’ story surprised me. He looked like one of those guys who would thrive in a zombie-filled world. Those types were some of the first to die, thinking they were invincible. For someone who looked like that to be so level-headed and cautious surprised me.
“How many of them have you killed,” he asked, with a gleam in his eye that told me he wasn’t as level-headed as he appeared. In his eyes, I saw a need to be out there fighting battling with the need to be sensible and survive.
“Not many. We locked ourselves in Shore Haven at the start of the outbreak. This is our first real venture outside. We were hoping the lowering bridge was a sign that help was on the way, so we came to investigate. You?”
“More than I’m comfortable with killing. Those things can’t open doors. A lot of apartments had one or two trying to get out. I’m lucky because most people living in this building were old, making them easier to kill. Decapitation or damage to the brain is the only way to kill them, did you know that?”
“I assumed. That’ll kill pretty much anything.”
“Right. Anyway. The building next door didn’t have as many, but the tenants were younger and faster. I thought I was dead more than once.”
“Did you live here before?” Kayla asked, stepping from behind me.
“Kind of. My grandma did. I lived with her until I started college. Since then, I’ve been on campus. I came home when she got sick because her day sitter was sick as well and couldn’t stay with her.”
“Did you have to…” Kayla started to ask if he had had to kill his grandmother.
“No. Grandma got sick, but instead of turning, she just died. A lot of them,” he nodded toward the unopen apartment doors to refer to the other tenants, “just died instead of turning. I don’t know why it turns some but kills others.”
“The doctors who were in Shore Haven thought it was because their brains were damaged in some way,” I said. “My niece turned, but she died within minutes. She had a tumor on her spine. She was fine and could walk before she turned, but once she did, she couldn’t move her lower body. The doctors theorized that maybe whatever caused her to turn also woke up the tumor, sped up its destruction of her body, then killed her.”
“That makes sense. I didn’t know everyone in the building, but the ones that I knew who died quickly, like my grandma, had Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and stuff like that. I’m Russ, by the way,” the kid said, holding out his hand.
“Jason,” I said, taking his hand.
“I’m Kayla,” Kayla said, not offering to shake.
“Nice to meet you,” Russ said. “You seem like decent people, so you’re welcome to stay for as long as you need to.”
He sidestepped us to go to the nearest window. He didn’t look out it long before pulling the curtain tight and coming bac
k to the hall.
“How is it out there?” I asked, though I could guess by the look on his face.
“The cities covered in them again. Why would there be so many waiting to cross the bridge?”
“I don’t know,” I answered. “It seems as if someone knew the bridge was going to come down, and he/she purposely lured those zombies to it.”
“But why?” Kayla asked.
“I don’t have a clue. Maybe Jasper’s found out something. I’ll try radioing him in a bit.”
“Who’s Jasper?” Russ asked.
“My uncle. He’s the man who built Shore Haven. The compound still has power, and every once in a while he can pick up radio broadcasts that tell him what’s going on in other places in the country.”
“So this is happening everywhere?”
“Looks like. We’ll need to get back there as soon as possible. It’ll be the safest place on the island. But with those numbers, I don’t know…”
“You’re welcome to stay here for a while as long as you take me with you,” Russ said.
“Deal,” I said.
Russ showed us to his basement home, and we stayed there for the rest of the day. Jasper said the zombies were still spilling across the bridge, but he hadn’t heard anyone mentioning the bridge, the island, or the herd, so he didn’t know why someone would have directed them toward us.
Russ suggested that since it appeared as if the outbreak started on the island, someone out there blamed us, and purposely sent them out as a way to punish us. The idea was certainly plausible.
Chapter 11
~~~Samantha~~~
—Inside the decontamination room.—
I woke—I found out later that it was the morning of our third day in containment—to the feel of a warm body pressed against me. When I woke that time, I felt awake, really awake. I was tired and weak, but not sleepy. I also felt a pressure in my bladder that said that I had better get up and go to the bathroom right that second or my situation was going to get a lot more awkward.
I tried to move so that I wouldn’t wake the man sleeping next to me, but since the bed wasn’t big enough for me to shift without him noticing, he woke instantly.
“Are you okay?” Jason asked, jerking up onto his elbow.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” I said, not intentionally ignoring the question. I felt it more prudent to apologize for waking him than to answer him at that moment.
“Not a problem. How do you feel?” Jason asked again.
“I’m okay. I’m sore and tired, but mostly, I have to pee. I was trying to get out of bed without disturbing you, but I failed. Go back to sleep.”
Jason shook his head and got out of bed. Instead of leaving me to crawl on shaking legs out of bed and to the bathroom on my own, he reached out and helped me from the bed, then let me put my weight on him as I walked. The air in the room was cold, so I allowed myself to lean into him and soak in his body heat. He was too familiar with the way I moved, which told me that that wasn’t the first time he’d helped me to the bathroom.
“I can carry you if you need me to. If that leg still hurts to put weight on,” Jason said, as I took my first step away from the bed.
“You cannot. Don’t you dare. You’ll hurt yourself. I can walk,” I said, shocked that Jason would offer to do such a thing. Walking was going to be painful and hard, but I was not going to let him injure himself just to get me to the bathroom.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, as I took another step.
“Please tell me you haven’t tried to lift me.”
“I didn’t try. I carried you. A few times, actually. You aren’t as heavy as you think.”
“Liar. I can’t believe you did that. Don’t do it again. You’re too important to your people to hurt yourself for me.”
“You’re feisty this morning,” he said, chuckling. “That’s good to hear. I thought you were going to sleep through the zombie apocalypse.”
“Is that an option?”
“Yeah, but I don’t recommend it. You’ll be easy prey.”
“I’m easy prey anyway. I don’t have the body or the training to live in this kind of world.”
“None of us did, but luckily for you, you’re at Shore Haven now. We have a safe haven from the hordes. We have food, water, medicine, and weapons. I don’t know how to use every weapon we have, but we have them if we need them.”
“So we really are inside Shore Haven?”
“Yep.”
“Are you sure the virus didn’t start here?”
“I’m sure. Some of the first of the infected died here, and we had doctors studying them, but the virus, or whatever it is, wasn’t created here.”
Our conversation distracted me from the pain in my head and leg enough for us to get me to the bathroom. To my relief, he left me to use the facilities on my own.
“It’s early, but are you hungry, thirsty, or anything,” he called from the kitchen.
“I’m a little hungry. Do we have food?”
“I can make oatmeal or cream of wheat. Which do you prefer?”
“Is there milk?”
“Powdered.”
“Would it be wrong of me to ask for cream of wheat made with milk? I don’t want to consume resources, so if that will waste the powdered milk, then oatmeal.”
“Cream of Wheat it is,” he said not answering my question.
I wanted to kick myself for being greedy.
When I’d finished, I limped out of the bathroom. Jason heard me move and was by my side in a heartbeat, helping me back to the bed, so that I could crawl under the covers.
“Don’t go to sleep,” he said, giving me the feeling that I’d done that to him a time or two as well.
“Not a chance. I’m hungry. Can we turn some heat on in here?”
“No. The central computer controls the temperature of the decontamination rooms. I think there’s a temperature requirement that Jasper has to follow for these areas, and since the computer controls it, we can’t override it. I don’t think we should either. The colder air may help keep the rooms as sterile as possible.”
“I understand that, but I’m freezing.”
“When the others wake, I’ll ask for warmer clothes. In the meantime, maybe this will help,” Jason said, bringing me a bowl. “I put a little bit of butter and sugar in it, I hope that’s okay.”
“That’s perfect. Are you sure we should eat all this?”
“Yes. My uncle had Shore Haven generously stocked, and whenever possible, we’ve been bringing in more supplies. The butter won’t last forever, but the rest we have plenty of for the foreseeable future.”
I watched him take a seat in a chair and felt a pang of disappointment that he didn’t come back to bed. Yes, I wanted his body heat, but a part of me just wanted him close.
My husband’s face popped into my head in an attempt to shut down that train of thought. My marriage wasn’t perfect. As a matter of fact, David probably thought I was dead. In all reality, he might also be, but that didn’t mean I could allow inappropriate thoughts for another man to cloud my head. Until I knew for sure, I wasn’t going to cheat on my husband even if he had cheated on me.
“This is good,” I said a bit later to break the silence that had fallen between us. “I’d been worried the powdered milk wouldn’t give the Cream of Wheat the right flavor, but it’s edible. I’ve never been able to stomach Cream of Wheat made with water. I mean, if I had to, I would, and I know that with the way the world is now, I’ll have to learn to eat a lot of things I wouldn’t normally like…”
I shut up at his grin and took another bite. God, I sounded like a spoiled brat, talking about not liking foods made a certain way as if I would have a choice in what I ate ever again. He probably thought I was a shallow twit.
“I’ve, honestly, never been a Cream of Wheat fan, but as you’ve said we live in a world now where we can’t be choosy. One day soon, we’ll be hunting for our food,” Jason said
.
“You really think so. The earthquakes and floods were pretty bad, but we picked ourselves back up from those pretty good. You don’t believe that we can do the same after this?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’ll depend on how many people survive and on the knowledge that survives with them. Jasper built Shore Haven to be self-sustaining, but we can only go so far in rebuilding with so few people. The thing that will save us is knowing that the zombies aren’t eternal. They’ll die out even if there isn’t anyone around to kill them. Although, if someone can’t find a vaccine or cure and the virus has a one hundred percent infection rate none of it will matter. We’ll all die soon anyway.”
“So why didn’t you let the zombies outside kill me if that’s the case?” I asked, sounding angry and scared. If I hadn’t been starving and if someday food might be scarce, I might have even shoved my bowl away in a fit of temper.
“I didn’t let you die because I want to believe that we still have a chance. That one day there might be a cure and that a year or ten years from now things might be back to normal. We all have to believe that. If we don’t, then we might as well give up as a people and become like those monsters out there.”
Suitably chastised, I said, “Okay. Sorry. I’m tired. I hurt. And I don’t want to live in this world anymore. I’m not a survivalist. I liked my comfortable life. I don’t know if I can do this.”
I hadn’t meant to tell him all of that. Sadie had known I was weak. That was why she’d left us behind. I would have eventually gotten her killed the same way I got Maddie killed.
“You should have left me to die,” I said, wiping away the tears streaming down my cheek and setting my nearly empty bowl to the side so that I could bury myself in the blankets.
“Shit,” I heard him say before I heard him place both of our bowls on the table. A second later, I felt the bed dip, as he crawled up next to me.
Knowing I shouldn’t and knowing I was acting like a child at that moment, I turned to him and bawled. I cried for myself. I cried for my sister. I cried for my family. I cried for the world. I cried from pain, from anger, and from sorrow.
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