“Alright, well thanks then,” I whispered sincerely. Nelson and Vaughan finally got the doors open and pulled a thick wire cable from where the elevator sat idling. They began yanking on it together so that the elevator was raised past the floor and a crawl space was created by a makeshift pulley system.
Clever boys.
“For what?” Hendrix asked with his attention fully on me now.
“For everything,” I shrugged.
“You sound like you’re expecting to die, Reagan,” Hendrix snapped a little louder than I felt comfortable with. The Zombies screeched in reply. “We have an escape plan. You’re going to be just fine.”
I repressed a laugh and admitted, “I know that. But we’re headed south and you’re headed north. I was just saying thank you before we got separated and I never got the chance to. I mean it, thank you.”
Hendrix looked down at me dumbfounded, like I’d just said the most insane thing. Finally Nelson got the cable securely stabilized and started waving his brothers through. Vaughan went first; he lay down and slid underneath the elevator carriage and waved a hand once he was suspended underneath. I was assuming there were cables or ropes of some kind underneath, although I couldn’t see them. Harrison helped Page through the hole, and then we heard Vaughan’s encouraging words to her as she shook with fear.
“Alright, Reagan,” Hendrix said softly but firmly, directly in my ear. I shivered as his breath cascaded down my neck and his rumbly voice wrapped around all of my senses. “I get the independence thing, but you’re not going south until we get the hell out of here and to safety. You stay directly behind me, you got that.”
I whipped my head around to face him, while Haley crawled into the hole next. “Sweet offer, but I can take care of myself.”
“Never said you couldn’t,” Hendrix growled. “Stay behind me, got that?”
“Whatever makes you feel like a man,” I sighed, annoyed that I had somehow agreed to his protection without actually agreeing.
“And we’ll talk about going south later,” he promised.
Before I could respond with anything to that kind of crazy talk it was my turn to crawl through the elevator hole. I slid my arms through first and felt for the rope I had to believe would be there. My backpack barely squeezed through with me. Once my hands were firmly holding the thick wire cable, I awkwardly pulled my feet through and straddled the rope. I held on as tightly as I could, but my hands wanted to slip and my feet struggled for footing.
A flashlight had been dropped in the shaft and even though it hardly gave off any light, it was like a beacon of hope that promised there was life at the end of this rope. My biceps burned from holding my body up and my feet were planted so firmly against the wall I had no idea how I was going to get down.
Suddenly hands slid through the hole and my ass was firmly gripped in Hendrix’s arms.
“What the hell?” I gasped as he worked something around my waist.
“Just,” he grunted, snapped a carabineer in place and then breathed out a, “There.”
He had tied a rope under my bum, supporting my weight and taking the pressure off my arms and hands. I still had to hold most of my weight by myself, but it was easier to move down the wall. Hendrix slid through the hole next and did the same to himself on the rope next to mine.
“Where are you supposed to stay?” He ground out as we worked our way down the wall, leaning back and painstakingly walking our way down the elevator shaft.
I shot him a nasty look, but he couldn’t see me because of all the darkness. “Hendrix, are you kidding me?”
“By me, Reagan. Always, by me,” he answered, ignoring my sarcasm.
My stomach flipped over at his words and suddenly I felt very sick- whether it was from the sudden onslaught of nerves or foreboding-- I had no idea, but there it was. I shook it off, convincing myself we’d be separated by the time this night was over.
The sounds of Harrison and King strapping in above us filled up the oppressive silence; Hendrix and I both fell quiet. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead and every single muscle in my body burned with the effort to get to the ground.
We eventually hit the smooth concrete floor and started to unstrap without hesitation. Nelson was the last one through the hole above and just as I walked through the pried open elevator doors on the first floor, I heard a slice of a knife through the air, the whip of a taut cable as the pressure was suddenly released and the slam of the elevator back into place, suspended three floors above me.
“We rigged it so it’s not connected to anything, but there’s a barrier to keep it from falling down the shaft. It should hold in place for a while. We’re just trying to confuse them while we get out of here. But if they follow our scent, the elevator won’t hold them for long.” Hendrix explained.
“Do you think my bloody clothes will confuse them?” I whispered, meanwhile ice cold dread sloshed through my stomach when I realized bloody clothes might have been what drew them here in the first place.
“Probably,” Hendrix agreed.
“Hey, I’m sorry-“
“Not now, Reagan,” he cut me off and raised his weapon.
This section of the first floor was tucked away from the main hubbub of Zombie traffic. I could hear the horde of Feeders above us pounding on steel, desperate to get to live flesh. They were mindless in their hunger, their cognitive thinking long gone and replaced by an addiction, a powerful need that would destroy the human race all together if we couldn’t figure out a way to permanently survive their constant attacks.
Vaughan and Haley waited for us along the wall, their backs up against it, their guns drawn and pointed readily. Page stayed tucked between them, shouldering her own light pack, but weapon-free. This floor was lit up by the moonlight flooding through broken windows and plowing through walls. There were a few decaying bodies lying throughout the area, their stench choking in its ferocity; the sound of buzzing flies was the only thing to break up the cacophony of Feeder sounds above.
Finally, King, Harrison and Nelson were at ground level and ready to bolt. We waited for Vaughan’s command and then we set out. Hendrix led the way, with Haley and me directly behind him; Nelson and Page were next, then King and Harrison. Vaughan brought up the rear like an expert. I was shocked at the level of precision these boys operated with. They were like a fluid, well-trained military unit. And I expected the older ones to be comfortable with weapons, they would have grown used to them the same way Haley and I had. But Harrison and King were just as proficiently in control.
We stepped our way carefully through the debris and bodies on the floor, working toward a section of the wall that had been blown out by… something. It was hard to decipher, since the debris around it was blackened and charred but not obliterated.
Just as Hendrix stepped through the hole, his gun went off in his hand- on purpose; but it scared the living hell out of me. A strangled moan sounded and the body of a wandering Feeder slumped to the ground.
We all let out a collective breath that lasted half a second. The sound of Hendrix’s gun rang through the night and the pounding upstairs stopped immediately. It was like I could feel the attention of the horde shift from that metal box to our position downstairs.
The hairs on my neck prickled stiffly, just before all pandemonium broke loose. Hendrix looked back over his shoulder, sharing a look with someone behind me before his eyes met mine in steely determination.
“With me,” he mouthed and just as I gave him a nod of agreement he took of sprinting.
I heard Nelson scoop Page up and the boys behind us pounded pavement as Hendrix led the way out of there.
The sounds of crashing metal echoed through the night and Zombies started charging us from every direction. They flooded the small Missouri downtown like waters invading space after a dam broke. They were everywhere, in every direction, ravaging the space between them and us.
They were mindless, yes, easily killed if you got a good shot to the
head; it helped that they were no longer freely thinking human beings. But they were excellent hunters, obsessed with only one thing- eating. Usually they wandered slowly, stumbling around. But if there was a strong enough scent to grab their attention, if they were starving or focused on a kill, they could be faster than any normal human being and more cunning than humanly possible.
That was the state they were in now. Our skirmish earlier must have triggered something, or they were learning to communicate with each other, because there were more Feeders in this area than I had ever seen in one place. There were tons of them, at least fifty and they were ravenous as they chased us down.
Hendrix seemed to know where he was going and I pushed my body to its very limits to keep up with him. My pack was heavy and awkward, it was not comfortable to run with guns in both hands and if I was honest, my pants were kind of slipping down. None of that mattered though. All I had to do was run for my life, get away from these Feeders and believe Hendrix had a plan.
Oh my god, let him have a plan.
“Reagan, to your left!” Vaughan called out from behind me and without thinking or slowing I turned to the left and started shooting. On the third shot I hit the Feeder in the throat, adjusted my aim and fired off another shot that landed directly between his eyes before he crumbled to the ground.
I breathed a short sigh of relief before sucking it right back in. They were everywhere, seemingly coming from all directions. They were bloodied, their faces simultaneously slack and fierce. Their eyes were bright with hunger, and their hands clawed at the air in front of them, desperate to capture a meal. The stench of death and decay permeated the air, and my eyes watered against the ferocity of it.
Guns started firing in every direction. We closed in on each other, while still moving forward. Nelson moved into the middle, Page clutched against his chest, her screams echoing in the space that wasn’t filled with gunshots or the ravening sounds of Feeders.
Finally we reached an abandoned mechanic’s garage, with the lift gate still in place. Hendrix lunged for the rope that connected at the bottom and would pull up the heavy door.
“Reagan, Haley, help them cover me,” Hendrix shouted while using brute strength to lift the gates.
Zombie after Zombie was felled as our unit shot proficiently. Haley and I had stopped missing our targets a while ago, and I could tell these guys were in the same place. It wasn’t that I was born with this natural talent or even harbored some kind of intuitive skill. This capability, to get a Feeder directly between the eyes in one shot, was born out of necessity to live and lack of easily disposable ammunition. I didn’t have time or resources to waste shots and I really didn’t have any desire to become one of them or die gruesomely at their hands.
All it would take was one bite for my brain to stop processing coherent thoughts and concepts and my mouth to start watering specifically for living flesh. Just one, bloody, skin-breaking bite.
And if I got lucky, then I would just suffer through one of them eating me completely. That wouldn’t be a fast death, or a welcome one.
Those thoughts were what fueled each pull of the trigger, each perfectly aimed shot. Those were the thoughts that kept me relentless, kept me focused.
No matter how many guns we aimed at the crowd, it just seemed to keep growing. They were coming from everywhere. We weren’t stopping them, only holding them off, but I knew this couldn’t last. There were just not enough of us, and way too many of them!
“Hendrix, we have to get out of here now!” Vaughan shouted over his shoulder.
With a powerful grunt of force, I heard the garage door lift open all the way just as a gush of stifled air escaped the cage the garage had created and washed over my back.
We kept shooting, even more fervently now that our means of escape was exposed. We were the closest to safety we had been yet, at the same time the most vulnerable to death.
With an almost superhumanly quick glance over my shoulder I saw a gunmetal gray Hummer just waiting to take us to safety.
“For real?” I whooshed out a breath of relief.
“Always have a backup plan, Reagan,” Hendrix breathed over my shoulder. His right arm was aimed high and he was back to shooting the semi-circle of Zombies that had closed in around us. With his free hand, he snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me back against his chest. I was too focused to be surprised or react, but I would definitely be analyzing that move to death if I survived this.
As one we started backing toward the car, until Vaughan called out the order to go.
We all dove for the Hummer, Hendrix never let up his grip on my waist until I was sufficiently shoved into third row back seat. Haley scrambled up after me. Page was tossed in on the other side and Nelson, King and Harrison crawled into the second row seating. Vaughan and Hendrix were the last to jump in the front seat, with Vaughan driving. He started the vehicle immediately, keys already in the ignition.
All the windows were rolled down, which seemed unsafe to me at first and I expected them to get rolled up before we took off. Instead, every brother but Vaughan, who was driving, aimed their guns out the window and began shooting while Vaughan plowed ahead through the tightening ranks of Feeders.
Haley and I threw our bodies over Page, maneuvering her in between us, and then covered our ears as gunshot after gunshot rang out loudly in the night. The poor child quaked with fear, screaming at the top of her lungs, but the sound was drowned out by the heavy gun fire.
The Zombies came without pause, and the guys shot back just as fiercely. The only break in their incessant shooting was when they needed to grab a different gun or quickly and expertly reload the one they were using.
Vaughan’s window was a glaring weak spot, since he couldn’t shoot and drive at the same time and that was where the Zombies seemed to focus. Nelson did his best as he leaned out the window and King climbed up through the sunroof and stood on the seat so he could pick them off from his bird’s eye view.
Vaughan plunged forward, through the crowd that would happily eat us; he knocked bodies over right and left without managing to kill them. I glanced through the back window only to watch them rise again, sometimes dragging barely hanging body parts with them- such was their need to feed, the addiction to warm flesh. So desperate were they that they could no longer feel their own pain until they felt the kill shot to the brain.
They were swarming us now, rocking the car as Vaughan stomped on the gas, but got nowhere. A clawed, curled finger swiped through Harrison’s window, clawing at the seat where it missed Harrison, only to have him hit it a second later with a bullet through the eye. Blood splattered all over the outside of the car, and on the inside of the door; smelly, decaying bits of flesh stuck everywhere they landed.
My stomach rolled, but I kept it together. I had to. There was no losing it, not this close to safety.
Finally, fed up with our slow progress, Hendrix let out a loud growl of frustration and swung his body out the passenger window. Holding on to the roof with his inside arm, he aimed his semi-automatic machine gun and let loose on everything in front of us. Zombies en masse were felled by the spray of his gun, eventually clearing a path for Vaughan and the gigantic Hummer.
Vaughan stomped down on the accelerator; we were thrown back against our seats as the car finally made forward progression. Hendrix cursed as the momentum swung him precariously from his window ledge perch and his gun shot off in the air.
Once he regained his balance, he swiftly traded his multiple-fire weapon for a simpler handgun and picked off the stragglers as they held on with scary strong hands. One by one, they were released from our vehicle and this life, and we were left to breathe through the remaining adrenaline and finally palpable silence.
This strip of road was clear, and hopefully stayed clear for a while, although I knew that was too much to ask. Eventually there would be debris; eventually the Hummer would run out of gas. But right now, we had transportation and all of our limbs. No one was lost
tonight, well, no one that could still be considered of-the-living. And Haley and I had held on to our packs.
Vaughan rolled up the windows when everyone, and every gun, was safely tucked back inside; we sat in silence for twenty more minutes before anyone made a sound. Haley and I kept our arms wrapped around a still trembling Page, and each other.
Tonight had been a close freaking call.
We’d had them before, but suddenly with Hendrix, Vaughan and all their siblings, the stakes seemed incredibly higher- there were way more people that could die.
When my heart started to beat a normal rhythm again and the Zombies were miles behind us, I found my strength and spoke up. “You can drop us anywhere, Vaughan. The sun should be up soon and we don’t want to get too far off course.”
“Reagan,” Haley whispered and nodded her head in the direction of the just rising sun- to our left.
“Oh, that’s probably not necessary,” Vaughan coughed out, keeping his eyes firmly on the road in front of us.
“Turns out you sold us on the south, Reagan,” Hendrix explained evenly. He turned in his seat so he could look me in the eye. “Remember what we agreed earlier?”
My heart slammed into my chest, coming to a complete stop before starting up again at an insane pace. He couldn’t possibly mean that he wanted me to stay with him- always. I shook my head to indicate I didn’t remember what he was talking about.
We just met.
There wasn’t anything between us to where he would risk his life for me. He had a family to think about, a little sister who was curled into my side so tightly it was painful- not that I would ever push her way. But for all I knew, I was leading them on a suicide mission. And the reluctant hope that started to flare in my chest when I thought this man, this incredibly loyal, capable man, wanted me was way more emotion than I was ready to deal with.
“You don’t remember?” Hendrix asked with narrowed eyes. “Then we’ll talk about it later. I’ll help you remember.” His voice was smooth sex appeal as it washed over my body; I shivered involuntarily.
Love & Decay (Season 1): Episodes 1-6 Page 6