I crept down the hallway as quietly as I could. It wasn’t difficult to cover up my noise, the screams and moans from the barricaded stairwell were rattling the walls. Anyway, maybe it’s better to say that I approached the flickering light as cautiously as I could.
The light was coming from beneath a door to one of the many, many guest rooms. I was positive it was the light of a fire. I felt the door; it wasn’t hot to the touch. Merrick gave it a sniff and wagged her tail. That wasn’t something she’d do if there were zombies lurking behind the door.
I tried the handle, it was locked, so I gave the door a hard kick and broke it down. There chairs propped against the now broken door and they flew across the room and hit the opposite wall. The door itself flew off its hinges. I was standing before a group of terrified teenagers. Against the wall, was a laptop that was connected to the internet. It was logged on to the EPUA website.
“I assume I need no introductions,” I said.
Chapter 5
Calvin
Calvin isn’t hard to spot. He’s the young man surrounded by bodyguards. That isn’t why he’s so easy to spot though; he’s been on countless talk shows and news stations. In his own right, he’s as famous as the General, just not in the same way. As I just said, he looks young, very young, but he’s as outspoken and articulate as someone twice his age. He won’t place himself anywhere near the General, but he did agree to meet me outside of town in a small coffee shop. He’s wearing a dark suit despite the heat, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the weather.
Personally, I’m rather shocked that you asked to meet with me.
“Why would that be?”
Well, it’s pretty common knowledge that I’m the Generals biggest detractor.
“Well, when I decided to write this book, I decided to tell the entire story. There are people that believe in him and there are people that don’t. I need to hear both sides in order to be as accurate as possible.”
Does he know that you’re interviewing me?
“Yes.”
And how did he take that information?
“He didn’t seem to care.”
You see, that’s just like him. If you were writing a book about anyone else in the world and went to interview their enemies, they’d be nervous. This guy is so full of himself that he invites such an action and has no fear of it whatsoever. It’s arrogance.
“I see, do you really consider yourself his enemy?”
Not in any physical sense, but yes. I don’t think his actions should be sanctioned. I believe if anything, he should be placed in a prison. Now tell me, are you a fan of his or do you sit on my side of the fence?
“Actually, I must admit that I’m a fan. I’ve seen and spoken with thousands of people that he’s rescued and I’ve seen the famous fifteen minutes of footage.”
Ah, the famous fifteen minutes of footage. Yes…the footage that turned a violent man into a hero. Well, I knew him a little bit before that footage came out and let’s be honest…it is the footage that really made him a superstar. Anyway, I knew him a little bit before that and I can tell you that I had an instant dislike for that man the moment I laid my eyes on him.
“Why don’t you tell me about that first time you laid your eyes on him.”
That’s what everyone wants to hear. Instead, I’ll take a moment to explain how we all got stuck in Downtown El Paso in an abandoned hotel.
Being younger, we had all of us, been raised on horror movies. It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. The dead were coming back to life and they were hungry.
There were six of us in the beginning, Rachel, Rebecca, Jen, Heather, Thomas and myself. We had gathered at Jens apartment for a little bit of swimming. We had the volume on the radio up pretty loud, so we heard the exact moment the local news started to report the outbreak.
Rachel and Rebecca were both in their early twenties with almost identical light brown hair. They were as close as sisters. Rachel had just acquired a new job at a daycare were Jen had been working for the past year. The two of them became fast friends. Jen was a redhead and smoked way too many cigarettes. Her friend Heather was incredibly tall and had straight blonde hair. Thomas was Heathers brother. He was also tall, but he had dark brown hair.
The radio reports kept getting worse and worse, so we turned on the television and saw the rampaging dead for the first time. Right then and there, we decided to leave town. Rebecca wanted to bring her father with us, but he wasn’t answering his home phone. It didn’t take her long to remember that he had previously mentioned that he was going to do a little shopping at a military surplus store Downtown.
I was against going Downtown. I thought the safest thing to do would be to leave El Paso immediately. Obviously, no one paid me any attention.
We loaded up some supplies into some backpacks and hopped into Heathers truck for the trip Downtown. I’ve never liked this part of town, despite being where all the lawyers are, it was dirty and filled with poor people. It just wasn’t of my taste. Regardless, if Rebecca wanted to find her father everyone but me seemed willing to help. I jumped on the band wagon of course. What else could I do? I was dating the girl.
It took three hours to get there and in doing so, we drove through the worst kinds of hell I’d ever seen. We saw the freshly made zombies, it was still early on, and the Westside (where we were) was just beginning to break out, but we still saw more than a few of them.
The moving corpses were more often than not covered with blood and running down Mesa (one of the main streets on the Westside) in search of someone to eat. Sometimes they ran from car to car trying to see if any of the doors were unlocked. More than once a wet dead thing rattled the latches on my side of the truck. They had the hungriest eyes while they did this.
Everyone’s heard that zombie scream. Well, we were right there and stuck in traffic as it sounded out all around us. We were terrified, but we didn’t leave the truck. Others did, and we saw them fall and sometimes rise back up in search of living flesh.
Finally, Heather couldn’t take it anymore. She drove onto the median and left the traffic jams behind. Other people tried to follow her example, but there were too many of them and they formed yet another traffic jam on the median. We were just lucky it was behind us. The freeway wasn’t very crowded once we hit it. Everyone was headed in the opposite direction, which was away from the biggest outbreak. We were headed right towards it. Of course we didn’t know at the time how fast it was spreading.
Eventually, the Downtown traffic jams became so bad, that we had to abandon the truck. I knew how bad of an idea this was, but everyone but me was once again in support of finding Rebecca’s father.
“Look around.” I told them all. “Look at how many people are running around over here. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”
I was right of course, we never found the man. There were thousands of people rampaging through the streets. Some were looting the stores; others were just running for what appeared to be no apparent reason. Then, suddenly everyone came to an almost abrupt stop. I didn’t know why, somebody must have heard something. It became so quiet you could have heard a pin drop, that’s why we heard it…somewhere in the distance…a scream.
The streets and sidewalks were packed shoulder to shoulder with people. The scream came from farther down the street, somewhere behind us. Every head among us turned in that direction. I don’t know who saw what, or if anyone actually saw anything, but one thing was for sure…a fear had set in among all of us.
It was pandemonium after that. A free for all that involved every living soul suddenly seeking shelter. The six of us managed to hide in a small, cheap clothing store on one the many streets. The owners of the store let us in after we had pounded on the door for a good five minutes. It wasn’t safe by any means, the entire front of the store was made of glass, but it was better than nothing.
A few minutes after that, we saw the first zombie run by. It brought down a woman and began to tear
at the flesh on her leg with its dull teeth. Jen got sick. The rest of us froze in place as we watched the zombie chew into what must have been a major artery. The gushing blood spread out over the sidewalk. We couldn’t turn away. Some idiot, who obviously wasn’t paying attention, ran right by the zombie, the zombie in turn left the woman in exchange for chasing down the idiot.
In seconds, the woman rose to her feet and spotted us. She charged head first into the glass front of the store. The impact knocked her off her feet, but she got right back up and pounded the glass with her fists.
Her frenzy attracted other zombies and very soon the front of the store was littered with the fresh undead. They wanted in. They wanted to eat. They wanted our flesh. Their fists became bloody pulp and they pounded and pounded.
The glass wouldn’t hold forever, in fact it was already beginning to wobble dangerously in the metal frame.
The owners gave us a case of bottled water and we left them in the store as we exited out the back. I’ll never know why they refused to come with us. They only spoke Spanish and I’m afraid that I’ve never mastered the language.
We ran from street to street looking for a safe way out of the area, but it seemed that in every direction that we tried to turn, people were running in the opposite direction. None of us thought it would be a good idea to run in a direction that hundreds were running away from. It was chaos, it was hell. I knew it would be a mistake. I knew it and none of them listened to me. Well, they were all ready to listen now.
We began to see the zombies. More and more of them were making an appearance. Their numbers were growing as ours were dwindling. There were certainly a lot fewer people on the streets now.
“Alright,” I said. “We aren’t going to be able to leave the area, it’s too dangerous. So, we need to find a place to hide. Somewhere where there aren’t a lot of idiots that will give away our position.”
“I saw an empty building by the McDonalds we ran past a little bit ago,” said Rachel.
So, off we ran in that direction. It was good that they were finally taking my advice. People need to be led. Without a leader, they’d wander around in circles until one of these corpses bit them on the leg.
That was exactly what happened by the way.
On the way to this empty building, we passed this parking lot, and it came running out after us from the backseat of one of the cars. We ran…but Rachel fell behind. I looked over my shoulder and I saw the zombie grab her by the hair and pull her to the ground. She screamed and screamed. Rebecca tried to run back and help her, but I caught her by the arm and dragged her away.
“There’s only one of them,” she screamed at me. “We can help her.”
“No,” I shouted back. “We’ll end up just like her if we go back.”
It didn’t take long to find the building Rachel brought to our attention. It was perfect, completely abandoned and had been for years. We all climbed through a broken window in the rear of the building. I had Thomas and Heather do a quick search of the first floor. They both came back in under twenty minutes. The place had indeed been closed up tight with the exception of the broken window we all just climbed through. I had Jen and Rebecca seal up the window with some of the many boards scattered around the floor.
“Now, let’s all just sit tight and wait for help to arrive.”
They all just stared at me.
“What kinds of supplies do we have?” I asked, ignoring their stares.
I knew that I hadn’t carried any supplies, but the rest of them had backpacks.
“I only brought my laptop,” said Jen.
“I brought a little bit of food and I still have the water that they gave us at the clothing store,” said Heather.
“I just have water,” said Thomas.
Rebecca said nothing.
“What do you have Rebecca?” I asked.
She still said nothing.
“Rebecca,” I shouted.
“We could have saved her,” she mumbled.
“She was beyond help sweetie. There was nothing we could do.”
“There was only one of them. We could have…”
“No Rebecca,” I told her. “We lost her the moment you dragged us all Downtown. We should have left the city like I wanted to.”
“No…” she stammered. “You wouldn’t let me…it’s not my fault.”
“Yes Rebecca,” I told her. “It is your fault. If I have any blame, it’s in letting you bring us down here.”
The shuffling footsteps put an abrupt end to whatever she would say in reply. We heard the noise clearly, but none of us could pinpoint the direction.
With all the windows boarded up, the only light that was coming into the first floor was the little bit of light filtering through the cracks in the boards on the windows. It wasn’t nearly enough; there were too many shadows and dark corridors.
The vagrant came out of the hallway farthest from all of us.
He froze in his tracks when he saw us all there staring at him. From what I could see of his clothes, they were mangy and covered in that dirty grease that bums tend to accumulate on all their belongings. His long hair was matted down with sweat against the back of his neck. I could smell him from way across the room.
“Hello there,” said Heather.
There was no reply.
The vagrant merely continued to stare at us.
“You doin okay over there buddy?” asked Thomas.
As if in answer, the vagrant began to shamble towards us.
I didn’t like this one bit. All the hairs on my arms were standing on end.
Rebecca walked right over to him. She was a foolish girl.
“Sir, are you okay?” She asked. “Would you like some water?”
The vagrant didn’t answer until she was a mere few feet away. I probably should have stopped her from getting close to him, but she’d probably just tell me how rude I was.
It’s my belief that the vagrant crawled through the same window the rest of us had, only we weren’t bitten like he was. I’m guessing that he died very soon after he made it through the window.
He screamed in Rebecca’s face and tackled her to the floor.
His face was buried in her neck before the rest of us could react. I ran in the opposite direction. Heather, Thomas and Jen ran to help Rebecca.
As I rounded the corner, I realized I was alone. I headed back and watched as the three of them pulled the zombie off of my dying girlfriend. Of course, there was nothing they could do. All they accomplished was aggravating the zombie.
It then began to grab at them wildly. I realized why it never ran at us. It had been bitten quite severely on the lower left leg. All it could do is shamble around at a rather slow pace. It would be easy to outrun.
I shouted at every one to follow me and once again, when everything had gone to hell…they began to listen.
“What about your girlfriend?”
Look, this is where I get into a lot of trouble. I have a different belief system than those of us that grew up on comic books. In my view, the greatest thing we could all do is survive. I had no idea of knowing whether or not this outbreak would spread out of the city or not. The world didn’t need heroes, the world needed survivors.
“When you’re referring to heroes, can I assume that you’re speaking of the General?”
Of course I am. I died inside when I saw my girlfriend get attacked, but there was nothing I could do the minute she was bitten. If I tried, I would endanger myself needlessly.
Now, the General, this is a guy that got lucky and survived his first encounter and then it all went to his head in one of the greatest power trips the world has ever seen. This man is nothing special; he’s just a guy that left his friends (whom he should have been protecting and keeping safe) over and over for glory. And in doing all this glory searching he also endangered the people he brought with him on his little adventures, not to mention all the property damage he caused.
“So you believe that he
should not have risked himself to save others?”
Correct, the smartest thing any of us could have done was to stay somewhere safe and hidden. The minute we stop doing that, is the minute we endanger those that are already under our protection and who’s to say that all those people needed him? Who’s to say that the government wouldn’t have eventually come in and saved everyone?
“Well…the government said that.”
At the time the government said that they wouldn’t go into the outbreak due to the risk of spreading the infection. I understand that, but what people need to understand is that the government said that during the initial phase. No one knows what they would have said and done later on. I believe public outcry would have forced their hand.
In other words…we didn’t need the General.
“Okay, let’s get back to your story. What happened after Rebecca was attacked?”
We ran like hell.
That’s the simple and straightforward answer. I didn’t grab a weapon and defend everyone by risking all our lives. I led them to safety.
We headed to the stairwell and made it to the 12th floor. As soon as we exited the stairwell, I heard the first zombie scream from Rebecca. It was a hard moment for me. I froze at the stairwell exit. Thomas, Heather and Jen were waiting for me. It wasn’t easy, but I forced myself to forge ahead.
The windows weren’t boarded up on the upper floors. The sunlight was shining through in the dusty hallways. I found us a room that looked decently habitable for the foreseeable future.
I barricaded the door behind us.
“Rebecca’s still out there,” said Jen as she lit a cigarette. “We need to do something.”
“She was bitten,” said Thomas. “I don’t think we can do anything for her.”
“We can put her out of her misery,” said Heather.
“No.” I replied. “There’s nothing we can do, but wait for help.”
Everyone looked at me, but none of them said a word against me. After all, I was right; the risk was simply too great.
El Paso Under Attack - 01 Page 17