The Infected (Book 1): Jim's First Day

by Joseph Zuko

  We enter the intersection quickly and the street to our left is overrun. The infected are headed our way. We pick up the pace. Frank takes down those at the head of the pack.

  “Head for the apartment!” I call out. There is a gap between each building. I point for the gap. “That way!” This opening leads us to a parking lot. I look back and the monsters are in hot pursuit. The opening between the buildings forces them to funnel down. They come at us, stumbling over each other. They can only fit three bodies at a time through the breach. Frank sees it too and he opens fire. Some of the shots take down two at a time. It is fantastic to watch him. He is not rushed. He takes his time. He empties his clip quickly and drops fifteen of them.

  “Watch our back!” I tell Sara. The stack of bodies slows the rest down and the three of us use our blades to hack and slash them to pieces. Two creatures charge out of the parking lot behind us. Sara chops one of their heads in two like a cantaloupe.

  “Guys!” She calls out and Devon whips around and finishes the last one. Frank pops the banana clip out and flips it around. He has the second clip, locked and loaded, in a matter of seconds.

  “Get back!” Frank growls. We drop back and he opens up on them. The man is a surgeon. He cuts the ranks of this diseased army down by half. The one or two that get passed his kill zone are taken out quickly by one of the three of us. The heap of bodies stands four feet tall. His SKS clicks empty. The last couple of stragglers climb over the hill of bodies. Our three blades finish them off. As soon as I can, I have to make Sara a spear. She gets so close with the machete that it sprays her with blood. Every other kill splatters her with sticky goo. If I could figure out a way to bolt a machete to a walking stick, that would be a killer weapon. Frank has his SKS slung back on his shoulder and both Berettas out. He caps the last two.

  “Wow!” Devon jumps with excitement.

  “I need to reload,” Frank holsters one of the guns.

  “I need to wash off,” Sara wipes her face. I look over the parking lot. Most of the spots are empty. There should be a lot of empty apartments to choose from.

  I run diagonally across the lot. We head for an apartment on the west side of the complex. I spot a door that looks good. No car out front. No blood on the window. It is a first floor unit. These apartments are built into the ground so the first floor is more of a day light basement.

  I get face to face with the door, give it a tap, press my ear to the wood and listen for any movement. I tap it a little harder. I shrug my shoulders back to the group.

  “I think it’s empty.”

  “Let’s give it a try,” Sara gets her machete up and ready. I step back from the door.

  “I’ve always wanted to do this,” I throw a brutal front kick. One of the best legged kicks I have ever thrown. My foot makes contact with the door and I am stopped cold. I nailed it but the door won this round. My left knee takes most of the punishment. “Shit,” I grab my knee.

  “I thought that would have like, worked,” Devon is disappointed. Frank steps up and blasts the knob with his gun. The door swings open.

  “You loosened it for me,” Frank jokes as he enters the apartment.

  The place smells of stale cigarette smoke. There is a lot of clutter around the front door and all of the lights are out. I turn the bolt lock and put on the chain on.

  “Hello?” Devon calls.

  “Gunshot would have alerted them. No one’s here,” Sara walks over to the kitchen sink and turns on the faucet. She finds a washcloth and goes to work cleaning herself. The place is messy but it does not look like someone was packing to leave.

  “Let’s hurry,” Frank drops his bag down onto the kitchen table and unzips it. He pops the clip out of the SKS and pulls out a box of ammo. He quickly goes to work filling them. Propped up in the corner by the front door is a Louisville Slugger.

  “Devon, give Sara the sheath to the machete,” I grab up the bat and take it into the kitchen. I pull open the drawers around the sink and find the knife drawer. I find a set of long and sturdy cooking knives. They are thick in the spine and have a full tang blade. I search the cupboards until I find a roll of Duct Tape. I use half the roll of tape, but I put both blades at the head of the bat. I test it to make sure they are sturdy. I swing it into the back of a chair at the kitchen table. It snaps right through the back of the chair and the blades hold firm. I hand the bat to Sara.

  “That should give you a little more distance.”

  She takes it and gives it a swing, “Thanks.”

  I take a long drag of water. The bladder goes empty. I need to refill my water. I pull off my backpack and pop it open. I pull out a couple bags of jerky and a Snickers bar. I toss a bag of jerky to Devon. I tear into my Snickers. I am going to have to find a big box of these at a store before they are all gone. I know that most grocery stores have only what is on the shelf and when it is gone, it is gone. I pull out the water bladder of my pack and it hits me I have to take a piss.

  “We should use the bathroom,” I put down my bag and spear.

  I head to the back of the apartment looking for the bathroom. Two doors are open and they are the bedrooms, but the third door is shut. I open the door and smell it. Death. I have it only open a few inches when the set of teeth smashes into the door frame.

  “Shit!” I gasp. It is a woman in her thirties. She has turned. Her fingers are wrapped around the edge of the door. I quickly grab the knob with both hands to keep it from swinging open. Her hands are covered in blood and she fights like a wild animal to get out of the bathroom.

  “Guys!” I call them. Devon is first to show up.

  “Whoa!” he blurts out.

  “Get her!” I tell him. He pulls his knife and steps up to the door. He stabs down into her skull and the body drops. I push hard on the door to get it to move her body. I get the door open and I back away from the bathroom. My hand automatically goes up to my mouth.

  “Oh no,” Devon whispers. Sara and Frank have joined us and they see the horror that is this bathroom.

  “What?” Sara whimpers.

  “Mother of God!” Frank says in disgust. Every inch of the bathroom looks like it is covered in blood. On the mirror are the words “I’m sorry”. The message is written in blood. In the bathtub are two small children. Their heads have been crushed in by the lid off the back of a toilet. There is a razor blade on the counter. It is soaked in blood. I look back at the woman’s body and there are deep red slits across both wrists.

  I am going to lose it. The thought of my wife doing this is enough to send me to the nuthouse.

  “I’m almost loaded,” Frank turns away and heads back to the kitchen. I pull the door closed.

  Back in the kitchen I dig under the kitchen sink. There has to be a bucket around here somewhere.

  “Go in the sink,” Frank clicks the last few rounds into the banana clip.

  “I can’t piss in a sink,” Anger builds. I can feel it. My face is flush. I am hungry, dehydrated and every part of my body aches. I smash around the contents of the cabinet.

  “Piss in the sink,” he says again.

  “Fuck off.” I have never ever told someone to “fuck off.” I can’t believe I said it. Frank drops his gun on the table. I quickly turn and he has got a hold of my collar. His face is inches from mine. I am pinned up against the sink.

  “Are you angry?”

  “Let go of me!” I push him back.

  “Are you pissed off?” he pushes against me even harder.

  “Guys,” Sara grabs us both by our shoulders. She pushes and pulls to separate us.

  “You think your wife’s dead? And your kids? They’re all gone. Eaten by some monster and you didn’t save them.” Frank’s words cut me to my soul.

  “Shut up!” I slam my forearm against his and break his hold on my collar. Then I push him back and throw a right cross. My fist mangles his lips. I am such an idiot. Why risk breaking my hand? Why punch this man who has done everything to try to help me get home? Frank
falls back against the kitchen table. My hand kills but I did not break it. I know I hurt him, but he is not showing any pain. Frank rubs his mouth and spits out a glob of blood on the floor.

  “Feel better?” he goes back to loading the clip.

  “No, I don’t. I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m sorry.”

  “That love tap? Don’t worry about it,” he smiles back at me and tosses his bag up onto his shoulder.

  “Your wife’s going to be fine. I know it,” Devon chimes in from the living room. Bits of jerky fall from his mouth as he talks. I turn my back to him and I piss in the sink. I know Sara is only feet from me, but I have to go so badly. She does not seem to care. She didn’t even turn away.

  “How do you know?” I have to talk louder over the noise from the sink.

  “You told her to stay in the bedroom, get the gun and don’t let anyone know she’s there,” he pours the last of the bag into his mouth and tosses the empty plastic to the floor. I finish pissing in the sink and rinse it out as I wash my hands. I fill the bladder for my pack. “Look around. Like, they aren’t beating down this lady’s door to get in here. She could’ve been fine and I don’t see a husband in any of the pictures. She didn’t have anyone coming home like Karen does. It was her and the kids and she lost hope. She lost it fast,” Devon smiles brightly at me, his lip is swollen, but he still manages a smile to make me feel better.

  I finish filling my water bladder. I face my friends. “You’re right,” I reconnect the bladder to my pack.

  “You boys okay now?” Sara pats me on the shoulder. Frank and I nod. I sling my bag onto my back and snap it secure. Frank is ready. Sara slides her machete into the sheath on her hip and picks up her new blade bat. Devon and I grab our spears and head for the door.

  I look out the peephole. “There’s two out there,” I whisper. Frank is right behind me. “Let Devon and I take those two. Then we head north.” Frank and Devon switch spots behind me. I unlock the bolt and swing the door open. The two monsters do not know what hit them. We are out the door with spears jammed in the back of their heads in under two seconds. We take the same triangle position as before with Frank in the lead. The four of us sprint hard across the lot. A car sits ahead of us, its front windows smashed in. The driver and his passenger have turned. They are strapped into the front seats and their arms claw out the window at us. They were bitten on their arms and hands. Both are missing most of their fingers and the bones of their forearms are exposed.

  “We should put them down. If they get out they could hurt someone,” Sara readies her weapon.

  “She’s right. We should put down every one of them we come across,” Frank leads us over to the car.

  “I’ll take the passenger,” I split off from the group to the passenger side. I get my spear up and ready to stab. I know this person. She works at the local Trader Joe’s. I put her out of her misery. Sara uses the blade bat and it destroys the man’s face.

  We regroup and head for another gap between the last buildings on this lot. When we get to the edge of the building we pause for a moment. Ahead of us is a major intersection. From here I can see my apartment complex. My heart skips a beat. The intersection is an absolute mess. It is filled with cars. Some have flipped over on their sides, a few are on fire and a couple are just burnt out shells. There are black skeletons seared to the car seats and they move like bad animatronic robots. The tight skin and loss of muscle control give the bodies a herky jerky movement. There is a good sized horde around the intersection. I glance over to the right and there’s a church. As far as I can tell there is only a couple to get through if we head for the church. We dart across this little chunk of grass. It is covered in trees and scrubs. The plants keep us hidden from the infected. There is a fence that separates this apartment complex from the street. We follow the fence to the edge of the property.

  I peek around the fence and the street is clear. Dead ahead of us is a minivan that is flipped over and resting on its roof. The van is laid out across two lanes. We stay low and sprint across the sidewalk and hide behind the van. I pause for a second to catch my breath. In the next lane is a U-haul truck. That is the next spot to get to, but there is a fifteen foot chunk of concrete to cross where we will have nothing to hide behind. A set of infected hands reach out from the overturned van. They grab Frank’s leg. He screams in shock. I drop down to the ground and come face to face with a young girl. Thirteen maybe, and beside the bite marks on her hand she looks totally fine.

  “Oh God, she’s a kid,” I look up at the others. Frank pulls his leg out of her hands.

  “They’ve heard us!” Sara taps me on the back.

  “Kill it man!” Devon is ready to move. I know she is a vicious killer now, but hours ago she was someone’s little girl. I jab my spear into its face. A little piece of me dies every damn time I have to do this. Like most American males I was born and raised on violent movies. Over the years I have heard groups complain that it desensitizes kids to violence, and maybe it does. Right now, I am glad I watched those movies. I am glad I am slightly desensitized. If I was any more sensitive to the kinds of horrible acts I have had to commit today, I would be a blob of jelly curled up on the ground. We cross into the empty parking lot and make for the front doors. This church was not as prepared for the end, as Brother Paul’s. It is a ghost town.

  We hit the doors and they are locked. Frank lets off a round and the glass pours to the ground. We enter quickly into the large foyer. To our right is where mass is held. In front of us is a door. I pull up on the handle and it opens up to a large Sunday school room. We scramble in and slam the door behind us. I lock the doorknob. Sara already has a chair dragged over to the door. We quietly slide the back of the chair up under the knob. We hear the crackling sound of broken glass underfoot on the other side of the door. They have lost track of us. There is another door across the classroom. Frank has his ear up against it. We tiptoe across the room. Frank slowly opens the door and it is another entryway. There is the same kind of glass doors that lead to the outside. This place has two main entrances. They must have really packed them in here on Sundays. To our right is the place of worship. A few of our dead friends have found their way into the room. They take off, tripping over the pews the second they see us.

  There is a large set of double doors pinned open to this room. Frank grabs one of the doors. I take the other door. I kick up the stopper and push the door closed. We slam them shut right in the face of a dead cop. His heavy body crashes into the door and it pops back open. Devon mashes his body up against the door and it slams back shut.

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?” I ask Frank.

  He furrows his brow at me, “It’s a church!” That was not the response I was expecting.

  “Find something to jam into the handles!” I call to Sara. Body after body hits the other side of the door. She scans the room and it is practically empty. Against the far wall is a hip high table with some bibles on it. She grabs the table and drags it over to us. Bibles fall as it shimmies across the carpet. She tips the table over and the rest of the bibles fall. If one more body hits this door it is going to open. She gets the end of the table up and slides one of the legs through the two handles. The back corner of the table anchors into the carpet, the front corner jams into the door. I do not feel any pressure from the monsters on the other side. It worked! I grab the leg and give it a good pull. The aluminum bends and it locks the leg into the door handles. We race for the exit. The door pops open and we run. Frank guns down two in the north parking lot of the church.

  We sprint across the parking lot and head for 136th. On the other side of this street is a park, baseball and football fields. It is one large chunk of grass that surrounds a middle school. We come to a stop once we hit the grass.

  “My God.” Devon’s voice cracks.

  “We can’t…it’s too many…kids,” Sara stutters. This all started around one o’clock and school was in session. They must have tried to evacuate the kids. There
are two buses out front of the school and they are smeared with blood. Most of the little ones are around the front of the school. There are a hundred pint sized bloody bodies and at least twenty faculty members blocking our way. It is by far the most heartbreaking, horrific sight we have come across today.

  “Should we go around?” Devon groans.

  “If we go around we might run into even more and they could all be full sized. We have to go straight through,” Frank pops out his clip and reloads the couple of shots he fired.

  “We can’t do that. They’re kids!” Sara turns her back to them.

  “My place is right there,” I point. “My family is waiting for me.”

  “We should go around,” Devon pleads.

  “They’re not human anymore. They’re killers like the rest of them,” Frank pops his clip back in.

  “Frank’s right. There’s too many. We can’t leave them this close to my place. Oh, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this,” I drop my head. “It shouldn’t be as hard. We’re faster, stronger and have a better reach than most of them.”

  Sara can’t believe I said it either, “Come on,” she stabs her blade bat into the turf.

  “If we do this we all have to agree. I don’t want to get bit because someone went soft,” Frank turns to face us.

  “Devon, I need your help for a little longer. We are so close,” I grab his arm and give it a tug.

  “Fine,” he shakes his head.

  “Sara, are you good?” Frank reaches out and gently spins her back around. She nervously jumps up and down on her toes. Like a fighter going into the ring.