by Marie Lanza
It was physically exhausting. Melody concentrated on one hand, and one foot, at a time. One in front of the other. Her fingers sunk into the dirt as she gripped whatever she could hold onto, pulling herself up, while her feet pushed forward.
“Good job, Mel,” Jason coached her from behind.
Gunfire echoed through the canyons. Civilians and soldiers alike dove for cover, losing their grip in the dirt, some sliding backwards down the hill. Melody watched helplessly as a man lost his footing, toppled backwards and tumbled, screaming back down to the road.
As Melody watched his body roll to the road below, she lost her footing and began to slide. Jason was right behind her, and calmly wrapped his arm around her waist, bracing her body from falling any further. Aubrey began to whimper.
“Help! Help Me!” the man lying on the road screamed in agony, holding his leg.
“Mel, keep moving. Up the hill we go, OK?” Jason continued to coach.
Melody looked down at the man, and quickly realized, no one was going to help him.
“Jason, Jason, are they going to leave him there?” Melody began to panic.
“What the hell, Paul?” Beck was just below Jason and Melody, screaming to Paul who had fired his weapon.
“We got infected!” Paul shouted back.
“Should I go back for him, sir?” Mike asked Beck.
“No, he’s injured, and we can’t carry him. We have to leave him,” Beck stated plainly and continued up the hill.
Mike paused and watched as his commanding officer began to move up the hill. “Sir, I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
Before Beck could reply, Mike was bounding down the hillside towards the injured man. Beck turned, his anger instantly visible across his face and shouted, “Mike – stop! Right now! Soldier, get back up here now,” but Mike ignored the order and continued to slide down the hillside.
Melody watched as the soldier spilled onto the blacktop amid a rumble of dust and stone. He scrambled to his feet, his weapon leveled towards a group of infected moving towards the convoy of trucks.
In a fell move, he slid his free arm under the injured man’s shoulders and hauled him to his feet. The man cried in pain as Mike drug him towards the convoy of trucks, firing individual shots at the infected.
“God damn it! Cover him!” Beck shouted out as he raised his rifle and fired towards the infected.
Other soldiers positioned themselves by Beck’s side, firing at the infected below.
“Move, Mel, move.” Jason tried to push her on, but she stood transfixed at the scene below.
Once they reached the trucks, Mike leaned the man gently against the wheel well of the lead truck and threw the door open, reaching inside to search for the truck’s keys. He stepped back out, slammed the door shut, grabbed the injured man and moved to the next truck.
Melody felt like she was watching a horror movie unfold below.
The soldier climbed into the cab, fumbling for the keys while the injured man cried in terror as infected people moved towards them.
Suddenly, the truck’s engine’s roared to life. Mike jumped from the cab, grabbed the injured man, and pushed him into the driver’s seat.
Melody couldn’t hear the words between the two, but imagined the man begging not to be left behind as Mike took the pistol off his hip and placed it into the man’s hand, turned, and slammed the truck door closed. Mike turned towards the infected and fired off a few shots before scrambling back to the hillside, leaving the man shouting, “Please! No! Don’t leave!” from the relative safety of the truck.
“Mel, look at me.” Melody was startled by the feel of Jason’s hand on her face as he turned her face towards his. “You need to move, there’s nothing more we can do.”
“OK, OK.” Melody began to cry. Exhausted, scared and very confused, Melody was feeling like an emotional wreck.
When Mike reached the group, Beck roughly grabbed him by his uniform and threw the soldier to the ground. “Don’t you ever disobey an order from me again.”
“Sir,” Mike replied, “I couldn’t leave him alone to be torn apart. I had to give him a chance to survive.”
His commanding officer wasn’t swayed and moved in close to Mike, his face red with anger. “Your foolish attempt to save one person just put yourself, as well as the rest of this group, at risk. If we are going to survive the next few hours, it’s going to take this entire unit.” Beck pulled Mike to his feet and looked directly into his eyes. “Don’t make me explain that to you again.”
“Yes sir,” Mike replied as the Major turned and began climbing
Mike dusted off his uniform and looked back down the hill at the truck. “Come on man, drive,” he muttered under his breath. He could see the man frantically looking out the windows as the infected moved closer to the cab. Suddenly, the truck lurched forward, ramming into the truck in front of it. It lurched into reverse and slowly started to move forward again, this time clearing the truck in front. Mike sighed in relief and joined the group as they began to move back up the hillside.
They hadn’t moved more than ten yards before they heard a loud crash from the trucks below. The group turned toward the sound and saw the man’s truck up against the hillside, its front wheel buried deep in a ditch. The engine roared as the panicked man inside tried to free the vehicle.
Beck turned and angrily locked eyes with Mike again. The soldier nodded, dropped his head, and helplessly watched the tragedy unfold below.
The infected moved closer and closer to the vehicle. The engine roared again and again and the tires spun as the vehicle tried to gain traction in the deep sand of the ditch. The group helplessly watched the truck rock back and forth in place until the engine suddenly stopped. From their place on the hillside, all the group could hear was the wind blowing around them. The silence was destroyed by the sound of a single gunshot.
Tears welled up in Melody’s eyes as a new reality set in. They were alone. There was no cavalry that would come to their rescue. They were on their own. Without words, the group turned and continued up the hill.
As they crested the ridgeline, Melody was able to see what was next for them. The second tunnel appeared to be open. The infected that had been roaming, lay dead in the road.
“Sir, looks like this area is open, but we have no idea if the other side’s been blasted. I suggest we hike this second hill, go down from there. No back tracking, just in case.” Paul scanned his map as he spoke.
Beck looked at the rag tag group of people with them. Their convoy had fifteen soldiers with three trucks and only picked up twenty civilians along their journey to reach the coast. Now, the trucks were abandoned, the civilians were tired, dirty, and frightened. They were all counting on him and his men to lead them to safety.
“Continue over this next hill. Paul, pick some guys and take the lead. Mike, you take the back with the rest. Let’s not have another incident,” Beck ordered and turned towards the wreckage behind them.
The second hill wasn’t much of a hike compared to the first climb. The group mostly walked in silence up a terrain of thick brush, dirt, and rock.
Melody kept her mind occupied with thoughts of Harmony and Dan. She didn’t want to think about what Harmony was going through, but in turn, hoped she was safe. She didn’t want to imagine how worried they must be if they had made it to their home finding it empty and ransacked. All she could hope for was that they were also picked up by another unit and that unit was taking them to the ships. Melody knew it was wishful thinking, but wishes were all she had to hold onto.
They reached the top of the second hillside without incident, giving them a broad view of what was ahead. It looked like a war zone below. Coastal neighborhoods, once pristine, enviable real estate, lay in smoldering ruins. There were a handful of Navy ships anchored just off the coast, smaller ships patrolling the waters, and inflatable crafts on the beaches loading survivors.
The beaches were lined with chain-link fencing and barbwire, keeping the
infected out. The infected lined the fencing, pressing their bodies against it, trying to reach the living.
Cracks and pops of bullets sporadically ripped through the air. Soldiers fired conservatively at the infected as civilians loaded boats.
“All right, here we go!” Paul shouted.
Beck stood on the edge, looking down at the chaos for just a short moment, then turned to his soldiers, “This is it. We head down and make our way to the closest entrance. I’m gonna be honest here, there’s no protocol for this. Stay close, have your weapons ready, keep the civilians close and don’t hesitate to kill. Let’s move!”
“Hooah!” the soldiers shouted out.
The group began their decent.
Beck watched everyone move down the hillside. As Melody, Jason and the baby approached, Jason stopped the family for a moment to acknowledge Beck.
Beck leaned in close to Jason. “You take care of your family. Keep them close.”
Jason nodded.
The two men shook hands and they made their decent.
***
This is what shock feels like.
Melody felt a deep fear begin to set in. A feeling she had never experienced before. Her head began to throb, everything sounded as though she was underwater and her vision began to blur. She could feel Jason holding her arm, guiding her down the steep hillside. She knew he was holding Aubrey, but it was as though she wasn’t with them. It was more of an out of body experience, watching her family slide down a hill, tasting dirt with every shuffled step, approaching a battle zone where they took the risk of getting attacked by infected, or hit by flying bullets.
This is wrong! This is so wrong!
“This is wrong!” Melody found her voice. She stopped dead in her tracks, causing Jason to stumble into her. “Jason, we can’t do this! We have to go back.”
“There’s no going back, Mel. Listen, when we reach the bottom of this hill, we’re running for that gate,” he pointed in the distance to their right. “See that gate?”
Melody nodded.
“Mel, I want you to stay behind me. Hold on to my shirt and don’t let go. Mel, look at me.” Jason guided her chin until her face turned, and her eyes met his. “Mel, babe, I won’t let anything happen to you or Aubrey.”
“OK.”
Jason pulled out his 9mm and stepped in front of Melody. She was lost watching the action below, but quickly gathered herself and remembered his directions of holding on to his shirt. When Jason felt the tug of her touch, he lightly adjusted Aubrey in his arms and continued down.
Jason’s steps were quick, and he stayed focused on the gate.
Get to the gate.
Before he knew it, they were off the hill and back on pavement.
The road was jammed with abandoned vehicles and military barricades, creating obstacles that slowed their movement.
Get to the gate.
Jason coached himself as they ran. He stayed set on the entrance. The entrance with infected bodies piled around it. The military stacked bodies up, using them as walls to keep the other infected back and a funnel for the living to get in. Getting there was the trickier part. Running around cars, bodies, and the other obstacles, all while staying out of the sights of the infected.
Melody stared at the ground in front of her, watching Jason’s feet, so not to trip him up. Everything around her was hazy, like she was looking through a veil of gray.
One step in front of the other, only looking up every few moments, and over her shoulder to make sure nothing was approaching them from behind. They were moving fast, faster than she knew her legs could manage for long.
Bodies, so many bodies.
Melody’s breathing became heavier, her heart pounded.
Bodies everywhere.
Walls of bodies everywhere!
Soldiers lined the fencing, firing their weapons all around them.
Melody looked out ahead of them. Beck was standing at the entrance waving civilians through. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. She couldn’t hear anything but gunfire.
Their steps suddenly slowed. Melody looked down to find sand under her feet.
“Get to the boats, get to the boats!” Beck waved them down. He was loud and clear now.
Jason led his family through the gates, and onto the beach. Their feet sank in the thick sand with every step. Their legs throbbed and burned, but there was no stopping.
Melody looked back. Beck had left the gates and was running behind her with other soldiers. Then she looked past them. The infected broke through the fence and were following behind.
The wetness of the ocean on her feet snapped her attention to what lay ahead. They made it to the boats.
“Get in now! We’re leaving now!” Melody looked up to see a young sailor waving at her to board the rubber dinghy. But she couldn’t hear him, only see him waving her on; only feel Jason reaching for her and pulling her on board. Aubrey was crying, but she couldn’t hear her. She was below the surface of deafening chaos.
This is what shock feels like.
Sailors in blue dungarees pushed the boat into the surf and jumped aboard as they sped to the waiting ships, pushing past the breaks, blasting through the coastal waves.
Melody felt Jason’s arm wrap around her. She folded herself against him, leaning in tight to him and Aubrey.
The infected followed them in the water, and disappeared beneath the waves.
CHAPTER 2
There was a frantic sense of order on board the ship. All of the survivors were packed like cattle on the deck of the naval aircraft carrier while the military interviewed every individual, looked over their bodies, and then sent them off with escorts to other areas of the ship.
The sun bore down, causing an uncomfortable exhaustion, which created an unstable situation on deck.
Soldiers walked down the lines, giving bottles of water to the survivors, and repeating the same statement, “Please be patient. You’ll get more information during in-processing.”
Melody held Aubrey in her arms and stood in Jason’s shadow, shielding herself from the unforgiving sun beating down on them.
“What are they going to do with all these people?” Melody asked Jason.
“There should be plenty of room. This ship on a regular day holds five thousand people.”
“Do you think Harmony and Dan made it to one of these ships?” Melody’s eyes searched every face around her.
Jason’s attention was captured by Beck, walking down the line with another officer. The other officer was a premature gray-haired man, a little taller than Beck but somehow held a posture that was less than confident. Their eyes met and Beck quickly picked up his pace.
“Jason, this is the ship’s Senior Medical Officer, Lieutenant Commander Smith.” Beck looked to Smith then back to Jason. The men shook hands.
“Welcome to the Appomattox. I hear you’re a doctor.”
“Yes,” Jason answered curiously.
“We could sure use you in the medical ward. I’ve recently found myself short staffed.”
“Sure, uh, now?” Jason looked to Beck, maybe for some assurance, then back to Smith.
“Yes,” Smith said.
“OK.” Jason looked to Melody and Aubrey. “Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry, we can only take you.” Smith looked to Melody. “You’ll be taken care of up here and directed to the civilian ward where he can meet you later.”
Jason firmly interrupted, “I’m sorry, but my wife and daughter come with me or I’m afraid I don’t have the skillset you need.”
Smith nodded and processed Jason’s words for a moment. He didn’t have time to convince them otherwise. “Sure, what was I thinking? I’m sure we can find an empty cot or set one up for them in the ward and keep them comfortable.”
Jason put his arm around Melody and they followed Smith and Beck down the deck.
As they walked past the hundreds of people waiting to be processed, Melody searched face after face, hoping she
would see Harmony and Dan. Every face was a stranger.
Melody was silently grateful that she and Aubrey wouldn’t be separated from Jason. However, those nice thoughts of the family staying together were very quickly clouded with the dark underlying question of how the ‘position became available.’
Melody stopped dead in her tracks causing Jason to bump into her. “Wait,” she whispered to her husband. “Jason, are there sick people on this ship? Are you going to be working with sick people?”
Jason didn’t have an answer.
The question caught Beck’s attention, who stopped and turned around, then Smith, who was leading the group to the medical ward, also turned around.
“Everything alright?” Smith asked.
“Are there infected people on this ship?” Melody asked Smith directly.
Smith paused before he spoke. She knew he was trying to choose his words carefully.
“Well?” Melody asked. “It’s a yes or a no. Are there infected on this ship?” Melody leaned backwards against Jason in an effort to prevent him from moving another step forward towards their destination.
Smith scratched his forehead, and watched as people walked past the small group blocking the hallway, hearing bits and pieces of the conversation. Smith leaned closer to Jason and Melody, explained in a hushed voice, “There have been a few cases where people have come on board with bites, or are sick with flu symptoms, but you have nothing to worry about, those people are in quarantine.”
“Then how exactly did this position become available?” Melody asked sternly, stepping slightly forward in hopes of creating a sense of discomfort in Smith. She saw the same lack of confidence that Jason did when the medical officer first approached them, and she was going to use it to get the answers she wanted.
Smith looked to Beck for some assistance, but Beck gave him a look that indicated he wanted the same answer; with all the civilians on board, why would they risk keeping infected, and were they so sick that they were dangerous?
“OK, look, there was an incident, and the other doctor wasn’t very cautious. He was scratched by a scared individual who was sick and now they’re both in isolation.” Smith still kept a low tone, while he continually scanned every face that walked past them.