by Jacy Morris
Andy stifled a scream as a decayed arm shot out of one of the windows and clutched at his clothing. The stench was strong here, and there were several of the dead trapped within the cars, held in place by seatbelts that they had lost the wherewithal to remove. Andy bashed at the arm that held him with the handle of his pistol. The arm broke, and he was free to move forward once more. More hands waved at the survivors, but the dead were not smart enough to wait until the soldiers passed by. They just stuck their hands out and waved them around in the hopes that someone would walk right into them. They were easy to avoid except for a couple of bottlenecks.
As they crossed an overpass, they were offered a stunning view of the highway below them. It was nothing but twisted metal, bodies, and the dead as far as the eye could see. Then they were across. They strode across the bridge without giving a second thought to the vision of hell that they had just seen. There was nothing to think about. There was only one way to go now... straight ahead. They either kept moving or they died.
The buildings around them were older now, their fronts lined with glass windows. These were not office buildings anymore. They were storefronts with apartments above, and they offered about as much shelter as a wet cardboard box. There was more banging as the dead tried to reach them, and up and up they went, up Burnside Street, one foot forward, a step to the side, a bullet here and there. How long could they go on like this? How long until the noose tightened?
He didn't know, but he supposed they would find out.
****
Rudy was feeling the march more than anyone. His mouth was so dry that his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. It felt like he was breathing glass. His calves and thighs burned with pain. And ahead of him, there was only the promise of more. But he pressed on, knowing that to stop was to die. He hadn't come this far just to give up now. It was cliché; he knew it, but it was the truth.
When the dead poured out of the windows above them, he gripped Tejada's knife tighter, wishing that he still had his sword with him. He had lost it in the fall that had put him in a coma. That had been over a week ago, but for him, it seemed like only a day.
The period when he had been unconsciousness was a mystery to him. There were no dreams, no nothing. It was as if for an entire week he had stopped existing completely. If that was what death was, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but he suspected death was something else entirely. Certainly, the deaths of the creatures around him were drastically different from the typical ideas about death that he harbored just a couple of months ago. Either way, he was in no hurry to experience it again.
He was in a hurry to stop this march though. A vehicle, hell a motorized scooter, anything would be welcome right about now. His shoes, which had once been snug and comfortable, seemed like they had been molded to the feet of someone entirely different. He had lost a lot of weight when he had been unconscious, hell, since this whole thing had begun. He had never been a big fan of stepping on scales, but the clothing he wore hung off his frame, billowing around him. His shirt, which had once been tight against his belly, now hung like a muumuu. The knotted shoestring belt around his waist kept his pants in place, but he felt like he was swimming in those as well.
He suspected much of the weight-loss was muscle. He was exhausted already, and they had only been walking for fifteen minutes. Granted, it was some of the most harrowing fifteen minutes of his life, but he began to suspect that even though his will to survive was a strong as ever, his body may not be able to match it. But he didn't complain. He didn't want to give anyone an excuse to leave him behind.
Which brought him back to the question that had been on his mind for most of the previous evening, but which he couldn't bring himself to ask of Amanda. Just what had happened while he had been asleep? Amanda, who had always been bright and cheery seemed different now. One minute she had been this bright, happy-go-lucky girl, then, upon waking, he found her, much the same but changed in some critical manner that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Something had happened to her, something which had hardened her in some way.
"Help!"
The scream came from above, and the veil of Rudy's thoughts fluttered away like a plastic bag in the wind. He looked upward to see a woman, covered in grime, leaning out of the fourth-story window of an apartment building. Her hair was long, gray, and wavy. It blew in the wind, and the hope on her face pulled at his heart.
The soldiers had heard the scream as well, and they all looked to Tejada.
"Keep walking," he said.
Rudy knew it was the right thing to do, but he knew it was wrong as well. That's how this world was now. Everything that was right was somehow wrong. The woman, tears gleaming in her eyes, yelled again, as if they hadn't heard her the first time. Everyone stopped looking at her, but they couldn't avoid hearing her pleas for help as they became frantic, almost sobbing, in nature.
"We can't just leave her," Amanda said.
No one said anything. Rudy looked at Amanda and wrapped his hand around her own. He squeezed it, but he knew the gesture meant little to her.
"No!" Amanda yelled, stopping in the middle of the street. "We can't just leave her!"
The soldiers turned and looked at her, and the look on their faces was one of resignation. They all knew they should help the lady, but there was no denying this simple fact: if they tried to help her, more of them would die in the process.
"Amanda," Tejada began.
"No! I know what you're going to say, and it isn't right!"
Rudy looked at Tejada, and he saw something there that he hadn't expected. He saw compassion etched on that granite face. He saw how much it hurt to leave that woman screaming in the window.
"We'll all die," Tejada said.
And there it was, as plain as day. He had said it, the one thing that couldn't be argued. To do the right thing would be to throw their lives away. So it was the wrong thing that they did. Tejada turned and started walking, and as he did, so did the soldiers that followed him, their heads held a little lower.
Rudy walked back to Amanda and grabbed her hand. "Come on."
She came, shuffling forward like one of the dead that they were fleeing from. Behind them, the woman's screams echoed off the buildings. Her scream was the sound of hope dying, a haunting sound, the type of sound that found its way into your dreams, the type of dreams that brought you awake with tears in your eyes and a racing heart. Her screams were the screams of one who knows they are going to die.
Rudy looked over his shoulder once, and he saw something that he would never forget. Below the woman's apartment building, the dead walked side by side, filling the street from one side to the other. Above, the woman leaned out of her window, her hand outstretched to him, her gray, wavy hair blowing in the wind. Her face was one of pure pain and torture. Slowly her arm fell, and then she too was falling. Rudy turned his back before he could see her hit the ground, but his mind went ahead and did him the dubious favor of filling in the blanks.
They continued onward.
They came to a stretch of road, where cars were piled up on top of each other, cars of all shapes and sizes, some looking like they were brand new except for a layer of ash and soot that had settled on their surfaces. Other cars had seen better days, their windows busted out, their upholstery covered in blood. The way the cars were situated, it was obvious that someone had built themselves a barricade.
The barricade was a seven-foot-tall snarl of rubber and metal. On the other side, the yellow-orange struts of a crane rose into the air, its giant claw swaying lightly in the wind.
"Get up there," Tejada yelled to Quigley and Day. Rudy remembered Quigley. He was the one with the blonde beard. Remembering all of the soldiers names had become a test of his memory. The soldiers had distinct faces and names, but personality-wise, he was still trying to figure out who was who. Epps he knew. He had looked at the patch on his uniform multiple times until he had remembered his face. He was one of three African American soldiers. Everyone else wa
s white except for Tejada and Ramirez who both seemed to be Latino as far as he could tell.
Quigley had a soft face surrounded by a startlingly yellow beard. It almost looked unnatural to Rudy, like that douche that was always stopping in at diners on The Food Network. But for Quigley, it worked. His hair, which was long enough to cover his ears, was also startlingly blonde. The other soldiers referred to him as "Quigs" for short. Amanda and Rudy stood close to each other, breathing in each other's scent. They oscillated between looking behind them at the approaching horde and keeping an eye on Quigs as he made his way up the barricade. It was a harder task than it looked, as the cars had been stacked in a reverse pyramid formation. The cars at the top overhung the cars at the bottom.
Luckily, for Quigs, there were enough handholds to allow him to reach the top, but Rudy bet that the dead wouldn't be able to scale such a creation. Although, he had once bet that the dead wouldn't be able to bring down the Memorial Coliseum as well. As Quigs reached the top, Rudy looked over his shoulder to check and see that none of the dead had appeared out of thin air right behind him. He was in luck, they were still a block away, but time was running short.
He turned his attention back to Quigs as he crested the top of the barricade.
"Stay low," Tejada hissed at the man, just before Quigs disappeared from sight.
Rudy eyed the barricade dubiously, and that sand through the hourglass feeling started to come over him. Time seemed to slip by faster and faster with every step that the dead took in their direction. Would he be able to climb the barricade when the time came... and what if what was on the other side was even worse than what was on this side? Maybe they could lift a manhole cover and disappear that way if worse came to worse.
Suddenly, Quigs appeared, hanging over the roof of a Rav 4. "Hey, it looks good on the other side here. I think we can get out."
"Alright, everybody get up and over those cars," Tejada said. "You two, get a rope around Beacham." Epps and Allen began to tie a rope around Beacham's waist. Rudy had time to look at the big man's ashen-brown face before he began to try and climb up the barricade on his own. He surveyed the stack of cars before he chose a suitable place for his ascent. The real trouble wouldn't be the climb, it would be when the wall of vehicles doubled back on itself overhanging the pavement.
If he fell from that height, he probably wouldn't hurt himself, other than his pride, but he would waste valuable time, during which the dead would steadily be closing the gap. Up he went, grasping onto the rearview mirror of a tan pickup truck. He pulled himself upward, feeling the strain in his arms. He was still weak, and that first move upward had proved just how weak he was.
He managed to climb a few feet further, but then he stalled, clinging to the tire and the undercarriage of an overturned truck. He looked upward, his free hand searching for a handhold that wasn't there. This was a bad idea. He saw a handhold that would stretch him to his limit, but if he was able to reach it, he might be able to make his way to the top of the pile without too much trouble. He should have stood next to Beacham while they were roping him up, let them pull him up like a helpless baby, but his pride had gotten in the way. Damn him and his stupid pride.
He decided to go for it. The worst that could happen would be that he fell a few feet, but maybe, if he could pull it off, he could save some face and not come off like a total pathetic loser. He readied himself, took a deep breath, and then swung outwards, his hand poised to grip the steering wheel of a truck through an open window.
He came up just short, the tips of his fingers curling around the steering wheel for a brief second, and then the momentum of his own body weight shifted backwards, and his fingers lost their grip. The sudden loss of pressure caused him to lose his balance, and then he lost his grip with his other hand. He tumbled awkwardly to the ground, landing with a great smack of flesh on the pavement. It sounded like when a man doing a belly flop onto the calm surface of a pool.
The breath left him, and he thought he had broken everything in his body. He rolled on the pavement, aware that Amanda was calling his name along with the others wondering what the fuck was going on down there, as they couldn't see over the lip of the barricade. At least they couldn't see his embarrassment. He rolled from side to side, wondering when he was going to die, and then the pain finally came to a point where he realized he was going to be alright... embarrassed but alright.
"You ok?" Tejada yelled down at him. He didn't have the breath to answer back. "Get a rope down there," Tejada called out to someone else. With Rudy still in pain, Epps dropped down to the ground and began tying a rope around him. He stood there like a baby as the soldier looped the rope around his waist and through his legs to make a makeshift harness.
"This ain't gonna feel good, but it's certainly better than the alternative," Epps said.
Rudy said nothing. He was too busy being embarrassed.
"Hurry up down there! The parade is almost here."
The dead were only five feet away when they began to hoist him up. A thousand rotten faces with their arms outstretched looked at him rising up off the ground, and for a brief moment, he felt like a piñata. And to the dead, he supposed he was, a piñata filled with treats, great, curvy twisty treats. He imagined his intestines pulled out, displayed like the ribbons of a maypole. Then he was at the top, the soldiers squatting down and yanking him up and over the lip of the barricade.
"Thank you," he said, over and over again. He was truly appreciative of their help. They looked embarrassed by his gratitude and mumbled phrases like "It was nothing" and "No problem." But Rudy knew that if it wasn't for these men, he would be dead several times over already.
As he turned to check on Amanda, Rudy spied a look of pure hatred on the face of Andy, the guy from the movie theater. He had been distant, almost nonexistent as far as Rudy could tell, but to see such a look of pure hatred on his face caused Rudy's heart to skip a beat for a second. Then the look was gone, and Rudy began to question whether it had ever been there to begin with.
"Are you ok?" Amanda asked.
"Yeah. You?"
Amanda nodded, and then they turned to survey the other side of the barricade. Side streets had been blocked off and body after body lay rotting on the ground. It looked like a great battle had been fought here. Someone had survived here for a while in this intersection, using the crane to block off all the streets. However, the barricade to the west lay open now, and black scorch marks and twisted pieces of shrapnel gave some clue as to what had happened. Someone had found this barricade and tore right through it.
"Must have been one hell of a battle," Epps said.
"I doubt it. It was probably over in five minutes. I don't see a lot of brass on the ground," Allen said.
Whether it was over in five minutes or it lasted longer, they would never know. The world was full of mysteries like this now. Tableaus of carnage left like paintings. Only these paintings were like if you were looking at The Last Supper and Jesus had been removed. You had to fill in the blanks yourself, and sometimes, as in the case of the destroyed barricade, that was impossible.
They climbed down the barricade easily as it was designed to keep people out, not in. On the ground, they stepped over bodies rotting in the hazy morning. They put their hands to their faces to try and mask the smell. Rudy tried not to see the white shapes crawling over the faces of the dead.
"Ooo-wee! Smells like when grandpa used to empty out the RV's shitter!" It was Quigs, smiling despite all of the nastiness on display.
Epps, not in the mood for levity, said, "Stay on point, Quigs."
As a group, with Quigs in the front next to Whiteside, they pushed through the busted barricade, each of them hoping that it wasn't an omen for what was about to happen to them. To the west, Burnside Street rose before them, and to their surprise it was clear except for a smashed bus and a few other random cars. Most of the wrecks must have been used in the making of the barricade. As an added bonus, the dead were staggered as well.
"Smooth sailing," Epps said. Rudy, having survived several worst case scenarios, thought that Epps might have spoken too soon. But for the next mile, Epps was right.
Chapter 5: The Last Run
At the crest of Burnside Avenue, there was a tunnel. Cars choked off both sides of the tunnel, but inside, it was clear of both the dead and the living. Izzy Allen stared at the walls with the rest of the survivors. One message read, "WE MADE IT OUT. HEADED TO HILLSBORO - JAMES KING." Allen wondered who "we" referred to. Was it a family? Or was it another hodgepodge of survivors like Allen and the others?
Another message on the opposite wall, this one done in hard-to-read gold spray paint read: "DON'T GO INTO PORTLAND. ALL DEAD." How long ago had that one been written? A week? Two weeks? It seemed like Portland had died in no time at all. These things... these dead things had smothered the life out of an entire city as if it had been nothing more than a toddler in a crib.
But the message that really spoke to him was the one that said, "ALL ANGELS NOW." Allen couldn't stop thinking about it. All angels now... the vagueness fascinated him. It was poetry. That much was for sure, but how to interpret it? Was this message meant for the living? Was it meant to point out the fact that pretty much everyone was dead?
Allen certainly felt like no angel. Hell, he didn't feel like anything. He eyed the words, staring at them until the edges blurred, and they made no sense.
"Izzy! Come on!" Epps yelled from the edge of the tunnel.
Allen snapped out of his trance. "I'll be there in a second." He nudged the spray cans on the ground out of the way with his foot, and when he found one that seemed to still have some juice, he bent down and picked it up, looking left and right just in case one of the dead had managed to climb its way over the barricade of vehicles at either end of the tunnel. Seeing none, he stood up and shook the spray paint can, reveling in the sound that the widget made within as it mixed what was left of the paint.