He ran hard, trying to close the distance between himself and the cars quickly. His surprise registered immediately on his face and his feet struggled to stop when he realized his error. He saw the throng round the corner of the main road, which was still about a football field’s length further on than the railroad tracks. The mass of people, roaring like they were going into battle, spilled across the road and the parking lot to the convenience store on the corner. In front of the bloodthirsty mob, there were three people who were obviously being chased by the others.
The two men and one woman were strained to the point of breaking and still they ran. One of the men took a bottle from the pack of the other. He did something to it that Officer Ivanoff couldn’t quite make out and then tossed it over his shoulder without even looking. In flight, the officer could see smoke and heat waves coming from the bottle, then it exploded on the pavement into a ball of fire. A Molotov cocktail. Maybe it would be enough to discourage the pursuit.
His stomach sank, though, as the beasts simply ran through the fire as if it wasn’t even there. Several of them smoldered and burned as they continued their pursuit. The Molotov cocktail thrower was falling behind the other two. It wouldn’t be long for him.
The two survivors ran harder. They saw him. The survivors, the man and woman, spotted Officer Ivanoff and screamed for him to help them. He couldn’t understand their words, but he could register a sense of relief in their voices. They’d made it. Perhaps they were saved. His hand went to the pistol on his hip. He remembered that he only had four rounds left. What help could he possibly be?
He wasn’t even in control anymore. He turned, their pleas still echoing behind him, and started to run. He needed to get back to that house with the doctor and the woman again. He couldn’t save the man and woman on the road, but maybe he could save the other two. Maybe if he saved them, he might be able to Save them. That woman might be willing to hear him. Maybe.
He just had to run. He had to get away. He moved his legs as quickly as he could, which wasn’t very fast, but the distance already between himself and the crowd helped his confidence. He stayed on the road, using the flat and predictable surface to help him maintain a consistent pace. He just had to stay in front of the locomotive sound that was forever approaching him from behind. Was this how those other people felt? He thought briefly about hunters and their prey. He thought about himself and the times that he had stalked a moose or caribou. Had they felt the same fear that was damned near paralyzing him? It was a fleeting thought that barely registered as at the same time another thought flashed through his mind with the brightness of a neon sign: RUN.
Chapter 26
That was exactly what he did. He ran and ran, making his way back toward the doctor and that woman. He needed to get back to them to warn them. He owed at least that much to them. They needed to know about this flood that was approaching. Besides, there was safety in numbers, and that was why he returned. He wasn’t afraid and looking out for his own hide as Emma suggested, he was just doing his duty and once again he was being criticized for it. Typical. He let Emma’s harsh words roll off his back and tried to remind himself that women can sometimes be irrational in tense situations. His wife was an exceptional example of irrational behavior. He was guessing that Emma was too. For that reason, he tried not to take her criticism personally, knowing that it was just her fear talking. Who could blame her really? It’s just a lucky thing that he came back for them when he did.
Their car screeched straight up the road until Officer Ivanoff realized he had run them into another cul-de-sac without an outlet. He swung the vehicle around in the large tear-shaped housing court and quickly found another road leading away. He was able to put some distance between them and their pursuers, but between dead end streets, exits blocked with cars, and more cul-de-sacs, they weren’t able to find a good way out of the neighborhood. Shifting their focus from trying to get away to merely trying to find some safety, they eventually elected to pull the car into a partially fenced backyard that was more or less out of sight. They hoped that being out of sight might help them to be out of mind as well.
They waited for several minutes in complete silence. They barely breathed so as not to draw attention to themselves. Their hope was that they could become invisible and simply melt away when the time was right.
Dr. Caldwell handed Ivanoff and Emma a bottle of water each. Emma drank from hers greedily and watched out the window intensely. Before she realized it, silent tears were spilling from the corners of her eyes. She didn’t consider herself one of those emotional women that cry with the slightest provocation, so she was surprised by the tears. She wasn’t even quite sure why she was crying at all. Not that she hadn’t seen and felt things all day long that wouldn’t justify a few tears.
Officer Ivanoff, still perturbed with Emma’s verbal assault, finally looked over at her and saw the tears. That was more of what he expected from a woman: vulnerability. He felt himself ease up on his feelings toward her. Maybe he was right after all. Maybe her attack on him was merely a product of a very tense situation. Maybe there was hope that she could be a good person. He undid his seatbelt and started to lean over to her as if to embrace her and comfort her.
Emma’s reaction was not what he expected at all. She immediately withdrew, plastering herself to the window and door of the passenger side. “That’s why I don’t cry. Because people like you think that you can console me somehow. You look at it as a sign of weakness and think that because you sit there stoically unmoved by events that you’re somehow stronger than me and can comfort me. I may need a lot of things, but your pity isn’t one of ‘em.”
“Emma!” again Dr. Caldwell tried to play the role of mediator from the back seat.
She turned to face him and continued, “Try and see it from my point of view, Doc. Here is a guy who ran out on us because we hurt his feelings...sorry, I hurt his feelings. And keep in mind that he isn’t just some guy. He’s a police officer. So he ran out on us and then brought bad guys back to us. And why? Because he’s not willing to live by the power of his own convictions or his own pledges. I think I’m allowed a bit of a gripe with him.”
Officer Ivanoff, stung again, asked, “What the hell are you talking about? Convictions and pledges?”
“You’re a fucking cop. What were you...?” The tears were coming uncontrollably now, but these tears were heated with anger and not lukewarm from despair. They filled her eyes and obscured her vision. Her frustration and resentment boiled over and took control. She couldn’t even verbalize herself anymore. She did the only thing she could think to do. She got out of the car and went into the unlocked back door of the house behind which they were parked.
Completely surprised, Dr. Caldwell unlocked his door and was set to get out but the door wouldn’t open. He pulled and pulled on the handle to no avail. The lock was disengaged but the door just wouldn’t open. Finally, he realized his mistake and asked, “Hey, Malachi, can you open my door from the outside please? I think the child lock is on.”
Officer Ivanoff, still looking in disbelief at the still open back door to the house, responded sluggishly. He scanned the yard twice, looking for any predators, and then got out. Dr. Caldwell, flipped the switch on the edge of the rear door, so as not to be inadvertently trapped again and then started inside. He stopped, thinking better of it for a moment, and then asked, “You coming? I could use some backup if we run into anything in there.”
Looking at the car for a moment before he answered, the police officer, still trying to hide even from himself the shame that was threatening his thoughts, “Yeah, I’ll be right behind you Doc.”
The three of them spent a quiet several hours together in the upstairs living room of the house. The only sounds in the entire house were the rhythmic ticking of a wall clock and the frantic voices of impromptu news anchormen and women on the television. As night came, they decided that it would just be more prudent for them to sleep in the car. If any of them would
be able to sleep at all that is.
They grabbed a few blankets from a hall closet and made themselves as comfortable as they could in the confines of the small sport utility vehicle. When any of them did sleep, it was in fits and starts. There was no real rest during any of that first night for any of them. They merely counted the hours down until sunrise the next morning. There was still something hopeful about a sunrise. Nothing really changed for them, but the sun coming up the next morning at least implied that some things could still be counted on. It was the wait for that sunrise that was the most agonizing for all of them. The longer autumn night was torturous, harboring teasing shadows and alarming sounds.
Part Three
Chapter 27
Settled and comfortable enough to talk for a moment, the survivors in the boarded up house sat together in the living room. At first, the only sound was a collective sigh of relief. The room was filled with questions, though no one spoke. They looked at one another, not knowing where or how to begin.
Meghan broke the stalemate. She asked quite simply, “What is going on out there?”
Everyone’s eyes looked from one to the other until all eyes were looking at Jerry. He didn’t like this one bit. He wasn’t accustomed to being the guy with the answers. Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure that his answer was the right one. What happened if what he thought he knew was actually wrong? And even if he wasn’t wrong, could he believe it either? He was thinking those exact thoughts when he began to speak.
“You all’ve got to understand that I’m no authority on...well, on anything really. I’m a high school drop out who went back to school to get my GED and some training so that I could get a job. That’s all. I don’t have a degree in nothin’. I’m just a Nurse’s Aide.
“I don’t know a lot, but what I do know is movies, video games, books, and music.” Neil thought to himself that he could tell already that he liked this kid. That list of interests just secured the deal. Neil was also fairly certain that the “kid” wasn’t the dullard that he was painting himself to be though. Jerry may have lacked confidence, but he wasn’t intellectually impaired.
Jerry continued, “I think what we may be dealing with out there are zombies.”
Kim, leaning against the wall, stood upright and asked, “You mean, those monsters that gotta eat brains and walk around like this?” and she did an imitation that more resembled Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster as she moaned “Brains.”
“No, not like that at all. If it’s easier to believe, just think of them as people that are infected with a deadly and very infectious disease. Only, the infection in these people kills their sense of restraint, of morality, of family, of right and wrong. These people are completely and utterly incurable.
“Oh yeah, and the disease, it makes them impervious to pain. You can shoot ‘em. You can stab ‘em. You can burn ‘em. You can cut ‘em in half. You can run ‘em down with your car. You can do just about anything you can think of and it won’t stop them. They might get knocked down or slowed somewhat, but don’t be fooled, there’s only one way to bring them down.”
Tony asked, “Is this where you tell us that the only way to kill them is to put a bullet in their heads and then burn their bodies under a full moon?”
“The first part of that is right anyway. The only way to put them down permanently is destroy the brain. Severe blunt trauma, like a hammer to the head, would work, but it may take more than one whack and you may not have that kind of time. The best thing is to get them from a distance with one of the guns that Neil grabbed. Good thinking, Neil.”
Neil was standing in the kitchen now. He was drinking from a bottle of water, but really he was hiding behind the water the way some speakers hide behind a podium. He, like Jerry, wasn’t accustomed to being in the spotlight. His bottle empty, he went to the kitchen sink and re-filled it from the tap.
Kim asked, “How does the infection spread?”
Danny, sitting quietly and taking everything in, answered, “The bite, right? It’s in the bite. If you get bitten, you get the infection and die and then turn into a zombie. Isn’t that right Jerry?”
Jules nodded and added, “I think that’s what happened to my brother Martin. Does that mean Martin is in heaven with Grandpa?”
Rachel said, “God I hope so sweetie.” Then to Jerry, “So what can we do?”
Jerry was shocked that everyone was accepting his explanation of things. There was no dissension whatsoever, despite the fact that none of them had really seen one of them up close. None of them except Neil and Rachel, that was, and their moment in the parking lot was over before it even started really; a case of very aggressive hit and run.
“For now,” Neil chimed in, “we treat this like we would any natural disaster. Think of it like an earthquake. We’ll probably lose power and water some time soon. We need to fill everything we can find with water so we have some when the water is completely gone from the tap.
“Look around and try to find flashlights, batteries, and candles. That includes from the stacks down in the garage. I think if we work together, we can all get through this.”
Rachel asked, “How long do you think this will last?”
Tony, walking away from the others and peering out the opaque curtains hanging in front of the windows, said, “I don’t know. How long does it take for the world to end?”
Chapter 28
It may have seemed like the world was coming to an end, and maybe it was. For the time being, however, there was still quite a bit to be done. The rest of that first day and into the early evening, they all scoured the house, looking for anything and everything that might be useful.
Danny and Jules found some clothes that fit both of them in a couple of the bedrooms. It was about then that Neil realized that he was still wearing his tie and work identification badge. Of course, his Arrow brand wrinkle-free white shirt was anything but white by then. It was soiled a dull brownish grey with sweat, soot from the fireplace, and dirt from moving the firewood.
He looked at himself in the mirror and laughed. He took off his badge and set it next to Meghan’s keys on a small table in the hallway. He loosened his silk Jerry Garcia necktie and undid his shirt’s top button.
Meghan, surprisingly playfully, said, “Now you decide to loosen up a little. Make up your mind. Are you a cool-as-a-cucumber business executive who can handle any situation and still look professional and businesslike? Or are you that guy that only owns five ties, one for each day of the week, and hangs them, still knotted over your closet door so that you wouldn’t have to learn how to actually tie them? It’s hard to get a read on you, mister, changing your appearance as you have.”
Neil looked over at her and realized she wasn’t wearing her Fred Meyer uniform anymore. She’d found some blue jeans and a comfortable brown sweater that fit rather nicely.
He started to say something but was momentarily stunned to silence when she turned toward him, and he felt an overwhelming urge to splash into the warm, inviting waters of her eyes. They were nothing short of intoxicating. He wanted to ask her if she wore cosmetic lenses to allow her to have such exquisitely colored eyes, but it didn’t really matter to him. He was perfectly happy with the illusion for the time being.
And that’s not to say that the rest of her face wasn’t similarly gorgeous. Her skin was smooth and still enjoyed the lingering but fading bronze of the summer sun. Her hair, no longer pulled back in a tight ponytail, was either a light brown or a faint red with strands of golden blonde intermingled here and there, an obvious attempt to make them appear the natural result of exposure to the sun. Like a luxurious red carpet, her smile was full and inviting. He hadn’t seen all or really any of this at the Fred Meyer, and probably never would have under more normal circumstances. He was seeing it now though, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to concentrate on anything else. To further confound his senses, she was surrounded and accompanied by a ravishingly sweet but un-aggressive aroma that made him
think of warm summer days.
She was, Neil realized, a very attractive woman. Neil guessed her to be about two or three years younger than him, which meant that she was ten years younger than him at least. He was horrible at those things. He invariably embarrassed himself when drawn into those guessing contests with new coworkers. Age, weight, sexual orientation, astrological sign, political affiliation, or religion did not reveal themselves accurately to him on the biological or metaphysical barometers in his brain. Maybe he didn’t get that part of the brain that permitted such activities. Regardless, she was a very attractive young woman who was smiling at him in the hallway. And she wasn’t just smiling. She was smiling at him—at least that was what the faulty barometer was telling him.
Like many guys, when he was confronted with such a woman in tight confines he became tongue-tied and uncoordinated in thought and action. Subconsciously, he was probably surprised that he was still standing. If she got too close to him, he was afraid that the vertigo that he was beginning to feel in that sense of anticipation would topple him over. Starting on more than one occasion to speak, he second-guessed himself and instead stood there silent, waiting for her to initiate the conversation between the two of them. The funny thing about all of his feelings was that he could not deny that he craved them. Watching Lani bounce into the building every morning for more than a year, he had experienced just an inkling of what he was feeling. He had all but forgotten about the butterflies that could dance and twitter in his belly.
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse Page 11