There was noise all around them in the house as everyone settled into their accommodations for the night, but in the back hallway, away from everyone else, there was a quiet and somewhat awkward moment between the two of them. It ended when Neil turned around and went back through the door leading into the garage.
Meghan caught him by the arm and said, “Hey, thanks for everything you did for us today.”
Neil shook his head and said, “I don’t think I did anything other than just run to save my own ass.”
“Maybe,” Meghan admitted, “but you let all of us tag along, and so far, saving your ass has saved all of ours too. So thanks. Besides, if you were only interested in saving your own ass then you wouldn’t have come back for us when my car stalled. You’d have just driven on down the road and left us to fend for ourselves.”
Shaking his head and trying to confess as much to himself as to her, he pleaded, “You’ve gotta understand, Meghan, I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I don’t even know all the questions. I’m just a guy who’s been in a rut of a job for too long and not sure how I wound up there, and maybe I’m even a little afraid to take the next step. And then this all happened.”
Smiling, she said, “You act like any of us are that different from you. I’ll let you in on a little secret. How you described yourself is pretty much how it stands for all of us. You don’t have to have all the answers. You just gotta be willing to try, that’s all.”
“God, I hope it’s enough.”
“So do I, honey. So do I.”
The fact that she called him “honey” was not lost on him. Hearing himself called that warmed him from the inside out and brought a warm, pink glow to his cheeks.
“Maybe you’re right, but I can’t do this alone.”
“And nobody expects that of you. We gotta look out for one another. Gotta be able to count on one another.”
She closed the distance between the two of them and wrapped her arms around him. She laid her head, which came up to just below his chin, against his chest. He was afraid that she could now feel and hear his racing heartbeat and think that he might have some congenital heart defect. His fear immediately gave way to the warm satisfaction that he felt with her pressed against him.
With tears in her eyes she asked very quietly, “Just tell me everything’s gonna be alright. That the storm will pass and we’ll be okay.”
He tilted his head and let his cheek rest on the top of her hair and whispered, “Everything will work out. It always does. If nothing else, you can count on that.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“And hope to die?”
“Not at the moment.”
He didn’t see the satisfied look creep onto her face as she nuzzled in closer on his chest. They held one another tight for a handful of heartbeats and when they released each another she said, “You might think about a shower, stinky.”
“What?” And he sniffed himself curiously, wrinkling his nose uncomfortably.
She walked away laughing and feeling, all things considered, pretty good.
Chapter 29
The next morning, Neil awoke reluctantly. He looked around through his sleep filled eyes trying to remember where he was. When the memories of yesterday flooded back to him, he leapt up from the recliner in which he had been sleeping upright. He spun around, trying to see anything that he recognized. The darkness seemed so consuming, swallowing him up like the nightmare that had plagued his brief sleep. Then he realized that the nightmare he’d been having was just his memory replaying itself from the previous day’s hellish events. His nightmare was actually his bitter reality.
From the couch along the wall came a deep breath as someone turned over in sleep. He peered through the dark like a sailor into the fog hovering over a reef filled cove. In the very scant light, his eyes adjusted to reveal the outline of a person sleeping. Neil breathed in and immediately knew that it was Meghan.
They had spent the better part of the night and much of the early morning talking and looking occasionally out the front window. He told her about his divorce, and she told him about her lingering engagement and less than committed fiancé. Other than the fact that the world they had known was unalterably changed and possibly balancing precariously on its last foot, it wasn’t a bad night. Though their talk had become quite intimate, they both held any physical intimacy at arm’s length. Neil’s reservations and Meghan’s lingering commitment to a fiancé that was more than likely dead or worse helped to funnel those urges to the backs of their minds.
He could finally make out the outlines of Meghan’s face in the very scant light. He stifled an urge to cross the room and kiss her on the cheek. Just seeing her was enough. Maybe it wasn’t all bad after all.
Neil stretched and yawned. He had to pull the Seminole College sweatshirt down over his belly. He’d found the sweatshirt and jeans he was wearing in a back bedroom and, though the clothes were a touch big on his frame, he was thankful the previous night to peel away the grimy clothes that he’d been wearing since the beginning of the tumult.
He wandered out to the dining room and joined Tony and Jerry at the glass top rectangular dining table. Jerry poured a cup of coffee from a white carafe sitting in the middle of the table on a cork pad and pushed the porcelain Mall of America mug toward him.
The younger man, no longer in his hospital scrubs said, “Enjoy it. It’ll be the last pot cooked with the help of Mr. Coffee.”
Sipping the strong, hot brew, Neil asked with his eyes what he meant, to which Jerry responded, “Power just cut out and I don’t think Chugach Electric is going to be dealing with the outage any time soon.”
Standing and heading over to the window, Neil asked, “Are we still alone out front or have They found us yet?”
Tony, who obviously hadn’t been awake much longer than Neil and a bit surprised by the casual nature of the conversation, asked the both of them, “What do you mean yet?”
Jerry answered them both. “It’s just a matter of time. Before the streetlights went out, I’d been watching a group of maybe five of Them down the road a bit. They seemed to be just standing there...waiting.”
Tony’s eyes widened. “Waiting for what?”
“I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that they’re definitely making their way toward us. When the lights went out, they were milling around about a block away. It’s really just a matter of time.”
Neil asked, “Where are they now?”
“In the middle of the road. I think they can smell us but can’t quite place which house we’re in. It’s been a very gradual process. I felt like I was back in junior high biology class watching one of those time enhanced videos of a bird hatching from an egg or a plant emerging from a seed. I didn’t see them move. I only saw that they were closer.”
Tony was appalled, “They can smell us?”
“Yeah. I think it has to be that, or maybe it’s the noise we make. It could be something else entirely different or a combination of all of those things.”
Neil finished Jerry’s thought, “But if we think of them as predatory animals, then at least we’ve got a starting place with how to beat them.”
Leaning away from the table as if he was trying to avoid the coming answer to his question, Tony asked, “You plannin’ on takin’ those things on? I saw what they were doin’ to those folks on the highway. I ain’t never heard screams like that before.”
“It’s exactly because of those screams that I want to know how to outwit those things. That’s all we got on them. We can’t fight ‘em...there are just too many of them. We gotta beat them on other terms...terms of our making and not theirs.”
Jerry sipped his coffee, then offered, “While they stood there, they weren’t necessarily standing still. They swayed back and forth, like they were on a loaded spring waiting to be released. While they shuffled in their little circle, their legs moved like yours or mine, with maybe a little more stiffness to them.
Maybe they’re being affected by rigor mortis. Their arms and heads seemed to twitch every now and again and they didn’t seem to be able to control it. Even with those spastic tics, their eyes didn’t miss anything. They looked into every shadow. I think they’re stalking us.”
Tony said coyly, “Don’t they know there’re laws against that sort of thing? I mean what’s a guy gotta do to get some peace?”
“I’d tell you to call a cop but...”
Chapter 30
During the night, Emma crawled into the back seat to sleep. She didn’t really want to sleep any closer to Officer Ivanoff than absolutely necessary. She cried even through her sleep for most of the night. She had never felt such overwhelming sadness and helplessness in her life. The feelings chased her into her dreams and plagued her with the sense of falling and running impossibly slowly from a lurking menace. Like a faded memory coming back, the day’s light gradually introduced itself. She opened her eyes sluggishly in the growing light.
It was very chilly, so she pulled the throw blanket tighter around her. The two men were still sleeping, their breathing heavy and loud in the confines of the car. Despite the breathing, sleeping men near her, she felt completely alone. She started to cry again; a warm, silent cry that hurt her chest. She stifled the sobs fairly well so as not to disturb the two men.
She heard a nearby wind chime begin to sing its stilted tune, reminding her of the wind chimes on her neighbor’s porch. The old lady seemed to have a dozen or more sets hanging all around; wooden chimes, metal chimes, some glass, some cut in the shapes of fish. The sound could sometimes interrupt an afternoon nap in the front room, but it was never an unwanted interruption. The sound itself was as soothing as a dream.
There was something wrong though. These chimes just seemed too random. Then she looked at the windsock perched atop the storage shed in the adjoining yard. It was hanging loosely, waiting for a wind to breathe into it life. There was no wind.
She started to shake involuntarily. Timidly, she turned her head to look out the rear window. Her heart sank. One of those things was in the yard behind them. It was on the small wooden deck and doing very small circles as if it was looking for something. Emma barely registered that the thing had once been a woman, and was still wearing a bathrobe tied at the waist. It appeared that her right hand was missing and its place was a mess of ruined and raw flesh. At the moment, it wasn’t looking in their direction.
“Oh no,” Emma breathed.
Dr. Caldwell, his eyes just barely cracked open, asked, “What’s wrong?” But then he sat up, realizing what exactly could be wrong. He followed her eyes and saw it moving around in the still very limited light of the still waking morning.
He leaned forward and nudged the policeman sitting in front of him. Nothing. He shook him harder. The only response he received was flatulation and a grunt that originated from somewhere deep in sleep.
The doctor was trying not to make any noise and draw that thing’s attention. He leaned forward even farther and whispered, “Officer. Officer,” and continued to shake him as well.
Officer Ivanoff woke with a start and in a very loud, irritated voice demanded, “What in the hell do you want?”
The police officer immediately remembered where he was and lowered quietly into his seat but it was too late. The former woman loitering in the yard next to them emitted something that might have been the offspring from the copulation between an excited war cry and a voracious nighttime howl, a sound that cut each of them to the marrow. It was running at full tilt across the yard in an instant.
Officer Ivanoff turned the key and, to all of their relief, the car started without so much as a cough from the engine.
“I love this car,” Emma said.
Dr. Caldwell said as he loaded the big revolver, “I’ll get you one when we get outta here. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The police officer shifted the car into gear and made a wide turn in the still dew-wet yard, losing control just slightly but regaining with ample dexterity and confidence. Emma had to admit that he was a good driver. Still, she held tight to the back of the seat in front of her. Her heart was racing and her breathing was doing everything it could to keep pace.
She held tightly to the handle on the ceiling just above the window as the car seemed to be over-corrected, and then she realized that it wasn’t merely that. The cop was using the car’s steering wheel like a gun sight, lining up the front of the car with the woman. Not to be outdone, she shifted her direction just slightly to put her on a collision course with the vehicle. Malachi Ivanoff pressed the accelerator to the floor and the Subaru’s engine grumbled deeply.
Emma was screaming for them to stop or veer away, anything really, to avoid the impact. She swore that she could see the police officer grinning from ear to ear as the thing’s legs crumpled against the car’s grill. The ghoul toppled up onto the hood of the car, and, shattering the front windshield, sailed up and over the roof.
With its robe flapping wildly like an expanse of untethered terrycloth sails, the former woman spun and thudded across the moist lawn. By the time she came to a halt, the car had turned back out onto the pavement and sped away. None of them in the car could see the beast come to rest twisted and broken. And yet, even with a shattered pelvis and broken spine, she was so desperate to continue her pursuit that she clawed at the soft soil and grass with her one still functioning hand and tried to pull herself along after them.
The car screeched onto the street and fishtailed slightly on the dew damp pavement. Malachi’s smile immediately faded when he beheld the crowd of ghouls that was coming at them from down the street. There were hundreds of those angry, hungry, tortured faces approaching them from a mere handful of blocks. He never, for even an instant, slowed the car.
Emma screamed from the backseat, “Are you fucking crazy!?! You’re gointa’ kill us all!!!”
Malachi ignored her. He looked to both sides, looking for an option. They passed a Court and then a Circle with no road leading out presenting itself. Emma was still shrieking like a wild woman when he jarred the car hard to the right. A sign warned him that there was No Outlet, but he saw what he needed.
Dr. Caldwell, never really losing his cool, asked, “Uh, Mal? This seems to be a dead end but we’re not slowing. Mal?”
To Malachi, the doctor sounded suspiciously like that computer on that movie about outer space. He thought its name was Hal, but he could be wrong. There was a space between houses where there wasn’t a fence. He was hoping to cut across yards and get to the road on the other side. He knew that it was risky, but he was fairly confident that most of the yards in the area into which they were heading were not yet fenced as it was all new construction.
Malachi felt the vehicle easily climb over the substantial curb. They jostled about for a brief moment afterward. Emma pulled her seatbelt on, as did the doctor. She closed her eyes and held her breath.
Despite the calm facade, Dr. Caldwell was finding it difficult to keep his posterior in position on the car seat. He was pressing the imaginary brake pedal with all his might to no avail. They weren’t stopping. They weren’t even slowing.
Maybe Malachi didn’t see it. Maybe he thought that he could jump his car, Hollywood action star style, across it. The doctor wasn’t entirely sure of the police officer’s thoughts. Regardless, the silver Subaru Forester plunged from the grassy yard into the murky water of the drainage ditch that ran along the borders of this line of houses. The spunky little sport utility vehicle tried to climb its way out of the ditch, but found itself marooned between the steep incline of the opposite bank and the soft mud of the bottom of the trench. Its wheels continued to turn enthusiastically in the muck even after it was glaringly apparent that it was going nowhere.
Dr. Caldwell was the first to react. He unlatched his seatbelt and looked over his shoulder. They had just seconds. “Come on guys, let’s go. We haven’t any time. Grab what you can and let’s get going.”
Nei
ther of his companions made a move for a second longer.
“Listen goddamnit! I’m not going to get my ass chewed because you guys couldn’t get yours moving! Now get going. They’re almost on top of us!”
With that, both the police officer and the medical transcriptionist were jolted back to reality again. Malachi hefted himself up and forced the shattered windshield out of its frame and onto the hood of the car. Emma followed, and the doctor got out last, brandishing the heavy revolver they had found. He turned toward the crowd just a scant few yards away from them. He raised the pistol, pointed it toward their pursuers, but then thought better about wasting a precious bullet on something that would neither slow nor discourage the chase.
The trio of hospital survivors ran hard and fast, not looking back for even an instant. The ditch proved a surprisingly effective obstacle to the ghouls, who had to end their pursuit and instead milled about around the wrecked car. Thankfully, this circumstance provided the three people a brief reprieve as they made their escape.
Malachi, though, knew that they were in trouble. They were on foot again and he need only remember the three people being pursued by that horde the day before. There too it had been one woman and two men. He wondered if the woman in that group had been as annoying and obviously weak as Emma. Her nagging and incessant screaming was starting to drive him over the edge. Maybe she was related to his wife. They certainly acted an awful lot alike at times. Emma didn’t seem to be Native, but perhaps the relation was distant and Emma only got the most annoying bits of that family’s personality.
Breathless and exhausted, Dr. Caldwell knew that they had to find somewhere safe and relatively secure to stop and rest. There were houses all around them, but he had his doubts as to how secure any house would be. Of course, if they were all too tired to continue to run and they were caught out in the open by those things, then a house wouldn’t be that bad of an option. How long could they keep running? How long until help would arrive? How long could they stay alive?
Infection: Alaskan Undead Apocalypse Page 12