by Bryan James
This place had been a feeding frenzy. Clearly a large number of creatures had come through, decimating the living that had adopted the store as a refuge.
But how had they gotten in? The doors in the front of the store were locked and barricaded, the rear door was barred.
Unless someone had let them in.
Christ.
Someone had let them in. The repose of the bodies, their positions in fairly uniform distances—as if they had been sleeping when they were attacked—made sense. I turned to Kate as I realized what had happened.
“This was a bloodbath,” she said simply, staring around the store. Bodies littered the aisles, and I swallowed once, noting that at least fifty people had been trapped inside this store when the creatures had come upon them.
“I think someone did this to these people. I think someone let in a pack of those ... things.”
She stared at me, then at the remains of women and small children spread over the floor and across the aisles. No part of the store seemed clean or untouched.
“Why? What could they possibly have to gain from this?”
I looked around, understanding.
“Food,” I said simply.
“Fifty people, many of them defenseless women and children with no weapons or skills, eating food and taking up resources...This was the act of a coward who wanted more for him or herself, and decided to do something about it.”
She sighed, and I walked further into the store, hopeful that we could scavenge some items not covered in gore or blood from the massacre. I walked past the dairy aisle, careful to avoid the large puddles and walk softly, in case there were any stragglers left inside, but aisle after dark aisle was empty of movement, simply full of body parts. No entire bodies remained, as any corpse able to move after being eaten would have left the building with the rest of the pack. But large parts, such as dismembered legs and arms, and even a head rolled indelicately to the foot of the produce shelf, littered the ground.
I opened my pack after finding a shelf of power bars and trail mix, stuffing my pack with the food. One aisle over, I heard Kate whisper softly.
“Oh, gross.”
I knew the feeling. As I backed away from the power bar display, I stepped on something that popped wetly as I pushed down. Keeping my eyes forward and up, I walked away.
As I moved toward the aisle that held the bottled water and other drinks, I heard three quick blasts in close succession from the bus outside.
That was the signal. We needed to move.
I turned the corner and saw Kate running toward me.
The horn blared again.
We bolted toward the stairwell, even as I heard movement in the front of the store. Somewhere in the entrance area, a door was opening.
I heard a moan. And then another.
Then a chorus of undead voices, speaking as one.
I cursed as we shot through the door to the stairwell and slammed the door shut behind us. Reaching the top of the stairs, we ran to the edge, where the bus was pulling up again, having apparently moved while we were inside. Ky was on the roof, gesturing and yelling.
“Whole pack, hundreds of ‘em,” she shouted, waving her hand toward the front of the store. “We didn’t watch the front the whole time, ‘cause we thought it was locked up. Turns out, there’s another door on the other side, totally unblocked.”
I wondered at that, asking myself why someone would let them in, then out, and then fail to barricade the door behind them after they left.
I wondered if we decided to search the store more thoroughly, we wouldn’t find someone with a bullet in their brain. Or half eaten, having tried to run away.
We’d never know, but hope springs eternal.
Kate jumped down, hitting the roof and rolling once toward the hatch. I tossed my bag to the roof as a hollow pounding shook the door behind us. I carefully launched myself down, and turned back once before boarding through the hatch.
They moved to the edge and stared, thirty swelling to fifty swelling to a hundred as we drove off.
They were certainly evolving. They didn’t appear smarter, but the urge or the instinct that drove them to group together was just as dangerous. Alone and slow, they were a nuisance. In packs in the hundreds, they were outright deadly.
I wondered how they knew, how they were drawn to one another. It had to be the same transmission or effect that made the vaccine so tricky. If it was that minute amount of radioactivity, could it be mimicked? Used against them in some way?
I pondered the question as I sealed the hatch, and we pulled onto the road and toward Route 50 to D.C..
We drove along the edge of Route 50, carefully avoiding the packed cars and trucks jammed along the road. Thankful for the bus’s hefty, heavy duty off-road tires, we moved slowly but surely toward the bridge.
Remembering the last bottleneck we had been forced over, I was poring over the map to discern any other viable way over the Severn River. There weren’t many.
“What was in the store?” asked Ky, sneaking up on me as I sat at the makeshift desk and taking a break from using the CB radio to try to make contact with other survivors.
Since the ferry ride, this was her self-appointed task. Although we told her it wasn’t necessary—that we couldn’t really help anyone, and they couldn’t really help us—she wanted to contribute. We didn’t object.
I looked up at Kate, who was cleaning one of the shotguns. She cocked her head to the side slightly, and gave a small shake, pony tail wagging behind her drawn-back hair.
I looked back to Ky and smiled briefly.
“Just the usual. Snickers and Doritos. But we only got power bars because we knew you liked the other stuff. Don’t want you getting fat.”
She frowned and looked meaningfully down at my boots, which still held stains from having to kick through body parts and fluids.
“And what’s that on your boots?” she said doubtfully, looking up in the indulgent way teens have of accusing you of patronization.
“Nougat,” I responded, glancing at Kate once more and catching a quick smile before poring over the map again as the bus crested a large hill, cleared of trees and looking down on the long road ahead.
Ky sighed in frustration, and went back to the radio, flipping through channels as George had taught her, looking for transmissions.
Abruptly, the sound of static changed to a sharp squeal and she leaned in closer as I looked up again from the map. A male voice was coming in fairly clearly on one channel, and George slowed the bus to retain the position on the hill that had apparently afforded the good reception. We all listened, as the squeal rounded out to a strong signal.
“…reports continue to indicate widespread panic and fear, with little to check the rising tide of plague-related violence. Infected continue to multiply and news from heavily populated areas is virtually nonexistent. There are mixed reports of government presence, with conflicting reports on the disposition of leadership. The capital area is reported to be a refuge for government leaders, including the President. However, other reports indicate no government leader survived the exodus from D.C., while others indicate that the remnants of governmental leadership are gathering at the Pentagon ....”
Static interrupted briefly.
The voice began again, speaking softer, quieter. The tone betrayed the presence of quiet desperation.
“Days ago, rumors filtered in about a supposed cure. Of government units looking for a weapon against the virus. Of something to stop the spread.”
My head tilted as I listened closely.
The voice cracked, soft pounding in the far background punctuating the measured cadence of the now resigned broadcaster.
“These rumors appear to be just that. There is no evidence of any cure. No magic elixir, no special vial of curative potion. Just death.”
And the sound of cracking wood, high and sharp in the radio microphone.
The voice sighed. “There is no help coming.”
Only the broadcaster’s slow, heavy breathing on the air.
“Jesus Christ.”
It was almost a whisper.
“There is no end to this. This is the end. Of everything.”
A sharp crack, like the snapping of a whip or a firecracker. Dead air. Then heavy breathing again.
Different this time. Faster.
More like an animal, like a beast.
A hungry beast.
Ky looked up, and I frowned. Kate shifted in her seat, staring out the window as Ky turned back to the radio, purposefully turning the dial to a different frequency.
Surprisingly, another voice shot from the radio as it squealed again. This voice was scratchy and tinny; it was the voice of a pre-recorded message.
“...to leave the District of Columbia. Roadblocks have been set on all major highways, and patrols are actively seeking violators. A curfew has been set for all District residents, and citizens are asked to remain in their homes. Marshall law has been imposed and mandates will be strictly enforced. The use of deadly force has been authorized by the highest authorities. Please notify friends and relatives, and do not attempt to leave. Remain in your homes. This message will repeat. To all citizens and residents of the District, do not attempt to leave ...”
I turned to Kate and back to George as Ky killed the volume, the message now repeating.
“Interesting,” I said. “They were trying to keep the D.C. folks inside the city,” I said to myself.
“Must have had a large infection, or been a flash point or something,” Kate said absently, still looking out the window, chewing on a strand of hair.
I didn’t respond. Moments like these; hearing someone die, watching someone die; they weren’t easy. Especially for someone whose daughter was missing.
George started the bus five minutes later, and we continued forward. We hadn’t picked up any transmissions on the other bands, and no one answered our calls. The looped broadcast was probably days old, maybe weeks.
No one was listening. Not here. Not now.
As we crested another low hill, George spoke quietly as we stared, “Roadblock up ahead.”
I stood, following Kate to the front of the bus and peering out of the thick windshield.
Several Humvees and two large two and a half ton trucks sat across the six lane highway, blocking traffic in both directions. Beyond the roadblock, the Severn River bridge rose, free of zombies and cars. The roadblock had kept the path clear.
But now, we needed to get through the roadblock.
We approached the assembled vehicles on the right hand shoulder of the highway, driving on grass and gravel until we were within twenty feet, when George slowed and placed the bus on idle. Two large tripods were secured to the hoods of the vehicles—likely for fifty caliber machine guns, long since looted away. The vehicles were parked in a saw-tooth configuration, pointing toward the bridge. One soldier’s body lay mangled at the door to the closest transport truck, and a command tent set fifty feet back from the roadblock, surrounded by now emptied boxes, likely originally containing ammunition and food, contained the blood, gore and shredded fabric of an attack. It appeared as if the roadblock was overrun from behind, while watching for incursions from the bridge.
Kate and I climbed to the roof of the bus, followed quickly afterwards by Ky, who wanted to see.
Beyond the roadblock, a field of dead bodies littered the ground.
These bodies had been human when they were shot.
They held sheets and luggage, laptop computers and MP3 players; some were collapsed near rolling duffle bags, others behind carts piled high with personal effects. Blood sprayed everything and everyone nearby, and I wondered at the amount of effort it must have taken them to move so much so far from where their vehicles lay.
Large bodies and small, they all lay serene and composed, and my mind wandered to the pictures of the dead at Antietam and Gettysburg in the civil war photographs, the old lithograph photos seeming to capture the dead stillness of accumulated bodies so aptly and horrendously. My mind was taking those lithographs now.
Too many dead. Too many people gone.
I saw what I needed to see and dropped the ladder to the ground. I waived Kate off, and she saw my expression, seeing that I wanted—needed—to work alone.
I dropped to the ground and drew my bayonet, walking forward to the Humvee blocking the right side of the median. In the driver’s side of the truck, a single soldier sat at attention, dead eyes watching me approach. The shriveled skin and watery eyes, hallowed under sunken lids and tightening flesh, marked him as an older corpse. Like so many before him, he had been trapped by the simple mechanics of a closed door.
Before opening the door to the truck, I looked inside, seeing what I needed to see: the keys to the vehicle.
He lunged for me as I opened the door, but the bayonet took him through the throat before he had moved a foot. He hung there, suspended on the cold steel, arms still moving, until I wrenched my hand to the side, severing the spine and dropping his body to the grass with a pull of my arm. He collapsed, uniform discolored by weeks of rot and gore. Leaning down, I pulled his sidearm from his holster callously, roughly removing the extra clips from his belt and putting them in my own pockets. He had no use for those anymore.
I tried to start the truck, but it wouldn’t roll over. Shrugging internally, I felt my blood rushing in my veins from the encounter with the creature, and shifted the vehicle to neutral. Parked on a slight incline, it took only one large push for me to send it rolling to the tree line thirty feet distant. It crashed into the old oaks and forced leaves from the branches above, showering the cold metal with the colors of fall. I ignored this as I turned, hands shaking slightly.
I was tired of death and of those that brought death to others. I was ready to end it.
The bus engine revved sharply, and they moved closer as I grabbed the ladder and climbed to the roof.
Chapter 35
The bridge was clear to the other side, where a less effective roadblock had been breached by several vehicles. Some still smoldered from fires, likely caused by small-arms fire to the attackers as they rushed the barricades. Bodies littered the opposite side of this barricade as well, and I turned from the blood as we snaked through a small opening on the left hand side.
Vehicles were jammed bumper to bumper on the East bound side, and we carefully moved as far to the right as possible, traveling in the median half the time. We stayed on Route 50 for an hour of slow travel before moving off to the rural roads again.
As the sun set over the Western horizon, we checked the map once more, as the GPS had started to die. Soon after landing at the ferry terminal on the West side of the bay, the unit had begun losing the signal frequently, and we could only suppose that the satellites were losing orbit, unattended by the technicians and human oversight necessary to keep the sophisticated technology airborne and functional.
Our route was simple: Defense Highway to Annapolis Road, then to the New Carrollton station. We had left Route 50 when we neared Annapolis proper, and moved far north, expecting infected activity to be denser near the larger population center. We made good time along Defense Highway, and moved through the small town of Crofton before finding a church parking lot east of the town to park for the night. George shut off the engine soon after parking, and engaged the reserve batteries for lights as we all settled down for a night’s sleep before approaching the city.
Kate was taking an inventory of the weapons as George scrolled through the CB one more time before bed. Ky and Romeo had passed out soon after Romeo’s careful potty excursion in the grass next to the small, abandoned chapel, where the gleaming cross at the pinnacle of the steeple seemed to scream for help against the darkening sky.
“How do we look?” I asked, putting my hands on her shoulders and gently massaging as sh
e finished making a final notation on a scrap of paper, then surrendered to the relief as I worked the tension out of her shoulders.
“So-so,” she said, grimacing as I dug my thumb into a particularly knotted tendon.
“We have plenty of shotgun rounds, and three shotguns. The MP5 has two more clips, and the Glock has one spare. The nine millimeter you picked up at the roadblock has a full clip and two extras.” She looked at Ky briefly and smiled. “And she has thirteen arrows left. She’s still complaining about the one she lost back in Delaware.”
I chuckled briefly.
“Well, hopefully we won’t have to use any of this stuff. In my dreams, we waltz through the subway corridor until we sink underground, make our way to the Pentagon underground, and pop up right where we need to be. I just hope we can help. If not, I don’t know where to turn. We have the whisper of a hope for vaccine in our blood, but if there’s no one left to use it ...”
I trailed off and she turned to me, hand holding mine.
Large, beautiful eyes looked up at me, and I smiled.
“We do what we can,” she said simply. “That’s all.”
“I guess so.” I said unconvincingly. She stood, squeezing my hand once more before turning toward our pallet of blankets.
“Let’s get some rest, huh? I think we’re gonna need it tomorrow.”
I nodded, eager to put my fears to bed.
Unfortunately, it was a short night, and one in which I got little sleep. I stared at the ceiling, mind churning at light speeds, conjuring in the dark the little troubles that the mind creates when left to its own devices. In my mind, contingencies turned to realities; realities turned to tragedies. And at the end of it all was a dying race.
I drifted off fitfully, hours after laying down.
I walk into an empty city, down vacant streets, and hand a large blue vial to a man in a white coat. He smiles, and snaps his fingers. Instantly, I am surrounded by healthy, happy people, going about their business. Walking. Talking. People. Not undead, but normal, real live people.