The Rotten Series (Book 1): Infection

by Lewis, M. Lauryl

  “What?” I asked, slowly.

  “There’s only one bathroom up here and you don’t want to go in there,” said Matt.

  “I can’t go back downstairs,” I said. “Not with that poor kid in the bathroom, and going outside might draw more of the dead.”

  “Just…pee in a corner,” suggested Ellis.

  “Gross.” Peeing in the corner of someone’s living room didn’t exactly feel right. “Okay. But don’t watch,” I grumbled.

  “Meet us in the garage. It’s straight at the end of the hall.”

  I watched as they walked single-file down the hallway. Instead of peeing in a corner like a dog, I found a juice pitcher in the kitchen and utilized it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The minivan was blessedly roomy inside with the back seats removed. Before joining the others, I salvaged two sofa cushions from the largest sofa in the living room. They were softer than the crib mattress, so before we began driving Ellis helped me arrange them on the floor of the car, with the mattress vertical as a backrest. The make-shift seat ran the length of the car behind the driver’s seat to allow easy access to the hatchback and side door. Matt decided to take the first turn driving with Braylen riding shotgun. Ellis and I settled onto the couch cushions. Braylen had been thoughtful enough to grab a small bean-bag cushion from the nursery, which I gratefully used to prop up my foot. It was our good luck that the minivan had been parked aimed facing the street, which would make pulling out of the garage that much easier.

  “You all ready?” asked Matt. Tension was heavy in his voice.

  “I guess it’s now or never. Give me a second to look under the garage door to make sure the coast is clear before I open it all the way. Once I do, I’ll hightail it back. Just be ready to drive,” said Braylen.

  Matt nodded in understanding.

  Ellis placed a hand on my thigh and squeezed gently. “You ready?”

  I nodded.

  Braylen exited the minivan and approached the metal roll-up door. It was the lightweight kind, probably aluminum, and I knew it offered little in the way of protection. If any of the dead were to see it open, I feared they’d overtake the door and Braylen.

  “Are you hanging in back there?” asked Matt.

  “Yeah. Just a little weirded out,” I answered.

  “Make sure you brace yourself. It could get pretty rocky driving out of here.”

  Wanting to see what was going on for myself, I pulled myself up to a kneeling position and scooted to the front, where I settled in just behind the two front seats. Braylen got onto his knees and flattened his cheek to the garage floor.

  “Too bad there’s no windows on the garage door,” I whispered.

  “Yeah. Except then the infected could see in,” said Ellis, stating the obvious.

  “True.”

  As Braylen pushed the rolling door upward a few inches, I held my breath. Moving shadows streamed beneath the door, warning us of the presence of the dead. Braylen held up two fingers at first, which quickly grew to five before he made a fist and counted out another four. His hand then came up, staying Ellis, who I hadn’t even realized was halfway out of the van, ready to help Braylen if need be. After a quick nod of understanding from Ellis, Braylen quickly got up from the ground in one fluid motion.

  “Should we go help?” I whispered.

  “Not yet,” answered Matt.

  Braylen walked back to the open front van door. He ducked down to speak but was so quiet I had to strain to hear him. I kept his eyes on the bottom of the garage door, where shadows still danced back and forth.

  “There’s at least ten or so of them out there, bro. That’s just the driveway. I can’t see past that without opening it farther. I think trying to fight them off wouldn’t go down well. I’m going to open the door all the way and run like hell back to the van. Start driving before I even have the door shut.”

  “Will do,” said Matt. “Poppy, you better settle in.”

  “Can’t we just plow through the door?” I asked.

  Matt shook his head side-to-side. “Too risky we’d damage the van and be stuck.”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Be ready,” said Braylen just before walking toward the garage door.

  A knot formed in my stomach as Braylen put his hands near the bottom of the door in preparation to raise it all the way. As soon as the metal panels began rolling upward, Matt turned the key and the van roared to life.

  As soon as the door was open wide enough, Braylen made haste back to the vehicle. The dead were already spilling in across the threshold. There were more than ten, but things happened too fast to bother counting. Ellis had already gotten back into the van but hadn’t fully closed the slider door for fear the dead would hear. The van lurched forward while Braylen was only halfway in his seat. The first impact was minor, but the next was a lurch that knocked me off balance.

  “Keep going!” shouted Braylen.

  “Ellis! The door!” I snapped. “Close the door!”

  He fought to steady himself next to the unlatched slider door while Matt swerved to avoid the bulk of the creatures. “It’s stuck,” he said, breathless. “It won’t click shut!”

  In that moment, I wondered if Ellis was an idiot. The stench of death was heavy as we passed the animated dead. Moans and growls grew loud as the creatures were agitated by our noise and motions. The sounds chilled me to my core.

  “Get that mother fucking door closed!” shouted Braylen, who was clearly pissed.

  A little boy, who couldn’t have been older than six or seven, reached for the open doorway as we passed near to him. I got a quick look at his face. His skin was deathly gray, but thick freckles still dotted his cheeks and nose. It gave the appearance of odd bruising. His bright red hair against the pallor of his skin was clown-like. His face appeared uninjured. As we left him behind, I could see that his pajamas were covered in blood. He still clutched a security blanket and wore only one slipper, his other foot bare and bloodied.

  “Ellis, get back,” I screamed.

  He looked at me for only a split second, but that’s all it took. It had come out of nowhere, literally. A large woman with blonde braids over each shoulder grabbed onto Ellis’ arm, pulling him halfway out of the van.

  “Matt!” I screamed. “Stop!”

  Matt slammed on the breaks, causing all of us to lurch forward. Ignoring a dull pain caused by my shoulder impacting the front seat, I lurched toward the open door and scrambled across Ellis’ lower half. His head and shoulders were already on the pavement of the street, bending his body awkwardly as the woman with braids fought to pull him the rest of the way from the car. Ellis fought back, hitting at her with his fists. Sitting awkwardly on his chest, I braced my arms against the sides of the door opening and used my good foot to kick at the woman’s face just as she was about to sink her teeth into the flesh of his forehead. It bought just enough time for Braylen to jump out of the van and reach Ellis’ side.

  “Braylen watch out!” I screamed as another of the dead moved toward him.

  Ellis struggled beneath me, rolling to one side. We both toppled out of the van together and once again I kicked at the woman who continued her pursuit of us. Ellis pushed himself to his knees and drew his pistol from the back of his jeans. The woman had a firm grip on my leg, her fingers painfully digging into my shin and calf. It took Ellis only one shot to fell the woman. Her grip relaxed immediately, and I scrambled backward until my back touched the van. Two more shots rang out.

  “Fuck! Get back in!”

  I couldn’t tell who was yelling. Braylen scrambled forward, hooking an arm under Ellis’ as he went. I watched in horror as several of the dead gathered and quickly approached us. I pushed up off the pavement with my uninjured leg, bumping into Braylen and Ellis as they rushed into the safety of the van. Wasting no time, I crawled into the van directly on their heels. I struggled to dislodge the sliding door from its stuck-open-position. Just as the freckled little boy, no longer clinging
to his blanket, got close enough to make contact, the door finally budged and slid closed.

  “Hang on,” said Matt.

  The van swerved twice as he drove away from the growing crowd of dead.

  I looked at Ellis in horror as I noticed blood on the back of his t-shirt.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said.

  “Damn,” grumbled Braylen. “Did it bite you?”

  “I don’t think so,” was all Ellis said in reply as he pulled his soiled shirt over his head.

  I leaned forward and helped him pull his shirt over his head. He winced as the fabric loosened from his back.

  “Shit, man. That’s some serious road rash,” said Braylen quietly.

  “Let me see,” I said.

  I sat beside Ellis and leaned back as he twisted away from me. Both of his shoulder blades and a patch near his left armpit were badly scraped and bleeding.

  “I don’t think he’s been bit,” I said.

  “Me either.”

  “She didn’t get me; the ground did,” huffed Ellis. He was still out of breath from his struggle.

  “You’ll live, but it’s probably going to leave a scar,” said Braylen.

  “Talk to me,” said Matt. “What’s going on back there?”

  “He looks okay, just some bad nasty scrapes that are gonna bruise like a sonofabitch,” answered Braylen.

  “There’s a first aid kit in my brown backpack. Use what you need,” said Matt.

  I retrieved the first aid kit from Matt’s backpack. Sitting down on my shins, I sorted through the meager medical supplies. A pair of latex gloves, a small bottle of sterile water, gauze pads, and plastic tweezers were the most promising items I found. I looked up, meeting Ellis’ eyes for the first time since we’d gotten back into the van.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  He winked at me. “As ever.”

  “I’ll try to be gentle.”

  “It’s okay. I’m tough,” he said with an unconvincing smile.

  “I’m sure you are,” I said as I positioned myself behind him.

  I poured some of the sterile water onto the gauze and began patting at his wounds. He flinched.

  “Son of a bitch!” he said.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Just get it done. Please.”

  The muscles of his back and shoulders tensed. I continued to blot at the bloodiest areas. Thankfully, they came clean easily and the bleeding quickly slowed. I picked a few small bits of gravel from the area by his arm pit. None of us spoke as Matt continued to drive. I took it upon myself to take a clean t-shirt from Braylen’s pack and gave it to Ellis. As we put distance between us and the monsters we left behind, we saw fewer of the infected on the road.

  ***

  We pulled over when a roadblock forced us to stop. Concrete barriers spanned the width of the highway. A single orange detour sign lay on its side on the highway shoulder. Oddly, only one car was present. It was a black sedan with gold tire rims, a buckled front bumper, and a very broken windshield. I knew by the way the shattered glass folded outward that the driver must have been ejected from the vehicle. My own accident with Karly flooded my mind and my heart sank.

  “What now?” asked Braylen.

  “We go around it,” said Ellis

  I scooted toward the slider door and opened it, allowing fresh air to rush inside. Unfortunately, that fresh air also carried with it the stench of rot.

  “Pretty sure we can drive off the shoulder and get around that barrier, but we need to search the side for anything that might pop the tires first. The driver of the other car is scattered all over the road, so if you’re squeamish don’t look,” said Matt.

  “It’ll go faster if we all work to clear the shoulder,” I said. “I can ignore the guts.”

  “You should stay here with your ankle,” suggested Ellis.

  “I need to stretch. Really, I’ll be fine.”

  Matt and Braylen both backed up and Ellis and I carefully exited the van. It felt good to stretch my legs, and my ankle felt less pained for a change. I nursed it, though, using my other foot to carry most of my weight while I limped a bit as I walked. Ellis stayed near, never more than five to ten feet away from me. His back wounds seeped through the borrowed t-shirt, but the stains were already drying. We spent all of ten minutes picking up bits of rock and trash that held potential of damaging our tires. I glanced at the other side of the road. Matt hadn’t been exaggerating when he said the driver of the other car was strewn about. The torso was gutted, his head decapitated, and three of his four limbs were missing. His remaining leg hung limply and at an unnatural angle from the rest of him. Birds in the distance crowded around something in the grass not far off, which gave me a clue as to where his arms and other leg may be. A pile of blood and pink flesh lay in a heap at the base of the concrete barrier. It wasn’t identifiable, but I suspected was part of the person’s head.

  I took a moment to steady myself, placed my hands on my knees, and drew in a few deep breaths. The smell of death threw me over the proverbial edge. My stomach heaved. I retched and vomited bile from my empty stomach. Tears welled in my eyes, and I heaved and heaved until there was nothing left.

  “Hey,” whispered Braylen. “Let’s get back into the van.”

  Wiping my mouth with my arm, I straightened myself and let Braylen wrap an arm around me, allowing him to help me back to the vehicle. As we arrived at the van, so did the other two men.

  ***

  The remainder of our drive required several short detours through backroads due to abandoned cars clogging intersections and roadways, as well as two more road closures. The two-hour trip stretched until evening, and Ellis informed us that there were still several miles to go. We mutually decided to look for a secure place to stay for the night, if such a thing existed.

  “Creekside, one mile ahead,” mumbled Braylen from the front seat as we neared a green roadside sign.

  “Never heard of it,” echoed Matt.

  “It’s a little Podunk town. There’s not much there. If I recall, the post office is a brick building, so it might work,” said Ellis.

  “I’m hungry,” I said flatly.

  “I think we all are,” said Ellis.

  “There’s a box of granola bars in Matt’s pack,” said Braylen.

  Matt continued to drive. As we approached the Cascade Foothills, the evergreen trees grew thicker.

  “It’s not looking good ahead,” warned Matt. “There’s a fire not far from here.”

  Braylen whistled a single note. “That’s a shitload of smoke.”

  Ellis and I looked through the windshield. We were in the middle of a large curve in the road, but the highway was filling with smoke in the distance.

  “We should turn around,” I said.

  “There’s not really anywhere to turn to,” said Ellis. “We should wait it out then go through.”

  “Whatever’s burning may take days to finish, dude,” said Braylen.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “We have another problem,” said Matt. “Gas is low. We either need to find fuel or swap cars.”

  “Crap,” I mumbled. “Let’s just go through it. If the smoke gets too bad, we can just turn around.”

  “She’s right,” agreed Braylen. “I’ll take over behind the wheel.”

  “I won’t argue,” said Matt.

  “The town’s only about a mile ahead, tops. Matt, think there’s enough gas to make it through?” asked Ellis.

  “Yeah. For sure. Well, pretty sure.”

  We all got out of the car to stretch our legs. The smoke was irritating. It smelled of dirt and charred pine, reminding me of an experiment we did in ninth grade science class. The air was still, the lack of wind likely causing the smoke to spread outward instead of upward. The sky was already turning pink as the sun began its descent for the day. We each ate a granola bar and drank a bottle of water before piling back into the minivan, where Braylen took over as driver.

  We
made it through the smoke. The fire appeared to have started at a thrift store, which sat smoldering, and spread to the building next door. Neither was recognizable aside from street-side signs identifying what they had been. The next lot over was vacant; just old concrete that was home to cracks filled with weeds. Even though the fire had mostly extinguishing itself, I could feel the heat through the car windows as we drove by the buildings. The pungent smell of smoke stung my nose, so I began breathing through my mouth, which made me cough. Ellis, sitting beside me, put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer to him.

  “We’ll be past it soon,” he said quietly.

  I looked at him and nodded.

  “Looks like that was the worst of it,” said Matt from the front seat.

  “Good,” I mumbled, trying to suppress another cough.

  Ash fell gently around us, further darkening the sky. I watched lazily out the side window as a gray and white cat scuttled across a side street. Each building looked nearly the same as the next until eventually the buildings stopped. The light of day was nearly gone when Braylen cleared his throat, breaking the silence.

  “Gas light’s been on for a while. We haven’t passed a single vehicle and it’s almost too dark to see without the headlights. Any ideas?”

  “I think headlights would be a bad idea,” said Ellis.

  “I agree,” added Matt.

  “I guess we can sleep in the car?” I suggested.

  “Let’s turn around and hit up the last building we saw,” said Matt, ignoring my suggestion. “We can at least secure a single room if we need to.”

  “What was the building?” I asked.

  “Looked like an office, maybe. There wasn’t a sign,” he said.

  I leaned against Ellis as Braylen turned the van around. I was growing tired and needed to pee desperately.

  “We’ll be there soon,” he whispered.

  “Have you wondered?” I asked Ellis as I yawned.

  “Wondered what?”

  “Where everyone went…”

  Chapter Fourteen