by S. Ganley
Garrett glanced down at Steve for a second and saw that the man had now completely collapsed to the ground on his hands and knees while dry heaving as his stomach continued to work against him. Rivulets of snot were dangling from his nose all the way down to the vomit covered ground under his face, the man looked to be in pretty bad shape. Whether he had even the slightest awareness of what had just happened to his wife and son, Garrett had no idea, but in his current condition he knew it was not the time to mention it. With nothing more that he could do for Steve at the moment and the threat to him now removed, Garrett focused his attention back to the smoking wreck of the pickup truck. Through the rear window of the passenger cab he could see two figures in the front seats, the passenger appeared to be leaning towards the door on that side and was not moving, possibly injured from the wreck, the driver on the other hand seemed to be struggling to open his bent door. Garrett left Steve where he was and dashed over to the truck to see what he could do to help whoever was inside. He had made it to within a few feet of the bed when the driver’s door finally popped open with a squeal of tortured metal. The driver rolled out of the seat and onto the ground with his back to Garrett and it looked from the way the man was moving slowly and clumsily like he might be injured.
"Hey man, are you ok?" Garrett yelled out as he continued to move closer to the driver who was now resting on the ground facing away from him.
"What do you think asshole? Have you ever known me to cry about a few bumps and bruises?" There was no mistaking the voice of his longtime friend Calvin and as he was speaking he rolled back on his side to face Garrett. Aside from a few fresh cuts across parts of his face and what was probably going to end up being a nasty black eye probably from the air bag impact, he looked to be in decent shape.
His surprise at seeing his old friend roll out of that wreckage was replaced with the shocking implications of what had just happened, "What the hell? You ran that woman down Calvin, did you even see her?"
Before Calvin could reply, Garrett was already moving around towards the front of the truck to see if there was even a chance that she could still be alive and if there was anything that he could do to help her until they could get an ambulance out there.
"STOP! Let her be, just thank me for saving your damn stupid ass. She was about ten seconds from chewing your ugly face off and turning you into one of her own kind. Don't get any closer to her either, chances are she is still dangerous even after a hit like she just took."
Garrett had just reached the edge of the smoking engine compartment when he was stopped in his tracks by Calvin's sudden crazy outburst. Confused and also now concerned that maybe he had hit his head harder than suspected, he turned back to him, "Are you sure that you are ok? What the hell are you talking about? Turning me into one of her own what? She might still be alive under there, you could go to jail for this, the least we can do is try and save it from becoming a murder rap if she dies."
Calvin moaned as he tried to stand, his hand clutching against his chest, "Damn, might have busted a rib or two after all. Listen to me Garrett, I am guessing you are a little behind the times in just exactly what the hell has been going on in the world and we don't have a lot of time to stand here in the open and have a long discussion about it. It’s a fucking zombie apocalypse my friend, just like in the movies, your little blond friend there was already a full on zombie and had you and your buddy back there locked in her sights for her next snack."
Not knowing Calvin for one to be influenced by media or other sensationalized stories Garrett was even more convinced that his friend must have smacked his head pretty hard and was possibly suffering from a concussion or other internal injuries. He actually let out a sarcastic laugh as he replied, "Zombies? Man you must still be drunk from last night, is that what's going on? You’re going to add a DUI to everything else here. I really don't know how the hell I am going to be able to bail your ass out of this one."
Calvin had now regained his feet and was turning to look inside the truck suddenly remembering that he had someone else in the cab with him, "Look, we don't have time to stand out here in the open and argue this at the moment, those damn things are starting to turn out in larger numbers all over the place. Kimberly is sick, I need to get her somewhere safe, my place is not good right now. Take a look at your little victim in front of the truck if you don't believe me, but don't get within arm’s reach, trust me on that. After you are satisfied, get your ass over here and help me get her inside."
Looking back towards the tangled mess of the bent and steaming hood of the truck, Calvin was just able to make out a clump of hair sticking an inch or so into the air from the small space between the crushed ends of the truck and Mustang. He took several steps to the left to reach a point where he could see into the gap between the point of impact and recoiled back a foot at the sight. As he had suspected, the impact had been angled just right to cut the woman in half across a point just below her navel. The bottom portion of her body was almost at his feet as he approached the front of the truck, one shoeless foot was jutting out from underneath the Mustang and bent away from the ankle at an unnatural angle. That sight was bad enough, what really caused him the greatest shock was when his eyes came to rest on the upper half of the woman's body. A tangled mess of fecal matter and partially digested food was still spilling from the torn ends of the mangled length of intestine dangling like a weathered hose from the remains of the upper half of her body. Held in place by a portion of the trucks grille embedded into the side of the Mustang, if seen from any other angle it would look as though the woman was still completely intact. In fact if he had seen her from a different angle he would have not only thought that she was intact but that she was still alive and trying to claw her way free of the wreckage and he may have been tempted to rush to her aid. As it was, the injury should have killed her instantly, there was just no possible way that a human being could have survived. Instead of the upper half of the body simply laying slumped lifeless across the hood of the truck, she was very much still alert and just as anxious to get her hands on him as she had been right before she became this permanent hood ornament for the truck. Trying with all her might she was slashing her hand through the air in a clawing motion towards him, her dead looking milky eyes were locked on him while her teeth continued snapping and biting ready to sink into his flesh at any moment. It seemed to Garrett that she had no understanding of the position she was in, she acted as though her body was still in motion and that in only two or three steps she should be on top of him. The other thing that he noticed about her was that there was no indication in her distorted facial expressions that she was experiencing even the slightest measure of pain. He had taken Calvin's proclamation about a zombie apocalypse as a product of a possible head injury he suffered from the impact, but now he was starting to think there may actually be something to it after all. He had to admit that as unbelievable as the notion sounded he didn't really have a clue what else to call it. He also reminded himself that Calvin could not have seen the condition this woman was in from his position either before or after falling from the truck after the wreck. But he had known what Garrett would find when he walked around to the front of the wreckage and spied the woman. He was looking at a woman who had actually already been dead well before the truck had cut her in half. As much as he hated to admit it, the zombie theory also explained what had happened in Steve’s house when he was attacked by his wife and son. He had been bitten by the boy and that was probably why he was suffering such an agonizing sickness, his own son had infected him with the virus.
Backing away from the struggling woman but still unable to take his eyes off of her clawing and reaching arms, he started moving back towards the cab of the truck where Calvin was working to free the unconscious Kimberly from her seatbelt.
"Satisfied?" Calvin called out from inside the truck, "Now give me a damn hand with her, the door is bent in on her and she's stuck. I don't think she’ hurt any more than she already was b
ut I need you to pull the door from the outside just enough so I can pull her free from in here."
There was nothing Garrett could do for Steve's wife and the issue of zombies would have to wait for the moment while they focused on getting her free from the wreckage. Garrett raced to the passenger side of the truck and peered inside the window, Kimberly was face down with the side of her head leaning against the door and the rest of her body pushed at an angle towards Calvin in the driver’s seat. The door was unlocked and gave a little when he pulled on the handle, but then reached a point where it rubbed up tight against the bent frame of the front of the truck. Garrett saw that the door frame itself was wedged several inches into the passenger compartment and he imagined that part of the door must be holding Kimberly's legs stuck against the seat. Grabbing the door handle with both hands and planting his feet firmly on the ground Garrett was able to pull the door open just about ten inches to a point where Calvin yelled out that he had Kimberly's legs free.
As gently as possible, Calvin slid the girl’s limp and unconscious body across the seat until he was able to get her leaning against the inside of the driver’s door. Garrett came around to the driver’s side of the truck and saw that Calvin seemed to have the situation under control. Turning back towards his townhouse he spotted Steve still in the same spot he had left him several minutes earlier when he was preparing to face off against his crazed wife. Steve was now completely prone on the ground and from where Garrett stood it appeared that the man's condition was getting much worse, he could see that his skin had paled a great deal in the last couple of minutes and that he had managed to puke up even more bloody vomit. He was concerned about what may be happening with Steve if the zombie scenario was accurate and running the same course as fiction movies and novels most often portrayed. In the meantime he agreed with Calvin that getting inside with both Kimberly and Steve was a priority at the moment, he wanted to keep trying the emergency lines to see if they could get some medical assistance and also to find out exactly what Calvin knew about their situation.
"If you can handle her by yourself, I'm going to help Steve make it to my living room." Garrett called out to Calvin who replied with a thumbs up as he reached into the truck to scoop Kimberly up in both arms.
Garrett reached Steve's side and as he bent over to help him up he lifted his face towards Garrett and opened his mouth to try and speak. Garrett's knees went weak when the smell hit him, he wasn't sure if it was coming directly from Steve's open mouth or just a combination of something on his breath and the surrounding piles of putrid vomit in the nearby grass and all across the sidewalk. Garrett was no stranger to the smells associated with rotting flesh and decomposition, what he was confronted with at that moment was the very same odor. If he still had his doubts about a zombie causing virus the realization of what was happening to his neighbor erased them from his mind. The virus coursing through his body must have been hard at work at breaking down his internal organs, the blood and clots of shit he had been throwing up were not a result of his last meal, it was because his body was slowly dying from the inside out. The smell of rot coming from the bile surrounding him and also from his puke stained mouth told Garrett all he needed to know to convince him of Steve's fate. He doubted there was anything any medical facility could do to save him at this point, but he also couldn't just leave the man out there on the edge of the parking lot to die and then simply resurrect again a short time later as a zombie just like the rest of his family. Grabbing him by the fleshy part of his arm Garrett helped Steve to his feet, he had to keep his head turned away from the man to avoid choking on the noxious odor pouring from his mouth as he helped him stagger the short distance up the sidewalk and to the open front door of his house.
Easing Steve gently down on the floor next to the love seat in his living room, Garrett placed a pillow behind his head and then darted off to his kitchen to grab a mop bucket and some towels, the last thing he wanted was for that noxious smelling rancid puke to end up spewed all over his carpeting and furniture. Calvin followed along shortly behind him carrying Kimberly and he eased her gently down onto the couch and covered her lower body with a throw blanket. Calvin ran back out to the truck and grabbed several bags out of the back of the crew cab and hauled them over to just inside Garrett's front doorway. Shutting and locking the front door, both men then went from room to room to ensure all doors and windows were locked, meeting once again in the kitchen once they were done.
"Shit!" Garrett exclaimed as he noticed the time on the digital readout from his microwave, "late for work on the first day, I don't think that going to look good.”
Chapter 17
The first gun shots outside her bedroom window came a little after four in the morning. Miranda had instinctively rolled off her bed and laid on the ground covering her head with her hands and shivering in terror for over an hour as shot after shot had rung out followed by screams of terror and cries of pain. When she was reasonably sure that the shooting was moving further away from her apartment she gathered up the courage to slither across the bedroom on her belly and make a desperate grab for her cell phone on top of her dresser. Six calls to 911 all with the same results, an automated recording telling her that all lines were busy. She had tried calling Mrs. Carpenter and her husband but their line just rang and rang without so much as going to voice mail or an answering machine picking up. The only other numbers she had in her phone were for friends and other people back in and around Philly, no one that could do a thing for her in this situation.
With every passing minute Miranda was sure that at any second she would hear the approaching sirens and see the reflections of flashing emergency lights as police and ambulances rushed to the scene around her apartment complex. As the sun started coming up and she had yet to hear the first signs of responders and there had been no further shooting or yelling for over an hour she realized that she was going to have to take a look outside and see what was happening. She had no idea if it would be safe to remain alone in her apartment like this, it was possible that the police had even already arrived but had done so silently and may even now be searching for residents like herself who had sought shelter from the gunfire.
Miranda tentatively got to her feet, taking special care to keep out of sight of the bedroom window, even with the shades drawn she didn't want to risk her shadow possibly being seen from the outside. Keeping close to the wall, she worked her way out of the bedroom and into the hallway where she felt more confident about moving quicker until she reached the living room. The couch was pressed up to the wall just under the window and she was able to hide behind the tall cushions while peaking from the edge of the window curtain into the yard out front. Easing the curtain slowly aside and only lifting her head just high enough to see over the couch, she could see nothing unusual off to the left of her apartment. She could see no one moving or anything that looked out of order, but she could also see almost all the way to the manager’s office across the parking lot on that side and there was certainly no sign of any police presence. It was when she moved the curtain further to the side to continue looking across the front of her building that she started to see the first signs of something amiss. She spotted a figure laying prone on the ground, flat on their belly with their legs and arms splayed out to their sides, it was a man and from the thinning and gray hair that she could see on the back of his head she thought he must be on the older side. A little closer to the building she could just make out a bare leg of another person who must have also been down on the ground, she could only see as far as the calf before the rest of the body disappeared from sight but she was reasonably certain from the smoothness and lack of hair of the leg that it was most likely a younger female. Further away and towards the edge of the parking lot on that side of the building there was a strip of grass that dipped down out of sight before reaching the row of parked cars. Along the top and rim of the dip she spotted four more people sprawled out on the ground and unmoving, she couldn't make out ma
ny details from her window, but one man was shirtless and she could see that his chest was soaked in blood and she was pretty sure he was dead from the odd angle that his body was contorted into. Out in the parking lot itself beyond that group of bodies she saw the first signs of life, eight people were walking around in between the parked cars and out into the street. Something about them didn't seem right though, they appeared to be wandering aimlessly and without any obvious direction or purpose. As she watched them she started to think that they looked like they might be sick or injured, the possibility of shock also occurred to her. She had heard of cases where witnesses to traumatic events could find themselves in a state of shock where they lost touch with the reality around them for a time. Not knowing any of her neighbors by sight, she wasn't sure if they were residents in her own building, the nearby buildings or from somewhere else. One thing that she was certain of was that people were clearly hurt and in need of assistance and there was no sign that any help was on the way. She tried her cell phone again with the emergency line and still got only the recording tell her that the lines were all busy and to try again later.