John stopped taking after he’d realized they had just been talking about Moto’s condition, and he was already cracking jokes about the virus.
Their small Maglite flashlight, which they’d unscrewed into its candle form, began to grow dim and flicker.
“We’re gonna burn through these batteries so fast,” John grumbled. “But at the same time, we’re gonna go crazy if we have to live in the dark down here. I really need to figure out a way to get us light in both rooms.
“Is there something you could get from the outside?” Brooke asked. “Is there another car battery trick up your sleeve?”
“Maybe something along those lines. Ultimately, I’d love to get one of those generators they use at construction sites or something. But for that to be doable, we’d have to be really protected along the perimeter. Generators are just way too loud. Hopefully Moto’s discovery over there is going to pay off, but I just don’t think it’s very powerful. I don’t think we’re going to be able to run a heater or anything bigger than a little lamp with it. Speaking of which, I’m gonna go clean the ash off the panels and see if that fire has shifted direction or anything,” John said.
“Oh, good thinking,” Brooke said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Well, if we’re being honest, my real motivation was just to go use the bathroom,” John said in a whisper.
“If we’re being honest, I have the same motivation,” Brooke whispered back. “And there’s no way I’m gonna go out there by myself at night.”
After a brief surveillance of the surface revealed nothing more than a cool, calm evening, the two decided to remain outside with the fresh air for a while longer. Though it was cold, the fresh air was more than worth the discomfort. The two remained, enjoying their new, private solace by lying quietly in the open patch of land and staring up through the circular opening in the canopy formed by the surrounding forest. They enjoyed spotting a rare star through the occasional break in the ash with as much excitement as a child spotting their first meteor. Enjoying the air and the quiet grew into enjoying each other’s company, which grew into making the most of their first moments of true privacy in far too long.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Though the most comfortable spots had been claimed and no remaining surface in the bunker could provide the level of comfort they had achieved on the leaves above, John and Brooke forced themselves to sleep downstairs. They didn’t anticipate that anything would happen but couldn’t allow themselves to leave Hillary alone and unsupervised. Though Moto’s continually worsening condition was some cause for concern, it didn’t seem to John that he was going to be approaching death’s doorstep any time soon. Still, guilt set in that they’d allowed themselves to be separated from the two for even the short amount of time that they had. Finally, the cold, hard floor was unable to maintain their consciousness any longer, and sleep overtook them both.
The next morning, Hillary woke Brooke and John with concerns about Moto. John could sense the girl’s anxiety but didn’t fully comprehend what the young one was really getting at before finally shaking the fog from the previous night’s drinking. Once he understood, John jumped up and ran to Moto’s room to confirm whether or not Moto was truly gone. Entering the room, John expectantly flipped the light switch with no result. He then felt around on the old desk where he’d left his flashlight and illuminated nothing but a vacant cot. His brother was gone.
“Did he turn you think?” Brooke asked.
“I just don’t see that being the case,” John said in a worried tone. “He was feverish, though. He might’ve been confused in the dark or something. Fevers can make people do crazy things sometimes.”
“Maybe he got stir crazy, or sick, and went outside first,” Brooke thought. “Maybe he turned after he was already out there.”
“Wow, you might be right,” John said. “That makes more sense than anything else. He did admit to me that he’s been… well… dehydrating from both ends.”
Hillary stood nearby, attempting to eavesdrop on the adults’ conversation about Moto. Brooke was wise to the girl, though, and she ended Hillary’s chance at listening. Instead, Hillary found herself a pen and sat down to draw next to a fully charged and brightly glowing Maglite candle. It was the hiker’s water-damaged notepad; chock-full of mostly ruined notes. She flipped through page after page that had been ruined with gibberish or moisture before finally coming to a blank one near the back with enough room that she could draw. Just before she’d touched pen to paper, John snatched the journal from her.
“This last page. It’s from Moto,” He observed.
I think we can all see where this is headed. Please do your best to help Hillary understand.
-Much love, Moto
“I can’t believe he’s giving up,” Brooke said, tearing up.
“I’ve gotta go look for him,” John said as he grabbed the pistol, leaving the rifle for Brooke. “I won’t be gone too long. I’ve just gotta try. You’ll be ok here, right?”
“Sure, sure. We’ve got everything we need,” Brooke nodded, wiping away at the tears on her cheeks, only for more to immediately replace the previous. “Take Timber with you, too--just in case.”
John kissed Brooke unceremoniously on the lips and left Hillary with a peck on the top of the head before scooping up the dog under one arm and awkwardly making his way up the ladder.
It became obvious that Hillary didn’t really understand what had occurred with Moto, and Brooke decided to just leave her in the dark as to the details. Should Moto return, or even if he didn’t, she felt that it would make things a lot easier for her to not know everything. After Brooke had spent a long while sitting and worrying about the brothers, it began to feel more and more like a waste of her time.
She distracted herself for a while, reading Moto’s note over and over before finally flipping to other pages in the book which they’d yet to explore. She skipped over the sections which bore every gruesome detail as to how the poor man had been separated from his family. Some pages focused on the man’s ideas for protecting the bunker, such as a moat-like fire trench, which he’d devised after observing the zombies’ reluctance to approach a flame. He went on to share that loud sounds such as a gunshot or even swiping at them with a blade didn’t serve as any deterrent at all but had heard that a torch being thrust at them would stop the zombies in their tracks without fail. He planned to test the theories out for himself.
The journal went on to list numerous other observations about the undead sporadically spaced between the man’s personal stories. On more than one occasion, he’d seen them dig at the earth or even a brick wall with their bare hands for hours on end. If they had reason to believe someone was still on the other side of an object, they’d claw and claw until their arms were worn down to bloody stubs. If another zombie passerby saw a group fighting to get into a building or through a window, they would instinctively join in on the effort. The only thing that would remove them, according to the journal, was death or the insertion of a different stimulus nearby. He’d found that there was no perfect science as to what would be enough to send them off in a new direction, but different attractions, timed correctly, could result in massive swarms of the undead wandering together in a horde. Individual zombies that had completed a meal or that had reanimated without any nearby stimulus would just stand dormant until some provocation reached them. If there was a larger kill, the zombies would continue to eat until either the victim reanimated or until there was nothing left.
For some reason, the writer of the journal mentioned a time he’d witnessed a zombie eat until its own stomach burst open, spilling out its contents. He apologized that there wasn’t much to learn from the story, but it’d made such an impression with him that he couldn’t help but put the story to paper. After it had burst, the zombie actually began re-eating its own meal a second time. The man didn’t stick around to find out if the zombie had stayed and continued eating its meal for a third round or not. What he did tak
e from the gruesome visual is that whatever the zombies lacked in cognitive ability, the things more than made up for in persistence.
The journal went on to speculate further into the contagion, though much of it wasn’t supported by fact or direct observation. In fact, many of the ideas the man presented didn’t match up with Brooke’s own experiences. She didn’t at all agree with the man’s assumption that, if a person hadn’t turned within a day of being injured or exposed, they were not infected and should no longer be considered a threat.
She skimmed past one part that didn’t seem plausible until remembering Steve. She re-read the bit where the hiker described a rumor that almost everyone had been infected and would reanimate upon dying. Perhaps Steve was telling the truth about his injury; maybe he hadn’t been bit. No, surely she’d seen someone die and not reanimate. She racked her brain trying to remember a seemingly uninjured person who’d died. She knew that one of the teenagers had waited for his friend to reanimate before shooting him a second time, but perhaps he’d been bitten. Though, there was the elderly man who had been carjacked and had no visible injuries outside of the gunshot wound, but had still reanimated after they’d buried him.
Brooke began to read more carefully, dissecting the words of the naked hiker, but still found nothing that shed light on why she and Moto had endured comparable injuries but had reacted in completely different ways. The more Brooke reflected on their circumstances and outcomes, the less sense she could make of the situation. Finding no answer in the remainder of the journal, Brooke suspected that there very well might not be a person alive who could answer all of her questions. Despite Moto’s certainty in his terminality, Brooke still held on to hope that his illness was unrelated to the epidemic. If the hiker was correct, maybe Moto and Steve both suffered from traditional infections, and Moto still stood a chance of making a full recovery.
Just when Brooke began to wonder if it was day or night and began to question whether or not John would return at all, the hinges of the hatch squealed as light spilled down into the bunker. Brooke resisted the urge to call out and ask if John had found Moto just in case it was some unknown person climbing down the ladder. Instead, she readied her rifle and waited silently. The hatch fell closed, and John soon came into view fighting his way down the ladder with Timber wiggling awkwardly under his arm.
“Anything?” Brooke asked as John let the dog jump down.
John mouthed a question silently as to Hillary’s whereabouts. When Brooke informed him that’d she’d been sleeping most of the day, he answered casually.
“It was so foggy. I’d catch his tracks here and there, but it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t want to be found.” One corner of John’s mouth pulled back into his cheek as happened frequently when he was in deep thought. “I’ll check again later, but it’s gonna take a lot of luck for me to find him--especially if the ash picks up any more.”
“So what’s our next step?” Brooke asked.
“We can’t do much, other than wait,” John shrugged. “If he doesn’t get to feeling any worse and his stomach starts growling, I guarantee he’ll be back. In the meantime, I’m gonna clean this gun. I tripped on one of Moto’s damn creek crossings and dropped the gun into the water like a rookie.”
“Wow, so he really doesn’t want to be found.”
“Yeah, but I take it as a good sign,” John said. “If he was really feeling bad, it would’ve been easy to track down I think.”
“You didn’t find him?” Hillary asked from the doorway.
“No, sweetie--not yet,” Brooke answered honestly. “Are you hungry now?”
John emptied the rounds from the pistol they’d found in the bunker as he pulled out the Hoppe’s cleaning kit and took a seat at the lit table. He was overconfident in his abilities from having mostly torn down and assembled the same side arm in training. He wished he could go back to the days of YouTube to find specific techniques for this brand of gun instead of the old trial-and-error method. Finally, the gun was disassembled and John began cleaning out the mud and old powder.
“We’re gonna go outside for a bit,” Brooke said from just behind John.
“Really? You think that’s a good idea?” John asked with a tone that sounded more critical than he’d intended.
“Well how many zombies have we seen inside our little clearing up top since we’ve been here?” Brooke responded. “Hillary’s getting stir crazy, and God knows I could use some sun.”
“Ok, but be careful,” John said, “I left a little clearing in the brush so I can get back out if things clear up. Let me carry the dog up for you too--for early warning. And make sure the solar panel is cleared off while you’re out there, please.”
“You hear that, sweetie?” Brooke turned to Hillary. “Let’s go play outside!”
John worried that Brooke wasn’t taking the risk as seriously as she should but couldn’t deny that there had been no activity on the surface as the temperatures continued to drop. Once he’d let Timber loose to run with the girls, John stopped himself from closing back the hatch. He could use the fresh air and would also conserve battery by working under the daylight instead of his lamp.
As he set back to cleaning the gun, John realized that he hadn’t taken the care he should’ve to memorize each step in the disassembly process as meticulously as the task required. He had initially intended to finish the job quickly and join in on some much needed fun time with the girls. Instead, John listened to their laughs and a bird’s joyous chirping while enduring his frustration with his own stupidity. Each time John thought he’d made a breakthrough in assembling the gun, he’d realize a missed step and have to take apart what he’d just achieved in order to add in the neglected piece.
When he’d nearly finished assembling the pistol, John realized that he hadn’t heard anything from the surface for a bit and paused to listen. He thought he could barely make out the sound of Timber growling, but he couldn’t be sure. Against his best instincts, John called up to the surface.
“Everything ok up there?”
No response--at least not at first. Shattering the silence, though, echoes of Moto’s favorite band filled the hatch.
“Moto, is that you?”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
John ducked out of the way just as Moto came tumbling down the hatch, pounding against the ladder’s rungs, and slamming into the concrete floor without even an attempt at cushioning the blow. Though his appearance was largely the same, it was obvious to John that this was no longer Moto. His pupils weren’t fully white yet, but his eyes had taken on an angry, soulless quality. What had once been Moto pulled itself up from the floor and locked eyes with John. The earbuds were still in Moto’s ears, but the cord had come unplugged from the phone, and Moto’s song played on for the room, devoid of its usual bass. The creature’s eyes squinted with what might have been recognition, but was more likely only an acknowledgment of its next meal. John’s first instinct was concern for the girls and confusion as to why Brooke hadn’t called out or screamed. Once the zombie started toward him, though, John’s focus became self-preservation. He scrambled to piece together the rest of his gun.
“Can I do this?” John asked himself.
John slammed the gun together and paused at the sight of the empty magazine. He looked down to his workspace for a few rounds to put in the gun, but found no bullets there. Moto was working his way around the corner of the desk and John mirrored each of his moves, working to keep the table in between them. John recalled that he had left all of the gun’s rounds lying across the bunker on a desk. A desk on the other side of Moto’s reanimated corpse.
John considered that he could probably work his way past the zombie, but Moto was so freshly turned that he still moved with more agility than John had become accustomed. Even if he did sprint past it, there was no way he could retrieve the rounds and load them before Moto could reach him. In a moment of clarity, John recalled the “Plan B” bullet that he’d been keeping in his pocket for
so long. His escape plan, should he be damned with infection, sat forgotten in the bottom of his tiny pants pocket. After a quick consideration, John confirmed that the bullet was the correct caliber for this gun. He fumbled nervously with the round in his pocket before forcing himself to breathe. He refused to be like the cliché movie characters. He calmly took the bullet and thumbed it into the mag. Once the round was loaded, John slammed the magazine in, and chambered his only shot.
“Hurry, John!” Brooke’s voice echoed down into the bunker.
John didn’t find it necessary to acknowledge Brooke’s advice. He tried to focus his attention on Moto but couldn’t help noticing that Brooke had lowered her head down into the hatch. He wanted to yell for her not to watch--to go take care of Hillary just in case more zombies were attracted to the gunshot.
John was finally able to slow his racing mind and focus only on Moto. He calmly raised the gun to point the barrel squarely into Moto’s forehead. Before he’d pulled the trigger, the dance across opposite ends of the table continued, and John waited until he felt confident that he’d timed their movements and could anticipate the perfect instant in which to pull the trigger. Just when John had begun to squeeze, Moto’s reanimated corpse put an end to the charade by climbing over the top of the table and lurching straight toward John. The gun kicked back and John diverted his eyes. He couldn’t watch. Though, he was forced to look again once he heard the form in front of him still moving. John was mortified to find that the bullet had only grazed the zombie’s skull, exposing a small section of brain. The wound would’ve been fatal for any person, but it was not enough to finish off a zombie. Moto continued crawling with surprising speed and was already almost upon him.
John fell back onto the floor with Moto on top of him, sure that this was it. This was how he was going to die. A quick glance up to the hatch revealed that Brooke couldn’t bear to watch. She was gone. John didn’t blame her for leaving. She had no reason to believe that John couldn’t dispose of one lone zombie. John started to call up for her help, but only a strained grunt left his mouth as he fought tooth and nail with his brother. Moto was far heavier than John would’ve guessed, and he struggled to bench press back up into the zombie’s chest. John’s elbows being pressed against the floor and the awkward placement of his hands made holding Moto’s infectious teeth at bay an almost impossible task. Each time he’d press harder, John’s right hand would threaten to slide off into Moto’s arm pit. Such a mistake would undoubtedly result in John’s demise at the hands of his own brother. John kicked and head-butted at the thing each time it leaned in for the first bite, but the zombie was unflinching at every threat of pain.
And the Blood Ran Black Page 25