Dead World: Hero

by D. N. Harding

  Across the street from their position was a small deli nestled on the corner of a two-story building. Colorful signs posted in the windows advertised different types of meats and their price per pound. The sign said, Open. Jack laughed at a thought. If their luck didn’t hold, they would walk right into a mob looking to taste their flesh by the pound. When the two stepped passed the corner, they did just that.

  The road that separated Jack and Davis from the safety of the deli was two lanes divided by a yellow line. As the men stepped beyond the edge of the building that concealed them, they immediately froze. More than a dozen faces turned to look their direction. Those dozen were merely the vanguard of a group of more than a hundred shamblers. The thoroughfare was packed — the sickness evident in their murky eyes. Some of them had eaten recently.

  “The deli?” Jack asked, needlessly.

  “I would say so,” Davis responded.

  To punctuate their need to hurry, a wailing moan sounded behind them. It seemed that another group as large as the one next to them was pouring out of an alleyway half a block behind them. The cry seemed spontaneous. None of those shamblers had laid eyes on Jack and Davis as of yet, though many were moving in their direction.

  “It’s like something’s pushing them,” Jack said softy.

  The two men made a break for the deli and Jack couldn’t help but wonder what they intended to do if the door was locked. Their movement attracted every biter within sight of them. Moans and wails erupted up and down the block as hands mindlessly stretched to reach them from a distance.

  “Please be unlocked. Please be unlocked,” Jack chanted, Davis silently agreeing with his sentiment. When they reached the glass door, Jack pulled desperately on the handle. The door didn’t budge. Panic surged in his chest, his breathing became shorter and faster as it slowly dawned on him that the door was locked. Escape was mere inches away, yet—.

  “Push!” Davis screamed. The crowd closed rapidly at his back, hands grasping for him. He could almost feel their breath on his neck. “Push, son! Push!”

  The red Marlboro sign above Jack’s fingers read, Push. He had pulled. The door opened with the ring of a bell and the two men piled into the deli. The door closed slowly on its piston — too slowly for Jack. Putting his weight against the door didn’t make it close any faster. When blue, black, and gray hands reached for Jack through the still closing door, panic gripped him again. There was no way to close the door now. The best he could do would be to hold it partially closed until they could think of something.

  Out through the glass of the door, hundreds of sick people congregated waiting for their turn at the door. Their eyes stared at Jack with a desperation that was manic. He felt like a mouse trapped under a glass, surrounded by a sea of felines. His feet slid an inch from the weight of so many bodies pressed against the door. He would not be able to hold it.

  “Davis! Need some help!” he cried. Over his shoulder, he could see no sign of the old man. He seemed to have disappeared. “This is not the time to do some shopping!” Something fell over in the back of the store and a new chill ran up his spine. This particular chill had a name. It was called hopelessness. If the sick were in the deli, there was no hope for escape. He couldn’t fight off the slavering jaws of a biter and hold the door closed. “Davis!” The cry was filled with desperation. His feet slid another inch on the polished tile floor.

  Davis heard Jack’s cry. He figured his time was running out as he moved through the store with determined purpose. He picked up an empty potato sack and began filling it with provisions. A Zippo lighter, lighter fluid, loaves of unsliced bread, cured meats, a wheel of orange cheese, a First Aid kit from off the wall in the back, a couple of large butcher knives, twine, and two rolls of brown paper. Every door he passed, he opened. Every door was a closet, except two. One led to an alley out back that was filled with the desperately sick. The other door had a short, curving stairwell going up. The door pulled open.

  “Davis! Their coming in!” he heard Jack shout.

  “Let them, let’s go!” Davis shouted back.

  “What?”

  “Come on! Follow the sound of my voice! We have a way out!” Davis instructed.

  The truth in Davis’ voice offered Jack a spark of hope. When the door opened another inch, he let it. Those who had been pressed against the glass outside the door fell inward at the sudden opening of the door. Others heaped on top until the door was nearly blocked by a dog pile of flailing bodies. Jack chuckled nervously and offered silent thanks to providence for the few extra minutes the pileup would offer their escape.

  “Back here!” Davis offered again, giving Jack a locator on his position.

  When Jack turned left at the end of the aisle, Davis was standing in an open door holding a potato sack filled with who-knows-what. He was pointing to Jack’s right.

  “In that closet are three mop handles, grab one and let’s get out of here.”

  Without questioning Davis’ intent, Jack pulled the door open that was labeled, Janitor Closet. Davis was right. Three mop handles protruded from a faded brown mop bucket as it sat next to a filthy sink. He snatched one from the gray soup and hurried after Davis up the stairs; the wailing of his pursuers chased goosebumps along his shoulder blades.

  The stairwell sealed them in total blackness when the door shut. Jack could hear Davis rummaging in his sack.

  “What are you doing?” Jack inquired, the answer coming in the form of two sparks and a burst of illumination from the lighter in his hands. “Oh.”

  The stairwell was dingy. Cobwebs decorated the cracked and peeling ceiling. The walls were dust covered and coated in layers of fingerprints. Their feet crunched on what sounded like sand and small bits of gravel as they moved up to the door to the second floor. Davis put an ear to the dark-panel, listening. No sound came from the other side. Both men cringed when the doorknob squealed in Davis’ hand.

  “Ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Jack said.

  The hall beyond was an intersection. Straight ahead, the formerly beige carpet stretched off into the distance ending at a curtained window. To the right and left, the hallway was considerably shorter. It came to an abrupt end at partially open doors whose faded labels were undecipherable. Down the length of the main hallway, on either side, was any number of doors whose dark stained wood contrasted the backdrop of chipped, not-so-white paint. The two companions discovered that the doors were numbered, giving the men the impression that they were probably in a second story apartment building.

  “Listen,” Davis said, when they approached the first door down the long hall. The door read, 201. He placed his ear to it. Inside he could hear newspapers shuffling around punctuated by a slight moan of discontent. “It’s what I feared,” he whispered.

  “What is it?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “There is at least one infected person in the room. The whole building could be filled with them. We’d better be cautious,” Davis said as he watched Jack remove the mop head from its handle.

  Jack offered Davis a look that said, “That’s obvious,” and the two continued down the hall. Beyond many of the doors they passed, they could hear some sort of movement that was inconclusive in determining the condition of the occupants. The distinct noises coming from behind other doors left no doubt as to the state of their tenants. Either way, the men did not intend to disturb any of them and moved with purpose further down the hall.

  The two eventually found themselves constrained by a bar of light spilling from an open door across the soiled carpet. The room number was 221. The open maw spewed the smell of soiled diapers as it exhaled. The static from a television drifted out from somewhere beyond the open door. Jack stepped in front of Davis and held up a fist. He’d seen it in so many movies that he knew it was the military hand sign that meant to stop.

  Davis smirked, rolled his eyes, and whispered, “Or, you can just say, ‘maybe we should stop.’”

  “Wait
here and keep an eye on the hall. I’ll go look around,” Jack offered without being baited. He placed a hand against the wall and peeked in the apartment.

  The first area beyond the door was a narrow living room. A stained sofa, two recliners, an oblong coffee table and matching end tables were the only furniture in the room. The walls were decorated with family photos of an Italian-looking family. Luigi was the first name that came to mind when he looked at the father. It was the suspenders. The furniture faced the television. When Jack turned it off, the silence was deafening.

  He stood for a minute listening. No sounds came from the rest of the apartment. As he moved toward the kitchen, he realized that stalking silently forward holding the wooden mop handle as if it was a sword seemed a bit ridiculous, so he straightened up and just walked into the kitchen. It was empty. Dishes were piled in the sink, clean ones lined in a strainer. The table was dressed for a meal and dog food was scattered across the floor around an empty dish labeled, Dog.

  Jack returned to the living room to find Davis standing inside the door. He put a finger to his lips. The old man’s body language conveyed danger and Jack found himself buzzing with adrenaline. He tiptoed to the door and slowly peeked around the corner down the hallway. A small woman in dark sweat pants and a T-shirt stood barefoot outside the stairwell door where they had entered the hall from downstairs. She seemed to be preoccupied with twisting her finger in her blonde hair. The grain of the skin on her face and the morbid state of her eyes communicated much about her condition.

  “Where’d she come from?” Jack whispered.

  “From around the corner to the left. I don’t know how long she stood there before I turned and saw her. It was pretty spooky.” Davis’ voice communicated a depth of weariness that concerned Jack. The man needed rest.

  POP! It sounded like someone had just stepped on a light bulb. All the hair on Jack’s body stood straight up. The noise came from inside the apartment, down the small hallway off to the right of the living room. Glass crunching under foot echoed up the hall. Apparently, someone was in a bathroom. Jack swallowed, forcing his tongue not to follow.

  There was no need to go exploring. Davis looked back out in the hall to find a handful of the infected had joined the woman and was moving down the hall toward the sound. Jack peeked around, too. There were only six or seven and had there been an open space, he might have been able to do something with them, but the hall was too narrow. More infected came around the corner from the left, behind the small crowd.

  “What is this, a conference?” Jack asked, rhetorically.

  “We’d better move if we’re going to find a safer place. Let’s not get trapped in here.” As if to help emphasize Davis’ point, a muffled howl erupted from behind them. A lean man in a wife beater stepped into the living room. His five o’clock shadow was covered in blood and the fluid dripped from his pointed chin. His jaw moved in slow chewing movements. Grasped loosely in his blood soaked hands was a hunk of raw meat. It was small and looked human.

  “Lord, have mercy,” Davis said under his breath, his brown eyes wide with shock.

  “Come on,” Jack said, taking the old man by the arm.

  The front of the hall was now filled with the infected. They stumbled and rocked back and forth between one another in determined pursuit of their prey. The hall filled with a slow rumbling moan as their voices joined with one another.

  The chorus chased Jack and Davis down the back end of the hall. Their choices dwindling, Jack began to turn doorknobs in an attempt to escape the lurching mob. Davis, taking his cue from Jack, began trying the doors on the other side of the soon-to-be death trap. None would open. The two men found themselves standing with their backs to the dark curtained window weighing the options left to them.

  Jack was pretty sure that he could shoulder his way through either of the two doors at the back end of the hall. Yet, there was no telling what or whom he would find on the other side and should he break through a door, he most likely would eliminate any chance of locking it against intrusion. The remaining option was the window. He turned and pulled the curtain open. Light spewed down the hallway, blinding Jack for a moment.

  “Fire escape!” Davis said with great deal of excitement.

  Jack unlocked the window. It was painted shut, but opened soon enough when Jack started pounding on it. Before Jack stepped outside into the warm afternoon air, he could already hear the moaning masses in the alley below the window. The fire escape was old but sturdy and just wide enough for the two of them. When Davis climbed out, Jack quickly realized that going down the ladder was out of the question, so he turned his eyes upward. A single narrow ladder was bolted to the brick wall offering the two men salvation. It went straight to the roof.

  “Go on,” Jack offered, heaving Davis up the ladder. Looking through the window, he realized that hungry grasping hands would be upon him before he could start up behind the old man. Thinking quickly, he grabbed the window and closed it most of the way before it was blocked. This provided him with just enough time to escape the fire burning in the eyes of the hungry reaching for him.

  Davis stepped onto the roof and laughed. The entire expanse of it was plastered in tar and covered with gravel. A large gazebo had been constructed a few feet from the western edge of the building, giving its occupants a perfect view of the western sky. A built-in table and four chairs offered the two men respite from the exertion of the day’s events. As Jack climbed up behind him, Davis placed his sack of goodies on the table and began to set out their lunch.

  “Hungry?” Davis said, knowing the answer.

  “Hungry?” Jack responded. “I feel so hungry, I might be infected. Whatcha’ got?” He set the mop handle on the ground and wiped the palm of his hands on his damp jeans.

  “Think Mediterranean,” Davis said and then grinned when Jack’s face screwed itself up in confusion.

  “What does the Mediterranean have to do with lunch?” Jack asked.

  “Meat, bread and cheese,” Davis said. “The only thing we’re missing is a little fruit.”

  “You’re the fruit,” Jack said playfully and then ripped a large chunk from the loaf of bread, sticking it in his mouth.

  As the two men sat under the gazebo sharing a lunch, the city seemed to buzz with sounds. From this vantage point, they could see much of the Quarantine Zone through the taller buildings. The infected were everywhere. The streets were nearly impassable now. Their cries filled the air like a cacophony of unbridled despair.

  “How are they going to possibly treat so many infected people?” Davis asked, thinking aloud. “There are thousands of them surrounding this building. That doesn’t include those in other areas we don’t even know about.” Then Davis stood up suddenly, startling Jack. “Look!” He was pointing westward. “See that big blue house way over there in the distance — the one with the slate roof. See it?”

  Jack stood up. He didn’t see it, but said, “Yeah. What about it?”

  “Margi lives on the other side of it in a yellow ranch,” he said. His eyes took on a distant look.

  Jack patted his friend’s shoulder and then walked to the edge of the building. The street below was packed with crowds of infected people. Some of them managed to crawl out onto the fire escape. They were stuck, though they didn’t seem to know that they were. They simply stood there staring down at those who were doing the same thing on the ground. He felt sorry for them. He hoped that an answer to their dilemma would be found soon.

  After walking the perimeter of the roof, he returned to have a seat next to Davis. “The building is completely surrounded by shamblers — sometimes as much as fifty deep. There is another fire escape on the south side of the building, but it will only take us back inside or to the street below, none of which sounds good to me right now.”

  “We need to rest. It’s been a long day,” Davis said. Then after a few moments, he said, “Hey. Welcome to the free world, Jack.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

 
M argaret stood at the large picture window staring at nothing. Her hair was disheveled. Her clothes were three days old. It wasn’t until the streetlight in front of her house lit up that she realized that she had been standing at the window for hours — maybe even days. She was so lonely. The occasional cry from the basement gripped her heart with sorrow. The same questions remained unanswered. Were they going to starve down there? Would they drink from the bathroom sink to survive?

  A scratching on the basement door drew her from her reverie. It was the girls again. They wanted out so that they could go outside and play. “No, baby bunnies,” she cooed as she approached the door. “You have to stay there until help comes.” She could hear the complaints.

  Come on, Grammy, please. Can we go outside just for a little while? We’ll be good. We promise.

  “I’m sorry, girls. It’s not safe outside. I’ll tell you what. Let me get the book I used to read to your mommy when she was just a tyke, okay? I’ll read it to you.”

  Margaret pranced off down the hallway and pulled the ladder down from the ceiling. Into the attic, she climbed. After several minutes, she returned humming the children’s song, Three Blind Mice. She smiled to herself as she squatted on the floor next to the door. The girl’s fingers waved at her from under it.

  “The book is entitled, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Are you ready?” she asked her grandchildren.

  Yes, Grammy.

  “Good.”

  Not too far in the distance, machine gun fire split the night like a buzzer.

  * * *

  The sun had descended into the horizon enough that the streetlights were coming on in a buzz of electricity. It wouldn’t be long until the downtown region would be lit up as if it was daytime — an artificial daylight. Jack stretched. The two of them had dozed for a few hours. Jack looked over to find Davis’ chair empty. Over his shoulder, he noticed the old man staring down at the street on the south end of the building.

  “What’s up, old man?” Jack asked, rising to his feet.