“What are you doing?!” I growled.
She motioned with the rifle towards the opposite side of the neighbor’s yard. I held my hand up as a signal for her to wait then slid the Kukri from its scabbard smoothly into my eager grip. The blade brought a welcomed sense of comfort and security whenever I wielded it. I took a few steps away from 522 then looked back at my wife who still pointed the gun in the same direction I headed.
My brain tried to replay the check I had done of the yard thirty minutes before. I wondered if in my anxious haste I could have missed something. A scraping sound nearby froze my footsteps. I continued towards the ancient-looking pickup truck that had remained parked by the shed for as long as I could remember. The truck sat atop a concrete slab that had enough dirt covering it could have grown grass in spots. I advanced towards along the driver’s side seeking the source of the movement that had Sarah on guard. Another scrape caused me to swing around expecting to be face to face with the monster that needed to be silenced. However, nothing was there.
I turned to shrug at Sarah and immediately noticed her panicked face. I leaped forward to clear whatever danger she had seen, and then spun to take it apart. The Kukri sliced through the air and nothing else because the threat I sought was no higher than my knee. The neighbor boy, or what was left of him, swatted at me from the ground. Instinctually I took another step backwards trying to align an attack.
For the life of me I couldn’t remember his name. We had lived in our house for close to a decade and their colorful family lived behind us throughout. Yet in all that time I only heard the kid’s name shouted by his mother and siblings. There were a few times over the years when he and I came face to face during the retrieval of a wayward ball. Much like those random meetings, there we were facing off in awkward silence. He might have been fourteen or fifteen when he died, probably succumbing during those terrible days when the infection turned people on each other. Now he was caked in filth under a dilapidated truck guarding it like a wild animal protecting its den.
He swatted towards me again without getting any closer. Sarah made a ‘psst’ sound to get my attention. She still aimed the rifle my way, urging me to the side so she could take the shot. I flashed the steel of my blade towards her to indicate my intention to keep things quiet. Upon closer inspection I saw what held the little bastard at bay; a rope was tied around his neck and right arm. A coating of dirty muck stained the rope enough to camouflage it.
I kept clear of his arms while tracing the short rope to its source from the kid, under the truck then to the front bumper where it was heavily looped and knotted. With the demented puzzle pieces in view I figured out what must have happened. After the boy was bitten, maybe after he turned, someone had tied him to the truck because they wouldn’t put him down. This was enough to settle my curiosity, anything more would take my mind to places I didn’t want it to go.
Enough precious minutes were wasted; I marched from the front of the truck back towards the kid. He reacted to my return with bared broken teeth that had twists of silver from bent orthodontics. I increased my step then used a wide swing. In the moment before his lasting death the kid took another swipe putting his left hand in the path of the Kukri, which effortlessly severed the pointer and middle fingers. For a split second I could see the trail of black mist floating in the wake of the blade from the hand to his skull. My swing came to an end with the metal embedded above his ear.
Undead or not, I had no wish to see the trauma I’d inflicted on the teenager. Sarah remained on the ladder with the rifle lowered to reveal a vacant stare. Still linked by the fatal connection, my arm was extended backward as I stepped forward. I clenched the handle then yanked to dislodge the blade with a heinous slurp.
I stood at the fence with Sarah frozen atop the ladder on the opposite side unable to break her gaze from the re-killed boy.
“Babe,” I said softly without response. “Sarah!”
She exhaled sharply with a plume of steamy breath. “Sorry. It’s just…”
“I know. We can’t worry about that now because his problems are over. Ours have just begun.” Timed with dreaded irony, at that moment fists again began to hammer against the fence in the front yard startling us both. It was inevitable that the dead would know something was going in the backyard; we just wanted it to be when the keys turned in the ignition.
“Give me a hand up so we can swap places. Start the truck first then do what you need to do in the back. I’ll get the kids.”
Scaling the face was infinitely easier with a hand on the other side helping me up. I stared at the front fence where the infected were focused. My heart stopped when I noticed the boards beginning to flex inward from the barrage. Frankly, I was surprised this was the first time I’d seen faults in the integrity of the barrier after a few weeks of periodic bombardment.
I bolted to the window. “Heads up!” I said full volume to warn of my reentry. I hoisted myself up on the windowsill to peer through the opening. Inside, the kids waited with their personal backpacks on, both looking sufficiently frightened. Calise gripped Colonel Meows-a-lot and Van Gough, her honored feline guard, against her fluffy jacket. Maddox had removed his machete in response to the clatter on the fence, ready to defend his little sister.
The pounding increased on each side of the front fence. “Time to go, guys. You’re first, Princess.” Calise immediately headed for my arms with Maddox right behind her. She wrapped her arms around my neck for a tow out the trap door. “Monkey, I have a job for you.”
He looked confused. “I think we need to go quick, Daddy. The monsters are hitting the fence louder than ever.”
“I know. That’s why I have a job for you.” Calise squeezed tighter, and I had to pry her hold slightly to continue. “I’m taking her to the fence first then I’m running right back for you. The instant we’re out the window I want you to run to the front door. Take your machete and with the flat side, the FLAT side, smack the door as hard as you can eight times in a row. One time for every year of your age.”
“But…”
“Trust me. Make as much noise as you can. Draw them to the front door so they get away from the fence. Eight times, then you run back and lock the bedroom door behind you. By then I will be here at the window waiting for you.” He still looked wracked with worry. Calise started crying. “Maddox, you can do this. Tell me you understand.”
“It’s okay, Calise. I’ll see you in a minute,” he said.
I nodded at him, then my feet were on the ground running with the trembling pink beauty fixed to my upper half. Sarah’s shape was visible through the fence planks while our gear piled over a foot above the threshold. 522 hummed eagerly, ready to deliver us away from the violated haven that was once our home. The ladder wobbled as I flew up the steps. Three-quarters of the way up I heard Maddox’s distraction begin. Sarah waited beneath to receive Calise. She looked terrified, no doubt from the sudden and steady cadence that rang out from inside our home.
Before she could ask I briskly said, “It’s fine. Get on in. We’ll be there in a sec.” She took Calise then dropped a few steps before taking a risky leap from the ladder.
The eighth clang sounded when I was fifteen feet from the window. In my passing glance of the front fence I saw at least two places where the wood had begun to splinter. Minutes before I had seen the planks bow inward. That time they were motionless because the hungry rage that battered them was redirected towards the front door. If enough of them were interested, which I strongly suspected there were, then it wouldn’t be long before they stumbled over each other over the obstacle of our missing front stairs.
My head was in the window already when Maddox flew into the room, slamming the door shut behind him. “I did it!” he said, panting excitedly. A storm of fists landed upon the front door with such fury that the window frame supporting my weight vibrated like an earthquake had begun.
“Come on! They’ll break through any second!” He grabbed hold of my shoulders an
d I yanked us both clear. “Ladder. NOW!”
Maddox headed off full tilt. I returned to the trap door to shut off signs of our departure. Another vicious shudder echoed through the building. Wood surrendered under the assault in a thunderous roar. It was all out of view but loud enough to engrave that moment in my nightmares. Our home, the safe haven that had sheltered us in the old world straight into this wretched new one, had fallen. The horde stumbled inward like water breaching a dam. I listened for only a few horrible seconds that would remain ingrained with me always.
Chapter 17 - Divergence
0900 hours:
By the time we had gotten on the road it was after eight o’clock. I retraced the path I had taken the previous day on the bike. We were all shaken by the dramatic exit from our home. The kids clung to Sarah under several blankets while I tried to fight the urge to join them. After twenty minutes they settled down. The excitement of being inside a mail truck, especially one with such extreme alterations, was a sufficient distraction.
As they made themselves comfortable I tried to focus on the road rather than the selections I had made for supplies. This choice of the route was familiar so I didn’t have to give the road a second thought. Travel was slower than I would have liked it to be. Maneuvering around abandoned, burned, or wrecked cars cut the average speed down to a fraction of what it should have been. 522 lived up to McAllister’s hype; she swerved around the tight spots with the ease of an open lot.
The dead were everywhere. Clusters had to be avoided like any other road obstruction we’d faced. I was thankful that none had gotten close enough to put a rotting hand on the truck; although, I knew our journey was in its infancy so it was bound to happen at some point. Most of the reapers within view were gathered around predictable sites probably with more recent human activity. A handful of buildings had obvious living occupants.
One, a hotel constructed in the last couple years on the eastern corner of a shopping area, was swarmed by the infected on the ground level. Positioned in an open lot in a way meant to attract visitors, I could see far more detail than my sanity needed. People were on the roof waiving for my attention as we passed. A man in a red jacket desperately jumped around in hopes I’d notice. Next to him a woman wrapped in a hotel comforter flew a banner made from a translucent fabric that looked like the inner shade from a room below. Thin blue letters, possibly written with a tube of toothpaste, scribbled the words “CHILDREN ARE HERE” on one line then “HELP US” on the next.
I felt very thankful that Maddox and Calise didn’t have windows to look out of, they didn’t need to see the hopeless looks I witnessed on the people up there. When my speed increased the man ceased his plea and dropped to his knees at the moment we flew past. In that instant, even through the chain covered windows and across the tainted space in between, I felt the final shreds of hope leave the man in the red jacket. Windows would have been the nail in the coffin in this instance. Willfully ignoring anyone that desperate was an act I never wanted them to think I was capable of.
Smoke churned away from the smoldering shell of a grocery store on the western corner of the hotel’s shopping center. Heaps of blackened human shapes dotted the surrounding parking lot. Charred figures wobbled mindlessly on the property. A featureless charcoal sculpture of a person stumbled over a curb leaving its own smoke trail as it met the pavement. I pushed the accelerator a hint more to get away from the hellish remains of a formerly vibrant area.
I went into autopilot after the grocery store. Maddox tried to engage me in conversation, but I had no response to give. All I could handle was the road immediately ahead of us; any of the other hideous sights to our side would have disparaged more than informed. Winds knocked our irregular chariot around. The weather changed rapidly. Winter was approaching with the apocalyptic pollution giving it a boost.
A new landmark that approached on the left side interrupted my worries about the weather. After a slow mile beyond the shopping center there was a car dealership with an absurdly large American flag posted at the corner. In all the times I’d driven past this flag, or others like it on auto dealers, I didn’t remember ever seeing the stars and stripes extended in their full, fluttering glory. I assume it would take storm-level winds to allow the flag to fly and in those cases someone at the dealership probably would pull it down for safekeeping. The flag had turned into an enormous flash of color saluting the crumbled nation it was supposed to represent. Winds that knocked the truck also invigorated the symbol in a way I’d never seen before.
We rounded a steady bend to pass the dealership. I had to jerk the wheel around a wall of the infected. Dozens of the bastards stood together, snapping their jaws with a fixated stare upward. Then I realized - it was the flag! The enlivened flag caught the attention of the undead as much as it caught mine. The flashes of red, white and blue defiantly flew above their reach like bait on a hook. Arms rose towards the source near the epicenter while the outside violently pushed to get closer. None of them took any notice of Frankenstein’s mail truck careening towards them before we narrowly turned away.
Our path had almost taken us out of the area we were familiar with. What I saw leading to that point was a total divergence from familiarity.
1100 hours:
One factor that we didn’t plan very well was the need for bathroom breaks. Calise’s little voice broke through my focus, “I need to go potty! Daddy, I really need to go potty!”
I leaned back to share a glance of sheer panic with my wife. Calise bounced up and down next to her, ready to burst at the seams. “Alright honey, I’ll find a spot to stop,” I said, attempting to hide the frustration in my voice. “I need you to hold it for a minute while I look for a safe place to pull over. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded her head to agree.
We were fortunate to be in a mostly vacated, wooded stretch of Hull Street. A field off the eastbound lanes was the first break in the trees in a few miles. I sped to a crossing in the median a little ways up then did a quick U-turn. Some kind of farm was parallel to the crossing. This wasn’t the time to scout for an actual bathroom so an open area with a wide area of visibility would do for now.
Stillness permeated the stretch of road; there wasn’t a single car or corpse in sight. I passed the farmhouse to pull over in front of the open field just past in the direction we came from. The farmhouse looked untouched with the exception of its front door, which was ajar; otherwise it had no indications of activity.
“Daaaddddddddyyyyyyyy….” Calise cried. “I really need to go pee pee!”
“Nathan this is good,” Sarah said. “Pull over already.”
I pulled to the side then turned sharply and backed up to the shoulder so the truck was nearly perpendicular to the road. In the event of an emergency I was able to see and drive in both directions. “Come up here through my door, baby girl. We’ll keep the warm air back there.”
She landed on top of me before I finished the sentence. Cold air nipped at our exposed skin. Calise clutched a roll of toilet paper as she grabbed my left hand since the Kukri already occupied my right. We went to the back of the 522, which faced the open field, then I stepped away to check the area while she dealt with more pressing matters.
The silence in the area was maddening. Thus far, the end of days had only given us the persistent droning of attacking ghouls or distant echoes of battles lost. All that could be heard here was the chilling winds and the purr of an idling engine. During the time when the living still ruled I doubt it would have been so quiet. Quiet that should have been refreshing instead made me teeter on the edge of paranoia.
Stretching my legs felt magnificent. As it turned out, I too had to heed to the call of nature. This was a good place for all of us to stretch out; we had no idea when another such break would come.
“You just about done?”
“Almost. It’s pretty here, Daddy.”
Indeed, it was beautiful there, like a painting you’d find in the waiting room
of a dental office. “Very pretty. Stopping was a good idea, baby doll.” She appeared at my side, smiling with relief. “Go back through my door. Tell Mommy and Monkey to come out so they can stretch their legs and use the potty.”
Sarah emerged without Maddox. “He’s keeping Calise company while I take my turn.” She kissed me sweetly. “Cheer up. We made it out. The worst is behind us, right?”
“I don’t have an answer for that.”
“What have you seen while driving?”
Their banner had said ‘CHILDREN ARE HERE’ and I accelerated. They had children there, just as we did, and I responded by speeding up in the opposite direction. Once again I was able to add willful negligence to my laundry list of crimes. Her innocent question made the moment replay in my mind. Post-traumatic flashbacks had become a staple in our conversations; she knew that my mind had drifted to something awful.
Her fingers snapped in front of my blank stare. “Nathan, Stay with me. We couldn’t have changed anything you saw. Our only priority is them.” I shook the memories off enough to nod back at her. Sarah’s voice took on a more despotic tone. “Now please go away.”
“What? Why would I go away? We need to stick together.”
She chuckled. “Silly man…. I don’t care that the dead are walking, I’m still not peeing in front of you.” I rolled my eyes then walked towards the driver’s side door to respect her privacy.
A gust of bitter wind combed over the tree line. Discerning sounds of distant threats through the blowing winds was hard. My imagination fed paranoia with irrational conclusions drawn from any deviation in the quiet setting. The clatter of a discarded can scooting with the breeze became the dragging feet of a hungry ghoul. Howling through the branches transformed into the chorus of an advancing horde. These embellishments of nothingness would drive me insane if we didn’t move soon.
(Book 2)What Remains Page 15