A Broken World: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by Andrew Lauck

  “What’s going on?” Kat asked sleepily from the back seat.

  “I’m going to see what we can get out of this gas station while we’re here. Want to come in or stay out here?” I slid the magazine back into the Sig and holstered it, knowing my rifle would be useless in the close-quarters interior of the station. Kat woke up quickly, rubbing her eyes and grabbing the rifle.

  “I’m in!” she exclaimed, pushing her door open and stepping out. I followed suit, unsure of what to expect inside. Something felt off about this area, but out here I don’t think that feeling ever stopped. Besides, supplies were important, and survival meant you might have to put yourself in some bad situations to get some vital resources.

  My boots crunched on the dirt and gravel, and I kept my hand resting on the grip of the Sig as I approached the barred door, looking to the sides with my peripherals for any signs of danger. The familiar crunching turned to the solid thuds of concrete before I was at the first pane of glass. Cupping one hand over my eyes, I peered inside. Aisles were toppled over and goods were strewn about, but there were no signs of zombies or survivors. However, the bar on the doors did prevent our entrance, so we had to go in through the restaurant side.

  “What the hell happened here?” I wondered aloud as we stepped into the restaurant. While the gas station was relatively clean, the restaurant had bloody smears across the floor. Tables were flipped over or herded into corners of the room and chairs broken; windows were broken or shattered completely. In the corner of the room, I saw a shoe protruding from behind the counter and instantly had the Sig in my hand, aiming ahead as I cautiously moved along the back wall of the room. My line of sight cleared the counter, and I saw the foot was connected to a pale leg cut off at the knee. The severed leg lay in a puddle of blood, veins draped over the torn skin, and the bone cracked. No zombie could have done that.

  Stepping closer to examine the leg, I saw the reason for the broken bone. A bite mark was apparent on the calf, and I could only assume the person thought separating themselves from the bitten part would prevent turning. Keeping in mind that there was at least one body lying around somewhere from blood loss, I noticed a trail of blood leading into the gas station side and turning off out of sight. Above the connecting doors, the sign read that the bathrooms were that way.

  As if bathrooms weren’t already creepy enough.

  “Kat, stay here, and see what you can find. I’m going to check out the other side.” She hoisted the rifle higher onto her shoulder and nodded, so I pushed through into the gas station. There were signs of the door being bashed in, and my suspicions were confirmed when I saw a bent steel bar like the one on the front door lying on the ground a few feet inside. Had the zombies broken in?

  I followed the blood trail to the bathrooms and saw them end outside the female restroom. Mentally preparing myself for whatever was beyond that door, I pushed it open and swung around the corner with my Sig at the ready. My eyes immediately shot to a body collapsed in the corner, as I had expected, but the head was smashed in. Half of the porcelain on the sink was broken off, and gore drenched the surrounding walls. I was becoming confused, which bothered me. She couldn’t have beaten her own head in to that level of deformity which meant either someone did it to her and was still hiding in the gas station somewhere, or the body on the ground was not hers.

  I left the bathroom and made my way through the few rows that weren’t pushed over, checking the expiration date on some salted peanuts before moving to the counter for a bag to put things in. As I leaned over the counter to reach for a bag, I happened to glance up in the concave mirror above me. The writing on the windows seemed clearer, and I took a second to look. “Dead inside” was scrolled across the glass from the inside, and the realization hit me hard just as I heard the low moaning behind me.

  Turning quickly to meet her, I came around with my finger on the trigger only to find a door swinging toward the back by the bathrooms. Acknowledging that I had forgotten to check the freezer, I moved while keeping my back to the wall. A key aspect of survival was situational awareness, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to give that up because of panic. When I could see the door clearly, I caught something at the bottom of my vision and looked down to see a saddening sight. A female zombie was crawling forward with her fingers, the nails broken or torn off, using her single leg to propel herself awkwardly across the floor. Her skin was decomposing and frozen, a layer of frost along what bare flesh remained. The moans emanating from her throat sounded more like a pleading cry, and I felt my heart drop.

  Stepping forward, I leveled my Sig between her eyes and fired. She stopped crawling, and her body slumped to the ground. I grabbed a small curtain from the windows and draped it over her body, mentally piecing together the events that took place. The woman had broken her leg, gotten to the bathroom to stitch the wound before she bled to death, smashed a zombie’s head in, and taken the time to warn anyone passing by to steer clear before she died. The least she deserved was a little respect.

  “Ma’am, I didn’t know you in life, but I wish I had. You were one hell of a woman.” I wasn’t going to win any awards for eulogies, but hopefully it would do. It was more than I was able to do for my ex-wife, which I regretted thinking in a wave of guilt. I slowly stood, wavering slightly, and finished filling two bags and walked into the restaurant carrying two gasoline containers with a siphon for future use. Kat could see from the look in my eyes that I wasn’t ready to talk yet, so she took a container and went outside to commence filling it.

  There wasn’t much gasoline remaining in the tanks, but it would help the progress of our trip. As we drove away in silence, and the gas station faded in the rearview mirror, I couldn’t help but wonder if I would eventually end up like that woman.

  Chapter 28

  1800 Hours

  We stopped off on the side of the road to walk out the cramps accumulated from three hours of continuous driving. It had definitely been a while since my last road trip, and my body wasn’t used to the cramped conditions of a vehicle. Still, I was thankful to have the damn thing. Usually, three hours of driving would have crossed into the next state, but with cars blocking most of the highways I had to make slow progress with access roads while trying to avoid random hordes of zombies we came across.

  I had walked a few yards from the car and bent over to stretch my legs when I caught the scent. My eyes followed it to the left, and I saw the hind end of a dog jutting out from beyond a rock. As I watched, the body seemed to twitch which caused me to jump and draw my handgun. I glanced around and saw that Katherine was a safe distance from me, so I sidestepped around the rock to observe.

  A dog had collapsed, and a vulture had swooped down to feast on the corpse. The dog’s body was tattered and a trail of fur led away from the site, apparently having peeled off. It seemed like it had been infected before dying, and I felt a moment of pity for the poor animal.

  The vulture pecked at the soft tissue around the eyes, which had caused the body’s apparent twitching. In silence, I saw the vulture’s body seem to shrivel and fold into itself. Its eyes bulged in the sockets as it jerked on the ground gasping for air. The effects spread rapidly, and I watched in horror as the vulture’s body flattened. It was like the virus worked overtime on animals, instantaneously killing them from the inside.

  I heard footsteps behind me and turned to find Kat, so I grabbed her shoulders and stepped in front of her.

  “There’s nothing here worth seeing, Kat. Are you ready to move on?” I may not be able to protect her from everything, but I would do anything I could to preserve her mind from the horrible things I had seen for as long as possible.

  After a moment’s hesitation, probably from curiosity, she reluctantly said, “Sure.” We walked back to the car together and were getting in when I stopped, thinking I heard something. I was about to shrug it off as yet another paranoid reaction when I heard it again, so I closed the door and pointed to Kat to stay in the car as I drew my Sig wit
h the other hand. Stepping around the front of the car, I waited in silence, and strained my ears.

  The wind carried the first moan before I saw them walking over the hill twenty yards from my position. It was a large group, probably fifteen or twenty, and I resisted the urge to draw my weapon and start firing. Instead I ran back to the car and got in, twisting the key in the ignition and waiting for the engine to roar to life. Unlike the movies where the POS car is left off for ten minutes and suddenly fails to start on the first try, Bill’s car started up without a problem. Kat was telling me how close the zombies were getting as I switched gears, her voice getting louder and her tone more urgent as they closed in.

  I stepped on the gas pedal, and we tore back onto the road, hitting fifty miles per hour before I risked a glance into the rearview mirror. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I tried to calm down as I wondered where that group had come from. Was there a town or city nearby? Any hope at the thought died immediately as I realized that even if there was one, the people in it were long dead or infected.

  Whether it was my eyes locked onto the mass of zombies behind us or my mind being somewhere else, I didn’t even hear Kat’s scream before I felt the car jerk and saw a body splash across the windshield.

  “Shit!” I yelled, struggling to maintain control of the wheel as I tapped the brakes. A hand slapped on my window, and I jumped back before a rain of glass pelted my face and the zombie reached inside. The thing was able to grab onto my left arm, but I drew the Sig with my right and instinctively flicked off the safety with my index finger. I was left-hand dominant, but when I shoved the barrel in its mouth it became impossible to miss. I fired, and the bullet ricocheted inside the thing’s skull, causing it to let go of my arm and slide down the car door. My foot hit the gas again and the back tire thumped over the zombie’s head just as I heard the moans of the group closing in again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked with a dry throat, keeping my eyes glued to the road. When she didn’t respond, I looked over at her. Her jaw was clenched and her knuckles were white from grabbing her legs so hard. “Kat, are you okay?” I said more loudly, and this time got a reaction.

  “Y-yeah, I’m good,” she stuttered out. “Where the hell did they come from?” She swallowed hard and regained her composure.

  “I don’t know; maybe they’re the ones from the gas station?” I hoped they weren’t from wherever we were heading. Kat nodded in agreement, but she was probably thinking the same thing. I had begun to notice more farmland as we drove, so I decided we could try to find a farmhouse to stay the night. Turning off onto an appealing side road, I followed the long trail until we cleared a line of dying trees and spotted a dark, two-story house off to the left.

  Oh, let the clichés begin…

  Chapter 29

  I put the car in park and leaned over the steering wheel to look the area over. The exterior of the house definitely showed signs of wear with vines climbing along the foundation and the wood paneling absent of paint. Wooden covers for the windows had been blown open and some hung by a single screw in the hinges while others had completely torn off of the house. The main question I had was why was this location abandoned?

  Pushing my car door open, I brought the rifle out with me and swept the tree line as I slowly walked sideways toward the front porch. Watching my footing, I crept up the steps and looked in through the window to the right of the door. It was pitch-black inside, but something was giving me a bad feeling, so I jogged back to the car and pulled the flashlight out of my pack.

  “Kat, stay in the car. If anything happens to me, get the hell out of here.” She was going to protest, but I stopped her with a look. Katherine reluctantly nodded, and I closed the door, waiting for her to lock it before I went back to the front door.

  The roof of the porch had numerous holes in it, and a few planks of wood hung down, but the door looked relatively nice. I tried the doorknob and was kind of surprised to find it unlocked. Assuming the inhabitants had been at home, what happened that they didn’t have time to lock the door? Even in my rush to leave Chicago, I locked my door in the instance that I came back. Of course, a lock wouldn’t stop any looters, but if there was anyone left alive there, then more power to them.

  Slinging the rifle over my shoulder and lightly pressing the door open, I brought up the Sig and panned the flashlight across the interior. While I realize the electricity may have still worked, I didn’t want to alert anyone or anything of my presence until I had to. My boot stepped inside, and the floor creaked under my weight, causing me to wince as I heard the noise carry. Any hope of stealth immediately fled the scenario, and I stopped to listen.

  When I wasn’t attacked after an unbearably tense minute, I dared to move inside the house. My footfalls echoed through the house as I walked across the weakened floorboards into what I assumed was the living room. The television screen buzzed with static, and I saw a bowl of cereal on the table in front of it, the food so dry I was unable to tell the contents. I walked over and turned off the TV before continuing my tour of the house. The bottom floor was clear with the kitchen in pretty good condition and the dining room still having a few good chairs around the table, so I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

  I had a big problem with stairs, especially in older houses, because the wood could collapse, and I’d be skewered on a broken piece below with no hope of a doctor out here. Once again, I faced my dilemma of not knowing someone with medical knowledge and the few things I could do with a basic med-kit. Still, I forced myself up the stairs and hooked a left at the top.

  The first two rooms were clear, as well as the bathroom, so I entered the final room and studied the inside. A bed was in the corner of the room, the sheets smoothed nicely as if by a mother, toys were neatly arranged in the closet, and I caught that the wallpaper was some sort of children’s show character. I left the room quickly, closing the door behind me as if sealing the door on my past. Even after everything that had happened, the sadness of losing my family still haunted me.

  I went down and waved Katherine inside and turned to look at the house. From the outside, it looked like I had missed a room…like an attic. Kat followed me in, and I went straight to the upstairs area, searching for whatever entrance I missed. Opening every door as I went, I checked through the first bedroom, the cupboard in the hallway, the bathroom. It wasn’t until I re-entered the second bedroom and swung open the closet that I noticed the small entrance close to the floor. Bringing out my Sig, I pried my fingers between the door and the wall and wedged it open.

  You know, there’s a theme that always seemed to be repeated in Hollywood and that was that attics and basements are never good to investigate…Yet, there I was about to break the cardinal rule.

  Chapter 30

  Shining the flashlight at the opening, I saw a makeshift barricade of plastic and cardboard boxes formed at the entrance. Unfortunately, something had broken through the center because the storage containers spilled out from that point, and I stepped inside. I cupped the light to my chest and listened a moment, but hearing nothing, brought the light back up and shined it around the room searching for any signs of zombie inhabitants.

  It was disturbing to see a room so neat after being around so much destruction, but past the initial mess at the entrance of the attic the room looked like Martha Stewart had taken shelter here. I kept my senses perked up for anything that didn’t belong, but for the most part I could see over the organized stacks of boxes. At the far end of the expansive room, though, I noticed a secondary mess, so I came around that side cautiously. Boxes were pushed in and papers were scattered across the floor, with a reddish tint to some of the pages. Stooping to examine them closer, I saw that the blood had soaked through a lot of the paper as if someone’s head had been caved in here. Sure enough, pressing further back into the cardboard fort, I found a zombie with its brains emptied onto the wooden floorboards of the attic.

  On the wall, four long scratch marks led down in a stre
ak of blood to the floor, and I wondered where the family that owned this house was. The zombie had no ring on its finger, and it wasn’t the child in the faded pictures I had seen throughout the house, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on the thought when I heard Katherine step into the attic.

  “Eric? Are you in here?” she called from the entrance, and I heard the distinct click of a rifle’s safety move from safe to kill.

  “Yeah, I’m back here. Just stay there, though. There’s nothing to see back here,” I lied, tracing my steps back to her. “Did you find anything downstairs?”

  “Not really. It looks like the family left in a hurry, though, because everything was still where it should be. There were even bottles of water and cans of food stacked in the kitchen.”

  I knew I had been out in the land of the undead too long when that fact clicked in my mind like the safety on Kat’s rifle. Even in a hurry, you would think the family would have taken some supplies with them. Still, I couldn’t be sure, so I reserved my accusations until I had something more concrete.

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I think we should eat and then hit the sack. It’s been a long day.” I motioned for her to go through first and closed the door behind us, following her to the kitchen. We popped the tops on a few cans and had beef stew and corn for dinner. I asked if she wanted anything to drink as if we were at a restaurant and she answered with a sarcastic, “Martini, shaken not stirred,” as I walked to the refrigerator.

  I bent down and grabbed two bottles of water out of the stack Kat had mentioned earlier and spotted something in my peripheral vision. A note had been knocked from the counter, and I assumed it was from the family that lived here, but I didn’t want to bring attention to it so I took the water to the table and made a mental note to read it later.