by Dirk Patton
Anyway, I’d been about a second away from breaking out one of the windows to gain access when a thought had occurred to me. If the vehicle had been valet parked, that meant there’d be a key somewhere. So, we’d set off in search of where that might be, also taking the opportunity to double check all the entrances.
On the upper level was a tiny room that had apparently been where the valets waited. It was a matter of seconds for me to break the cheap lock and gain access, then another minute to pry open a wall-mounted lock box. There were about twenty sets of keys hanging from small hooks and only one of them was for a Range Rover.
So, we’d climbed into the big, luxury SUV, immediately trashing the carpeting and upholstery. I hadn’t been able to suppress a grin when Mavis had scraped mud off her shoes onto the immaculate door panels on the passenger side.
We’d talked for a while as the wind howled, then she’d drifted off to sleep. Turning on the radio, I’d lowered the volume until it was barely audible before pressing the button for search. Nothing was broadcasting on the FM band, the numbers winding all the way to the top of the dial before starting over. Switching to AM, the results were the same. The only difference were the frequent bursts of static from lightning.
I was trying to maintain a positive outlook, but it was getting hard. This was a repeat of what I’d experienced in Atlanta. Sure, just like then there were probably plenty of people outside the metropolitan areas that had survived, but getting out of the city was an ominous task. In Georgia, I’d had the advantage of being in the far northern suburbs. In all honesty, that’s probably the only reason Rachel and I had successfully escaped.
This was a completely different situation. I was smack in the middle of a sprawling city that had fallen apart around my ears. Power was out. Communications were out. Roads would likely be impassible, if not from the results of the gas release, then from the damage caused by the storm that was still raging.
With a grimace of determination, I mentally kicked myself in the ass. Giving up, as long as there was a breath in my body, wasn’t an option. Glancing to the passenger seat, I reminded myself that Mavis was depending on me. There was no doubt she was a survivor, she’d apparently managed to take care of herself while living on the streets, but this was nothing like anything she’d ever faced. She was curled into a ball as she slept, probably cold from her wet clothes. I wished for a blanket to spread over her.
Then there was Rachel. Where was she and what was happening to her? I was slightly comforted by the knowledge that Lucas was attempting to find and help her, but that didn’t do anything to help my worry. Sitting there, staring through the windshield and listening to Mavis’s soft breathing, I made a decision.
Wherever Rachel was, I was going to get her back. When I did, it was time to build that house on Lucas’s property. Settle down. Plant some crops and live a quiet, simple life. That sounded pretty damn appealing.
But what if we discovered that we really didn’t belong together? We’d never had a single moment since we met to just be ourselves. Life had been one long, running battle for survival. Okay, maybe we’d had a few days in Hawaii to play house, but…
I dismissed those thoughts out of hand, mostly because they were bullshit. What we’d been through, together, was the kind of thing that brings out the best and the worst in people. Exposes who they really are, not who they want the world to think they are. And I hadn’t seen a single thing in Rachel that I didn’t like. Apparently, since she was still with me, she hadn’t seen anything in me to frighten her off.
Now, I simply had to find her and get us to a place where life wasn’t a daily struggle. Not that I thought for one second that a primitive life while the world died around us wouldn’t be difficult. I knew it would. But difficult is a walk in the park compared to what we’d already survived together.
Sitting there, lost in thought, I’d been unprepared for the sudden appearance of the female. We were on the second level and she had stalked into view, coming down the ramp. She moved like a coiled spring, obviously hunting. Her head was up, on a constant swivel as she tested the air. Maybe there was a residual scent from Mavis and me walking around, but I was fairly confident she wouldn’t notice us as long as we didn’t give away our presence.
But where the fuck had she come from? I’d used the keys from the valet office to start several cars and block all the stairwell doors that opened into the car park. There’s no way, no matter how strong the infected are that they can press against a steel door with enough force to push a several ton vehicle out of the way. So, what had I missed and how had the bitch gotten in?
She moved slowly down the row, peering between parked cars and pausing to scent the air every few yards. My heart rate shot up when she stopped in front of the Range Rover and looked directly at the windshield. It was dark. Would she be able to see me, or was I hidden as well as I thought?
After what seemed an eternity, she moved on. Tracking her with my eye, I kept my head perfectly still. She might be infected and physically enhanced, but she still had human eyes. That meant she was much more likely to detect even the tiniest of movements despite overlooking a static object.
As she kept going, I caught a glimpse of motion from the ramp in my peripheral vision. Cutting my eye in that direction, I groaned internally to see two more females approaching. The first one had been a grown woman, probably in her early thirties, but these two were teenagers. Smaller and not quite as strong, but probably even faster than their older sister. Fuck me.
Mavis chose that moment to mumble in her sleep. I wanted to reach out, place my hand over her mouth and wake her, but wasn’t willing to risk the movement. We were secure inside the vehicle, but the last thing we needed was for tens or hundreds of infected to swarm into the car park and surround us. Mavis mumbled again, shifting her leg but fortunately didn’t kick anything and make a noise.
Deciding I had to take the risk, I cautiously reached across and gently placed my hand over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, but before she could begin struggling, I spoke in a low voice.
“Mavis. Stay still and quiet. There are infected outside.”
She immediately froze, then slowly turned her head toward me. Her eyes were the size of saucers, but she was keeping it together. After a moment, she nodded and I removed my hand. Moving with exaggerated care, she turned in the seat, reaching out and grasping the door handle to help control her motion.
My head snapped to the side when the Range Rover’s locks popped open with a loud thunk and the passenger side window buzzed as it lowered. Mavis looked at me with her mouth open in fright as all three females zeroed in on us and charged with screams. Frantically, I fumbled with the controls on my side, reversing the window and relocking the doors, but before the window was closed I clearly heard multiple answering screams.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Mavis cried, looking around in a panic as the closest female slammed into the SUV.
“Not your fault,” I said, grimacing as the vehicle rocked when the next two arrived.
I wasn’t just being nice to her, I was telling the truth. I’d made the error of leaving the ignition on after checking the radio, which supplied power to the window. There was no point in quibbling over the locks. Shit happens.
But a lot of shit was about to start happening. The three females pounded on the windows and body panels, screaming their heads off. Within seconds, I saw more coming down the ramp at a full sprint, responding to their cries.
“What do we do?” Mavis wailed.
I looked around at the females already pressed against the Range Rover, not happy to see their numbers quickly growing.
“Those gates. How sturdy are they?” I asked.
A female threw herself onto the hood and pressed her face to the windshield, her feral snarls and screams clearly audible through the heavy glass.
“I don’t know,” Mavis said, shrinking as far into her seat as she could.
The volume of infected was growing expone
ntially. We were already surrounded with a single layer of bodies and that number would triple within the next ten seconds. Saying a mental ‘fuck it’, I pressed the ignition button and the engine rumbled to life.
“Seat belt!” I said as I shifted into drive and hit the gas.
The Range Rover lurched forward, battering females aside and bouncing slightly as we rolled over at least one of them. Steering for the ramp, I blasted through the group that was just arriving with bone crunching thuds. Bodies spun away from the impact to slam against parked cars and concrete walls, but it seemed as if all were back on their feet in an instant.
Skidding on the wet surface, we hit the ramp and rocketed up, plowing through another group. The female that had leapt onto the hood was hanging on for dear life, but she wasn’t a concern. Gaining enough speed to crash through the metal gates, was. I had no idea how stout they were, or how well the luxury SUV would handle being used for a battering ram, but at the moment I didn’t care.
What I did know was the damn thing had to weigh at least three tons, so even if it wasn’t built for what I intended to do, it would still get us through the gate. Six thousand pounds is a hell of a lot of mass and there was no way the rolling shutters that controlled access to the car park could stand up to the blow. As long as I had enough speed.
Mavis squealed in fright as we hit the top of the ramp and the front tires went airborne. The gate was to our right, at the end of a long row of cars, and I fought the wheel as the Range Rover tried to spin out from the sudden turn at speed.
Accelerating hard, I had an instant to notice the door Mavis and I had used the previous night. It was standing open, allowing a solid stream of infected to pour in. How the hell had that happened? It had been locked and it swung out. There was no way they could have opened it!
“Look!” Mavis shouted, pointing straight ahead.
I’d already seen it. The gate was going up, being retracted into the ceiling. Of course! The power may have been out, but you can’t trap people in a garage simply because of no electricity. There was a bank of batteries somewhere that would allow the motor to continue to operate a limited number of times and our approach had tripped the sensor that activated the system.
But with the good news came bad. On the other side of the barrier was a large group of infected, male and female both, and they were starting to pour through the opening.
“Hold on,” I said, gripping the wheel tighter and setting my teeth in anticipation of the impact.
Bodies flew as we plowed into the leading edge of the mass of infected. Glass could be heard breaking as the unprotected grill took the brunt of the abuse. Sheet metal boomed hollowly and the front edge of the hood deformed from smashing bodies aside. I pressed harder on the accelerator. If we got stopped here, we were dead.
The bottom edge of the gate was coming fast and every instinct screamed at me to slow down so it didn’t take the top off the Range Rover. Maybe, when I was first learning to fight the infected I would have done just that, but I now knew that momentum was critical. Without it, they can surround a vehicle and bog you down with the sheer weight of their numbers. The only thing to do is not allow them time to collapse in and smother you.
A squeal started from Mavis as we swiftly drew closer to the slowly trundling gate. The pitch of her cry rose in sync with our progress toward the opening, then there was a brutal impact and the entire SUV shuddered violently.
27
The collision with the bottom of the door killed some of the Range Rover’s momentum, but I kept the throttle wide open. There was a horrible screech of tearing metal and I ducked my head away as a jagged rent was torn in the roof. Rain began coming in through the hole, but that was the least of my concerns as we blasted into what I could now see was a very large group of infected. About the only good news was that the lower rail of the gate had struck just above the windshield, leaving the glass intact.
The crush of bodies began to slow the heavy vehicle, causing the tires to spin occasionally on the wet asphalt. Fumbling across the controls, I pushed the button that engaged four-wheel drive. The results were immediate as all four tires now clawed for traction and bulled us through the mass of bodies.
But we had riders. Two females on the hood and an unknown number on the roof. It didn’t take them long to discover the hole directly over my head, one shoving her arm through in an attempt to slash my throat. I leaned to the side, taking a hand off the wheel and grabbing her wrist, twisting it to the side.
The tear in the roof was a couple of feet long and a few inches wide. Just large enough for the infected to slip her arm through. But the edges were jagged steel and as I levered the female’s arm to the side, her flesh was sliced open. Hot blood pulsed onto my head and face when an artery was severed, running into my good eye and blinding me. The bitch was still trying to attack, despite the mortal wound, and I couldn’t release her to wipe my face.
“Mavis, I can’t see!” I shouted, doing my best to keep the wheel under control.
She didn’t answer and I was thinking she was too terrified to move when a rag suddenly wiped the worst of the blood away. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the blurriness then said a few choice words when I realized we were heading directly for a massive concrete planter. Jerking the wheel, I managed to avoid it. Mostly.
The passenger side scraped from front to rear, crushing a couple of infected and peeling off the rest that were clinging to that side. With a hard bounce, we blasted through the rear of the group, over a curb and into a street full of running water. Skidding when I steered hard right, we shed all the remaining infected other than the one with her arm stuck through the roof. Amazingly, she was still struggling, despite the huge volume of blood that now covered my entire body and a large portion of the Range Rover’s interior.
“Look!” Mavis called.
I was busy checking the mirrors and trying to avoid abandoned vehicles and storm debris, but I tore my attention away long enough to glance in the direction she was pointing. A large group of infected were clustered around the base of a tall palm tree that swayed dizzyingly in the wind. Halfway up the thick trunk, a man clung for dear life, watching us drive past. How he was maintaining his grip in the storm was beyond me, but then fear induced adrenaline can provide a lot of strength. For a little while.
Several of the females at the tree noticed us, breaking away and charging. I sped up, then had to back off the gas when solid sheets of water were thrown up by the tires and completely obscured the view through the windshield. But it wasn’t a problem. The ankle-deep water slowed the infected and I was able to pull away from them.
“Think he’s the one that opened the door and let them in?” Mavis asked, turning in her seat to keep watching.
“Maybe.”
My instinct was to help the guy, but I didn’t have any idea how we could. At least a hundred infected surrounded the tree and that many more were pursuing us. If I slowed even a little, they’d catch up and we’d be the ones needing rescuing.
“Oooooh, crap,” Mavis breathed a moment later. “He just fell.”
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything I could say. When all of this first started, I had felt guilty about being unable to help all the people I came across who were in trouble. But if there’s one thing the apocalypse has taught me, it’s that you can’t save everyone, no matter how much you may want to.
“He fell,” Mavis repeated, turning to look at me with her big eyes.
“Nothing we could do,” I said, echoing my thoughts.
She thought about that for a minute, turning and looking out of the rear window. Facing front again, she was quiet for a moment, then looked up at the ceiling.
“I think she’s dead,” she said.
I still had a death grip on the infected female’s wrist and hadn’t realized that she’d stopped struggling. Her blood was no longer pouring down on me. Grunting, I shoved on the arm, trying to push it back through the hole, but the jagged edges we
re firmly embedded in its flesh. I’d have to wait until we stopped to get rid of our passenger.
Releasing my grasp, the limp arm swung like a pendulum from the motion of the Range Rover, blood slowly dripping off the fingertips. It was annoying, but a very minor concern at the moment. The priority was to either find a secure location to wait for the infected to die off, or find our way out of the city. I didn’t have a lot of faith in the latter option.
Turning into a side street, I breathed a quiet sigh of relief when we weren’t greeted by another group of infected. The pavement rose slightly and it was also a relief to no longer be fording hub deep water. Not that the Range Rover wasn’t capable of handling it, but every second we spent on a road that had turned into a raging river increased the odds of encountering something I couldn’t see beneath the water’s surface that would damage or disable the vehicle.
“Where are we going?” Mavis asked.
Despite the obvious fact that the female on the roof was dead, she was keeping a close eye on the dangling arm. Can’t say that I blamed her. It was a little creepy, and if she had half the imagination I do, she was very likely expecting it to suddenly come back to life and attack.
“See that tall building?” I pointed out my window at Barinov’s residence. “That’s where I was when I saw you being chased by the infected. I left in a hurry and didn’t close the door, but I’m hoping it will be clear and we can get inside. It’s safe and we could stay there until they all die.”
“They’re going to die?” she asked in surprise. “How? Aren’t they still alive in America?”
“This is different,” I explained, slowing to turn on the road that ran past Barinov’s building. “This is just nerve gas. No virus. These people aren’t really infected, I just don’t know what else to call them. Anyway, without the virus to make them stronger, they’ll only live a couple of days.”
“Then they’ll be gone?” she asked excitedly.
I nodded.
“They’ll be dead.”