“Hurry up and get those supplies, we have company in here!” said Trevor.
“Working as fast as we can, just a few more minutes.”
Ian stopped by the girl with the strawberry blonde hair as he took off his hockey helmet. He rubbed his face standing there over the corpse. “Oh hell, lad. Bloody, fucking hell.”
“Something wrong?”
“She looks like my sister. Damn the hair, it’s the same. She lives in Toronto, ya know. Got a young one, too, just turned four. Am I gonna she her again, lad?”
“I don’t know,” replied Trevor. “God, I don’t know. Everything is gone now. I don’t know if the survivors of this can find a cure.”
“Yeah, lad. Gettin’ used to this isn’t gonna be easy. So much death, it’s a struggle just to live. Do they have it better than us, those dead?”
Trevor looked down at the female, her ruined, smashed skull. “I suppose they do.”
***
“What else is in this mall?” said Trevor.
“Not much, lad. A couple of clothing stores, food, and a hardware store which may have something I can use.”
“Like what?”
“A good axe.”
“Good thinking.”
The group moved through the shopping mall slowly. Trevor and Jason were at the front with their rifles at the ready. Ian stayed at the back to protect the girls in case any of them should come from behind.
“I’ll be right back,” said Ian as they arrived at the hardware store.
It didn’t take long till they saw them, more dead moving in the mall towards them. “Make it quick, we’ll handle these ‘til you get back.”
“Pick your shots, we can’t waste ammo,” said Trevor.
“Right,” said Jason.
Trevor aimed carefully down the sights of the AR-15 and let two shots go towards the first target. One round tore into the neck of the closest one, and the other round tore through the top of its head. The next rounds slammed into the next one before it could get too close. Jason aimed his rifle at the last one.
“No.” Samantha got her bat ready. “I’ll deal with this one.”
“Stay back let them handle it,” said Lauren. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I want to help. I can handle this,” said Samantha.
“Right to the head,” said Jason.
“Yeah, I know that.”
Samantha moved towards the ghoul. The man looked about fifty, with gray receding hair. He had a large gash in his cheek. Jason moved closer in case she had trouble. Her heart beat fast as it approached with jaws wide, shuffling towards her. She held the bat tightly in her hands and took one large swing at the thing. The bat slammed into its chest, which made it stagger backwards a few steps. She screamed as it tried to lunge for her shoulder, but another hit from the bat drove the thing to its knees. She went behind, then hit it again by the shoulder blades, this time and it crashed to the ground. Before it could get up, she drove the bat hard into its skull, striking it cleanly. You fucking things took my mom and dad, turned them into you. I hate you all, I fucking hate you all! She slammed the bat into it four more times destroying the head in a spray of gore. She breathed heavily as she tore her helmet off and began to cough. She bent over as the contents of her stomach came up. Jason went over to comfort her, but she put her hand up.
Ian came back out of the store with a couple of axes and a hatchet. ”She alright?”
“Yes,” said Trevor. “She knows what it’s like now.”
“Knows what, lad?”
“What it’s like to kill.”
Chapter 13
They left the mall and made their way through the city of Vancouver. Lauren now had a hatchet that Ian had taken from the hardware store. They moved passed the abandoned cars, the smashed storefronts, and the chaos that engulfed the city. In a few short hours, the entire city had fallen apart. In the distance, they could hear sirens blaring, and every once in a while a helicopter would fly overhead. Up the street ahead of them, they could see a group of dead moving around.
“Best to take the side street,” said Trevor.
“We lost the caravan the last time we took a side street,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, but I don’t like the looks of what is ahead of us,” he replied.
“Why not just keep going, we can take them,” Jason said as he checked his ammo. “We can’t keep on going around if we want to get to that bridge.”
“I’m ready for a fight, lad,” said Ian. “We need to get out of this city and the quicker the better.”
“Alright, but stay together. The bridge is about two miles from here.”
They moved at a slow pace towards the group of dead, which turned to face them and began their slow march towards Trevor’s group. At the distance, they were easy prey for the rifles. Trevor brought up his AR-15 and let go two shots which slammed into the first one, ripping away part of its skull. The man in his 40s with the business suit dropped to the pavement in a heap. Jason fired his rifle, and the next one fell as its head blew away from the impact. Ian moved closer with his axe and took off the head of another one, splattering gore across the side of a car and the pavement. Lauren screamed as one of them got close to her, but she managed to swing the hatchet and drive it into the dead’s skull. She withdrew the hatchet and kicked hard, shoving it backwards as it fell to the ground. Ian moved through the dead, swinging his axe left and right, chopping at them. He killed two more with quick rapid axe strokes. He held the axe out with both hands and pushed two back before taking two more swings, decapitating them. He brought the axe down on another, which split its skull in two with a spray of brains. One of the dead opened its jaws, the left side of its head missing, the skin hanging down in bloody strips, the white eyes staring out at Samantha as it staggered towards her. She backed up, but froze in fear unable to swing her bat.
Jason saw it as it lunged for her. “No!” he screamed, as he let go three rounds from his rifle. They slammed into the chest just before the thing clamped its bloody jaws around her shoulder. She was protected with the hockey padding, but any small bite would be fatal, they couldn’t take any chances. Jason ran up to the thing as it staggered backwards from the rifle blows he slammed the rifle but into its head and knocked it over. He brought he rifle down onto the head and caved in the skull. He tuned to Samantha. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I just lost it for a minute. It’s face, God, its face.”
Jason put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ll protect you. No one living or dead will ever hurt you again, I promise. Just be careful, don’t want you to get bit.”
“I’ll be more careful.” Samantha gave him a quick hug. “Thanks.”
Trevor went to look around the corner as he reloaded his rifle with another magazine. “That looks like the last of them, at least for now,” he said to Ian.
“Ya, lad, it does. Can’t say I miss ‘em yet.” He tore the shirt off of one of the dead and used it to clean his axe. “Gah, I’ll never get used to this damn smell.”
“Yeah,” said Trevor. “The smell of death, it’s everywhere now. It’s just waiting for us to make one small mistake. We’ll stop here for a bit to rest while I reload.”
“Sure, lad. I’ll go back a ways to scout. I’ll be back soon.”
“Be careful.”
“Ya, lad.”
“Over here,” said Trevor as he motioned to his son.
“Starting to run low on ammo,” said Jason.
“That’s going to be a problem if we run into larger groups of them. We’ll need to find more weapons soon, but we have to keep moving, can’t be trapped in this city when nightfall comes.”
“I’ll switch to the shotgun. We got plenty of rounds for it.”
“Good idea.”
Lauren came up to Trevor. She held her helmet in her hand. She put it onto the car and leaned back, taking a sip of water from her canteen. She passed it to Trevor. “Here.”
He unbuttoned his
helmet and took a long drink. “Thanks. You did well against them, I’m proud of you.”
“I don’t feel pride killing another human being.”
“Can’t think of it like that, hon, they are dead. Probably don’t even feel it.”
“Maybe they do, Trevor. What if they are screaming to be freed out of the hell they are in? Maybe they feel everything. How can we know?” I wish this would all end, what have we become? The living and the dead. Which is better? I don’t know any more, I just don’t know.
“It’s us or them, I—”
Just then, a woman came out of a flower shop across the street. She held onto her shoulder which seeped blood between her fingers. She was crying and coughing. She looked about twenty six, with long blonde hair, trim figure, and she wore a nice gray business skirt with a white blouse. She held onto the door for a moment before she called over to them. “Please…” she coughed again. “Please help me. I… need a doctor.”
Lauren put her hand over her mouth as the woman staggered toward them. Her face was white, and her eye makeup had run down her pretty face. The tears stained her eyes as she coughed harder. Trevor raised his rifle.
“No,” said Lauren. “It’s okay, we can help you, what’s your name?”
“Suzy,” she said. “Got scared and hid in that shop. Bunch of those things came through here. I got bit. I was hiding…” She coughed harder as sweat poured down her face. She got closer, then extended her hand, “Please…My shoulder hu—”
The crack of the rifle pierced the silence as it tore into her head spilling her brains over the ground near Lauren before Suzy toppled backwards. Her white blouse now stained red as a pool of blood flowed from her ruined skull, her eyes looked up at the sky.
“Why did you do that?” Lauren screamed. “Why Trevor? I’m so damn tired of death, I want to live again. She wanted to live!” I want to be a wife again. I want to go home!
“She was as good as dead,” he said.
‘I’m so tired, so damn tired. I just want to go home. I want it to end. What will become of us?” Lauren wiped the sweat from her brow and the tears that stained her eyes. “She doesn’t get to live anymore, we took her life. We’re monsters just like them, maybe we are worse.”
“We stopped her from becoming one of them. You know she was dead already. You have to accept it, you have to go on living. Dammit, we all have to just go on living!”
“She would have changed, Mom, maybe she would have attacked one of us. Do you want to lose me or Dad?” said Trevor.
“We have already changed,” said Lauren. “We’re all just mindless killers now.”
“Kill or be killed. You know it just as well as I do,” Trevor yelled. “Well, I for one want to go on living, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect that!”
“Well, I’m tired of killing. I just want our life back. I want this to end,” Lauren sobbed. “Fuck all of it!” She hurled her water bottle across the street.
“Lauren—”
She put her hand out. “No, don’t you touch me. Just leave me alone!”
“Hon, we are alive, we have to go on living. It’s all we got.”
“No. You’re so wrong. Those things are more alive than we will ever be now. We are the living dead. Just a shell existing in this madness, waiting for it to all end. Who’s going to be next? Will it be me or Samantha? Maybe it will be Ian or our son, maybe it will be you.”
“We’re going to make it, hon. We’ll start over.”
“Yeah, start over. There won’t be enough of us left to do that. It’s all slipping away.”
“Don’t wallow in your self-pity. I’m gonna make sure we all get out of here. You’re son needs you… I need you.”
“It’s gonna be fine, Mom.”
Samantha came over and hugged her. “I lost my mom and dad, Mrs. Blake. We can survive, we got to. We’ll do it together.”
“Trevor… I... Oh damn it...” The tears flowed from Lauren, and he put his arms around her. He held her there in the ruins of the street. He watched in the distance as Ian fast approached.
Ian was out of breath by the time he reached them. “There a group of them back there, so we better get moving.”
Chapter 14
As they neared the bridge, they came across more and more groups of abandoned cars. Clearly people were moving in the direction of the bridge, but the traffic snarl was forcing the survivors to give up their vehicles. Trevor wanted to get over the bridge before the sun went down as it would be harder to move in the darkness. He estimated that had three hours left, so the group picked up the pace towards the Port Mann Bridge. As they weaved their way through the mass of cars, they heard the clatter of gunfire in the intersection nearest them.
Trevor motioned for the group to get down. “Action up ahead. Stay close together We don’t know what we are dealing with.” He nodded to his son. “Scout ahead. Tell me what you see, but be careful.”
“Right.”
Jason moved through the abandoned cars. Ahead of him, one of the dead staggered closer, but Trevor dropped it with two quick shots from his AR-15. Trevor gripped his rifle as the gunfire increased to a rapid rate of fire. Whoever was up there was using full auto.
Lauren and Samantha crouched by an SUV a bit behind Trevor, while Ian guarded them. “Can you see anything, lad?” he yelled.
“Not from here. I sent Jason up a bit to see what’s going on. There’s a lot of automatic weapons fire up ahead. Watch our back.”
“Aye.”
Trevor waited for a few anxious minutes, and then he saw Jason up ahead. He yelled out to his son. “What did you see, what’s going on up there?”
Jason jogged back to his dad. ‘It’s complete carnage in the intersection. Looks like an Emergency Response team slugged it out with a bunch of the dead and lost. There’s an ERT vehicle, as well as tons of dead all over the place. I didn’t stick around to look for survivors. There are several of them wandering around, too, but we can clear it.”
Trevor called Ian over. “Listen, we are going to the next intersection, but be prepared for a bit of a fight. We can use the supplies that ERT team had, maybe pick up a few decent weapons, too.”
“I’m help ya,” said Ian.
“Hon,” said Trevor. “Stay close to Samantha. This could get ugly, so I don’t want the two of you to take unnecessary risks.”
“Can’t we just go around?” Lauren adjusted her Hockey helmet. “Damn thing doesn’t fit right.”
“Look, we need these weapons, and the ERT teams have vests, too, they might come in handy.”
“Oh, by all means, my fearless leader,” quipped Lauren, as she motioned forward. “Lead on.”
Trevor grabbed her by the arm and took her to the side away from everyone. “Hey, that was uncalled for. You think this is easy? I’m only doing what is right. I don’t know about you, but intend to survive this mess. You could be more supportive, we have to pull through together!”
“Sorry… I just—”
“Don’t want to lose me or Jason, I know. We’ll make it together, I promise.” He put his arm around her. “Stay tight with Samantha, it’s going to be alright.” He went back to Jason, and the two of them checked their rifles. They would need any supplies they could carry as the rounds for the AR-15s were running lower with each encounter.
The group moved forward with Trevor and Jason at the front. Jason brought up the shotgun. Ian stood at the side with his axe ready to go, while Samantha and Lauren brought up the rear. They weaved through the abandoned cars and trucks and reached the main intersection. Bodies were everywhere on the blood-soaked streets. An ERT vehicle sat in the middle of the street with one door open. Trevor could see several ERT team members dead on the ground. One of the dead pulled sinews of flesh off one of the team members and sat there chewing. Jason moved closer and fired the shotgun into the ghoul’s head, which spattered its brains everywhere. As he fired, the group of dead turned towards their position and began to walk in the now fam
iliar slow gait they were all accustomed to.
Trevor popped two with several well-placed shots, and Jason dropped another one that got too close to the group. Ian moved ahead and got close to a woman with dark hair, her dress ripped and torn. She reached out for him with a blood-soaked mouth, but his axe came down and severed her head from her shoulders in one fluid stroke. The corpse toppled over, and Ian swung again. He cut the arm of off another, and then another swing removed the man’s head. On the ground, one of the dead crawled along with half its body missing near Lauren. Its jaws opened for her as it hissed. Stands of saliva poured from the thing’s mouth and pooled on the ground. She winced at the grisly creature before she buried her hatchet in the thing’s skull, ending its misery. Trevor reloaded his AR-15 and shot two more of the dead before they could threaten the group. It was all over in a few minutes, the small group of dead no match for them. Trevor examined the scene in front of them. There must have been fifty to one hundred bodies all over the intersection. They were literally walking all over the corpses. The stench of shit, blood, vomit, brains, and guts was everywhere. It took a supreme effort to not retch then and there.
Trevor went over to his son. “Good work. I want you to check the ERT members and pick up any weapons, ammo, and vests that you can. We can use whatever you can find. I’m gonna go check the truck, see what’s inside.”
“Okay.”
Trevor went over to the truck, but heard a low moan from the other side. He pulled his Glock from the holster and went around to the other side of the truck. Several dead lay against the side in a heap. The moan came from underneath them. He moved the bodies out of the way and found an ERT member underneath the pile, his pistol still in his hand. The man coughed heavily, his legs covered in bite marks, a huge gash was present on his right thigh. He was changing into one of them before Trevor’s eyes.
The man coughed again. “Came… at us in waves…” He rested his head against the back of the vehicle. “Lost… the whole team…”
Age of Decay (Book 1): Contagion Page 7