by Frank Tayell
“Tom?”
“Hmm.”
“It’s been two hours. What do we do?”
He blinked. He must have drifted off to sleep. He breathed out. As he straightened he realized how stiff his muscles were. It was the cold, his age, the lack of sleep and proper food. Almost immediately, he rebuked himself for the thought. Sinking into self-pitying despair wasn’t going to change the situation. He went to check the windows. There were ten zombies at the back. There was another dull splash as one fell into the pit. But there were ten out front, and weird shadows in the trees near the track suggesting that there were more, currently unseen. How many were there between here and the road? And if they followed it toward wherever these zombies had come from, wouldn’t that mean they had to go through the tail of this column of creatures? And what would they find if they reached the golf club or resort or whatever it was? Cars? Perhaps, but the keys wouldn’t be in the ignition. By then, they would have used up their ammunition. Helena would have to hold off the undead with that crowbar and her hatchet until he’d hot-wired a car, assuming that he could. What if the fuel tank was empty? What if he was completely wrong, that there were no cars, or no resort? They’d be on foot, and this time they’d have to follow the road, and hope that safety somehow found them. Hope. Maybe Helena was right. But what did that leave?
“Tom?” Helena prompted.
“Just a minute.” He’d already come to the conclusion, but he wanted to play it out, so that in the days to come, he wouldn’t second-guess his actions. There wasn’t a choice. When he’d thought of doing it before, he’d felt like he’d been in control. He could have watched the helicopter arrive from a distance, waited to see who got out before revealing himself. Now? He was gambling on the identity of whoever turned up. The alternative was a hard-scrabble race from one refuge to the next, scavenging food, and hoping that dawn would follow night. Hope. Well, if that’s what it came down to, then he’d place his hope in Max agreeing to speak to him.
“Damn. I’m going to call Nate. I’ll tell him that he should give the phone to anyone who can pass it to the president. Even so, there’s a good chance Powell will be the one to arrive. If he does, your best chance is to run for the woods.”
“But we won’t know who’s coming until the helicopter arrives?”
“No.” Assuming that they didn’t simply blow the house up from a distance.
“So there won’t be time to run. Well, there’s no point surviving if there isn’t a world left to live in,” she said. “Call him.”
“Okay.” He moved closer to the window. He dialed the number.
“Prof?”
“Nate, I—”
“I can’t talk. I’ll call you back.”
The line went dead.
“After all that build-up,” Helena said. “Now we have to wait for him to call.”
Tom shook his head. “He doesn’t have the number. We’ll try again later.”
He did. Sometimes the phone rang. Sometimes it didn’t. Clouds gathered. He worried that a storm might disrupt the signal, but then they dispersed, and Nate still didn’t answer. It was beyond frustrating, but there was nothing to do but wait, listening to thebanging clatter of the zombies traipsing through the building site outside and, with frustrating irregularity, collapsing into the pit.
One o’clock. Two.
“We should have left this morning. First thing,” Helena said. Tom agreed. With less than four hours of daylight left, they might make twelve miles before darkness fell. If they were to wait until morning, they’d be able to travel twice that far. Maybe. Did it matter? Twenty miles or ten, they’d be venturing into the unknown.
He picked up the sat-phone. “One last time,” he said.
“Prof!” Nate said answering almost immediately. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Listen. I need to speak to Max. I’m in a cabin, somewhere in Pennsylvania, there’re zombies outside. We’re trapped. I’ve information the president needs to—”
“You need to speak to him. You said. I know. Wait. Hang on.” There was a moment of silence. “Okay. I know where he is.”
Helena leaned in close so she could hear, but all that was coming through the speaker were muffled sounds and indistinct voices.
“I need to speak to the president,” they heard Nate say.
“Who doesn’t?” a tired man replied. “Go back to—”
“Mr President! Mr President!” they heard Nate call “It’s important. It’s about Tom Clemens! Hey, no, stop.”
“You got to back up,” the man said, his voice no longer tired but angry, aggressive. “Step away! Now!”
“Wait,” another voice said, a familiar one that Tom hadn’t heard in a month. “Did you say Clemens?” he heard Max say.
“Yes, sir. Here. He’s on the phone,” Nate said. “He needs to speak to—”
The line went dead.
“What happened?” Helena asked.
Tom looked at the handset. It had run out of power. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“They could trace the call,” Helena suggested.
“Nope. Can’t.” Tom said. “Can’t trace it.”
There was a splash from outside as another zombie fell in the pit. And then another sound, of something small hitting glass. It came again. Rain. The skies opened as the storm finally arrived.
It was tumultuous, filling the landscape with thunder and lightning. The house shook, and they could no longer hear the undead outside. Throughout it all, they stayed huddled on the landing, shivering against the cold, both lost in their own misery.
The storm ended as abruptly as it had begun, and in time for the last light of day to shine through the windows. The zombies were still there.
Chapter 21 - Escape
February 26th, Pennsylvania
During the night, the noise from outside had ceased. He’d thought the zombies had gone. When it was light enough to distinguish the windows from the frame, he nudged Helena awake, quietly stood, and made his way to the bedroom window. He’d been wrong. They were still out there, but were no longer moving. Three stood, half bent over, almost as if the weight of their arms was dragging them down. The rest - twelve at the back, fifteen at the front - were squatting on their haunches, almost completely motionless.
“Are they dead?” Helena asked.
It was a beguiling thought, but he shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“I’m getting out of here,” she said.
“Me too. We don’t shoot our way out.”
“We don’t?”
“We’ll save our ammunition. We walk out of here. You’ve got that hatchet? Right. I’ve got the crowbar. It’ll take them a few seconds to stand. We walk straight past them.”
“You walk, I’ll run.”
“The ground is more mud than earth. We run, we slip. We fall, we die. Walk. Swing. Save the bullets for when we need them. We follow the track to the road, and then go left or right depending on whichever direction has less of them.”
He walked back to the landing, looked through their dwindling supplies, and split them equally between the two bags. “Just in case,” he said.
She nodded, understanding. They went downstairs.
“Ready?”
She opened the door. A zombie squatted in the doorway, its knuckles flat against the wooden porch. Its head turned upward. Rain had washed streaks through the mud and blood covering its face. Sightless eyes bulged from dirt-encrusted sockets. Half its lower lip had been torn off. The remainder flapped loosely as it opened its mouth and slowly stood up. A grunting breath slipped from that dark maw, the smell as dark and earthy as that of the forest surrounding them.
“Tom!”
He kicked out, slamming his boot into that hideous face. The zombie flew back, tumbling off the porch and into the muddy drive beyond. Holding the crowbar across his body, Tom stepped into the doorway. He sensed the movement, and ducked under an out-thrown, broken hand. Barely thin
king, he punched the crowbar up. The point smashed into the creature’s chin, the chisel tip piercing through its gullet and up into its mouth. A twist, a tug that brought the flailing creature far too close, and the crowbar was free. He jabbed it forward again, this time aiming higher. The point smashed into its forehead, tearing skin from its nose, before finding the path of least resistance. The crowbar slammed through its eye, and into its brain. The zombie went limp, and for a moment he was holding it up.
“Tom! You’re in the way! Move!”
Another twist and he had the crowbar free. The zombie he’d knocked into the mud was on its knees. He shifted his grip, raising the crowbar over his head, bringing it down as he jumped from the porch. His feet splashed in the muddy ground as the metal bar smashed down on the zombie’s head. It fell, motionless.
“Walk!” Helena yelled. He didn’t. He looked around for the next foe. That primal rage had come over him once more. He didn’t see zombies surrounding him, but two faces merging into one: Powell and Farley. He shifted his stance, swinging the crowbar two-handed and low. There was a crack of bone as steel hit the zombie’s leg. It fell, and he ignored it, already moving on to his next target.
He flipped the crowbar up over his head and chopped it down like an axe. Before the blow could land, the zombie slipped. The metal slammed into its shoulder. The impact pushed the creature to its knees, but one of its clawing hands caught Tom’s legs. It pulled, dragging its mouth closer and closer. Its head exploded. The sound of the gunshot brought him back to reality.
“Run!” Helena screamed. “Run!” It wasn’t an instruction, but an inhuman bellow as if that was the only word her terrified mind could remember.
Tom grabbed her arm, dragging her with him. There were ten more ahead of them that he could count. He didn’t look behind.
He let go of her arm, skipping a step, shifting his balance, and swung the crowbar at the zombie’s knee. It fell. That was the tactic. Don’t waste time and effort killing them.
“Go for legs!” he yelled. Another two steps, he swung again. Another step, another swing, and he almost lost his grip on the crowbar as he sidestepped out of Helena’s way. Her hatchet cut left and right, slicing into nothing but air.
He followed her and thought they might make it. There was a thin path through the undead, but it was narrowing. She started to run. She slipped. He caught her as she fell, but lost the crowbar in the process.
It was his turn to scream at her. “Move!” he bellowed, dragging her along a pace.
A zombie staggered out from their left. Tom let go of her arm and reached for the shotgun slung across his back. The sling caught in his elbow, and the zombie got closer. Closer. Helena screamed. Her arm came up. The hatchet came down onto its crown. It fell. She tried to pull the axe free.
“Leave it!” He had the shotgun in his hands. Two were near them, too near. The rest could wait a second and that was all the time he had left. He fired. The shot hit the creature in the chest. That had been the instinct to always aim for the largest target. It didn’t matter. They just needed space. Time. He racked another round. There was a shot, not from him. Helena had fired. He didn’t see where the bullet hit; shoulder, neck, it didn’t matter. The zombie kept coming. Tom fired again. Its head exploded. The path ahead was clear.
He grabbed Helena’s arm and dragged her with him. Each helping the other, they staggered through the muddy morass, up the track, away from the house.
“There!” Helena yelled. She raised the pistol, firing one-handed at the zombie twenty feet away. Once. Twice. She missed.
“Save the ammo,” Tom hissed, raising the shotgun. He fired at almost point-blank range. Its head vanished in a spray of blood and gore.
They were everywhere. The trees were full of them. Of course, he realized. The track curved and kinked through the woods, but the zombies had stumbled in a straight line from the road. He was tempted to do the same, but salvation lay in getting out of the woods. They couldn’t risk getting lost.
“There, I’ve got the one,” Helena said, her voice calmer. She raised the gun with her left braced against her right. She fired. It collapsed.
“No time for aiming. No time for shooting.” Tom said. The ground seemed firmer. “Run.”
His heart pounded. His mouth was dry. His vision blurred. Mud caked his legs. It was like running through a bog. As he began to dread they’d gone the wrong way, the track curved, and he saw the road ahead of them. It was clear of the undead, but not empty.
“There.” Tom waved a hand to the right. “There.” He couldn’t manage anything more coherent as he gestured toward the bus. The grey metal and white paint were coated in mud. St Mark’s Covenant was etched in gold paint on the rear window. Two bodies, both wearing that same uniform of beige slacks and overlong blazers lay on the road near the door. He raised the shotgun, aiming at the supine figures. People died. They turned into zombies. Zombies didn’t just collapse.
“Maybe the bus works,” Helena said, running toward the vehicle.
“Wait! Watch out!” Tom yelled, as she jumped over one corpse, and sidestepped another. They didn’t move, and she was already climbing through the half-open door.
Tom kept the shotgun’s barrel fixed on the two bodies, but his eyes darted along the bus’s windows. He saw no movement inside until Helena appeared in the door.
“It’s empty,” she said. “Except for another body. But it’s definitely dead.” She disappeared again. Tom turned his attention to the corpses. They were dead, their faces fixed in the rictus of a more natural death than the creatures at the house. The house. The track. The road. The zombies would follow them. There was no time to solve this particular mystery.
“Helena?” he called.
Instead of replying, there was a roar from the engine. Tom’s heart leaped. He grinned at the unbelievable, impossible, serendipitous salvation. There was something wrong with the sound. He crossed quickly to the far side of the bus and saw what Helena had missed. The tires on the right-hand side had blown, and the rims were dug deep into the mud.
“Turn it off!” he yelled. He ran to the door. “Turn it off. The tires are gone. It’s stuck.”
Her face fell, and her hand trembled as it reached for the key. The engine died. Silence returned.
“It’s that tree,” he said. “The one that fell. The driver can’t have seen it in the dark. They crashed. Someone on board must have been infected. The rest…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
“What now?” she asked.
“We walk. First, get some of those bags. Quick.”
“What?”
He gestured toward the suitcases scattered along the aisle. “We need clothes. Food. Water. There has to be some, but we’ve got about a minute before the zombies get to the road.”
He grabbed a bag. It contained clothes, nothing else. He tried another. More clothes. There had to be food. Surely there was food.
“Here!” Helena had pulled a leather bag down from the shelf above the seats. She’d opened it, and was now holding up a plastic box. “Cookies, I think. And some water.”
“That’ll do. Go. Go!” He grabbed two of the suitcases he’d opened which he thought had clothes that would fit, and followed her outside.
She stood by the door, her eyes on the road, the gun raised. “There. I see one.”
“Then get moving!”
A mud-splattered figure lurched onto the road. Two more staggered onto the cracked asphalt. The trees behind were filled with the moving shadows of many more.
Helena began jogging up the road. Dragging the suitcases, he followed. He tried to keep up, but it was cumbersome trying to carry the shotgun and drag the suitcases along at the same time. The wheels were too small, the road too rough. The noise…
He looked behind. The zombies were following. They weren’t running. The lead-most creature was now level with the front of the bus. The next was a few yards behind. He watched it trip on one of the corpses and fall to the groun
d.
Carrying the cases, he ran as fast as he could. Helena stopped, ran back a pace, and grabbed a case from him.
“We can’t carry these and run,” she said.
“A little further,” he said. And after another hundred yards he stopped, flipping open the case. He looked down the road. The zombies were following, but the nearest was at least two hundred yards behind.
“We can run. They can’t,” he said. “Find the stuff that fits, put it in those bags.” He opened the other case. The shoes were too small, the slacks far too large, but with a belt they’d be better than the rags he was wearing. He stuffed the clothing into his pack, and then looked down the road. The zombies kept on.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
Jogging. Walking. Running. They kept it up long after the zombies were lost from view.
“I need a watch,” Helena said as she tugged on the blazer. “How far ahead are we? An hour? It’s like one of those problems I’d set the kids: if two humans run at eight miles an hour for one hour, and they are being chased by zombies who can stagger along at three miles an hour, how long will it be before they are eaten?”
“I’d say their top speed was around five miles an hour, but they can’t keep it up,” Tom said. “Most of the time, I’d say one mile an hour. Maybe two.”
“So the question becomes how long they’ll keep going before they slow,” she said, kicking her soiled clothes into a pile. “Last night, the zombies which came to that house stopped. That was about a mile from the road, right? So we should be okay.”
“No.” They were on an incline, on a narrow road, still surrounded by trees beyond which were hills tall enough that he wondered if they were mountains. He doubted they’d managed anything close to eight miles an hour. Nor did he know for how long the zombies would follow them, and that was before thinking about any others which lay ahead. From Helena’s expression, she was thinking the exact same thing, so he said none of that. Instead, he asked, “What’s in those boxes?”
“The food?” She peeled back the lid. “Flapjacks, I think.” She picked one up by the corner and took a tentative nibble. “Wow.”