by J. Thorn
“It’s gonna be close,” Dr. Zahn said.
I took a look at the big picture. I’d been going into some serious tunnel vision. Until now, I had not really tried to see the whole scene. The truck was at the halfway point. The zombie-mob was a huge bulge, thickest in the center. However, it would be dicey on whether or not the truck would make it to the other end. As I watched, my spirits buoyed just a bit. The zombies had no concept of angle-of-pursuit.
“Here comes Randi!” Dr. Zahn pointed. The Hummer came fast, a trail of dust in its wake.
More shots came from the general direction Jamie and Barry had gone. For some stupid reason, I’d decided to risk the people I know to save complete strangers. Perhaps Barry had been the voice of reason the whole time—except when it came to Thalia, then he was out of line.
“Steve!” Dr. Zahn’s voice cut through the chaos in my mind. Was this what it had been like for Randall Smith and Sergeant Wimmer each and every day?
“Huh?”
“One of those things is making it into the truck!” Dr. Zahn pointed.
Sure enough, Melissa was busy reloading the shotgun while still taking time to smash a zombie in the face with the pistol grip. She was frantic, I could tell. I saw her drop a few shells she had been holding while trying to keep the undead from piling over the side into her truck-bed bastion. Bringing up my rifle, I sighted in on the one pulling itself up onto the rear bumper where it would simply tumble forward over the tailgate. The shot was on target, the zombie, a mostly naked woman wearing either a very dark or blood-stained bra, slumped and fell back onto the track. Melissa never even glanced that direction. Considering how loud the moans of the dead were even from this far away, I doubt she heard it.
“She’s there! Randi’s in position!” Dr. Zahn actually applauded.
I saw movement as the survivors from the roof came down a ladder bolted to the outside of the warehouse. They were moving so fast that one of their members lost his or her grip and plummeted at least twenty feet. I didn’t see anybody stop to help, and had to assume that person to be dead. I switched my attention back to Melissa as she opened up with the shotgun again. I had to admit that I was a touch surprised at how quickly she pumped rounds into the chamber and blasted one or more depending on how tightly bunched the zombies were to one another. The truck was clear of the main body. In about a hundred yards or so, it would make a slight bend to the right. I couldn’t help but smile as she jumped up and down in a cute little victory dance.
As the truck disappeared behind a stretch of linked railcars, Melissa searched and found us. She waved, I could see the smile on her face, and imagine I still would’ve even if I wasn’t watching her through my scope.
An explosion well off to the left of where Barry and Jamie had disappeared snapped my attention back to the here and now. A large ball of flame-accented black smoke roiled skyward from behind a row of four- and five-story offices. Had any of those windows still contained glass, they would’ve exploded. More dark, oily smoke poured through a swathe of those empty window sockets. It looked sinister, the way the inky blackness sort of poured from the holes and cascaded down the façade of the buildings and pooled at the bottom before creeping forward and into the street that ran parallel to the front of the complex.
“We should—” I started to rise, leaning in the direction of the rising cloud.
“We will be getting into the vehicle,” Dr. Zahn cut me off. “Randi is heading this way now.”
“But Jamie and Barry,” I protested.
“Have their assignment and instructions. They’ll do what they have to and reach their pick up spot.”
“Something’s gone wrong.” I pointed. Didn’t she see the big black cloud rising over there? I know for a fact that neither of them were carrying explosives. Even worse, a huge slice of the mob that had been after Melissa and the truck had done an about-face and were now headed to investigate this new sound.
“And they’ll deal with whatever that may be,” Dr. Zahn said as she grabbed my arm in that particularly tight grip again. I heard the part she didn’t say just as clearly, or they’ll die.
Once again I was trying to figure out how I’d become the designated honcho. I’d laid out this plan and nobody had pointed out any of the flaws. Even the best plans have flaws. Why hadn’t anybody called out mine?
“Here comes Randi,” Dr. Zahn announced with another tug on my arm, leading me out from behind our railcar.
The Hummer pulled up with a crowd of unfamiliar, not to mention unhealthy looking, faces. Could it be that we really had been living that well? Looking at the scared, exhausted, or vacant faces packed into the vehicle reminded me of the day that we’d arrived at Serenity Base. Dr. Zahn had said something about how well our group seemed to have fared.
Randi reached across and opened the front passenger’s side door. The smell that rolled out hit me. Before I could get a grip, I’d visibly and audibly gagged. None of them seemed to notice. Every single one of them looked—
“Shock,” Dr. Zahn whispered and moved past me to climb in.
“What blew up?” Randi asked. There was no masking the concern in her voice or on her face.
“No idea.” I climbed in, pulling the door closed. A pack of twenty or thirty walking dead were closing in. Another slice of the main group had peeled off and followed Randi. Also, I could see more coming this way from the direction of what was now growing into a decent sized fire from the direction we’d last seen Jamie and Barry.
Randi accelerated, sending dust and gravel flying at the approaching zombies. None of them seemed to notice. We raced down a mostly deserted street, and as we closed in on the first four-way intersection, I felt us slow.
“The route is straight until we reach that water tower,” Dr. Zahn said. She glanced at me and I knew she was expecting support here.
“Randi…” I paused. It was clear that she knew her husband was somehow tied to that explosion and growing fire. “There is a maze of industrial buildings over there. We have no way of being certain of the route they took. Barry knows the rally point. We need to be there waiting for him and Jamie when they show up.”
We’d rolled to a stop in the intersection. Randi Jenkins turned to face me. I saw tears starting to roll down her cheeks. The survivors packed into the car sat silent. I glanced over my left shoulder into that big back seat area. None of them looked like they were even aware we were there. I hadn’t noticed at first, but they were all clinging to one another.
A hand slapped the window directly behind my head instantly changing the atmosphere inside the vehicle. I jumped. The sudden surprise had startled me, but the people in the back went into an absolute panic. Suddenly there were screams, shrieks, and crying.
Randi didn’t need to be prompted any further and floored it. The sudden force caused a couple of the people in back to fall on the large open floor back there which only raised their wailing to another level. We were reaching the tee-intersection at the end of this long two-lane road, and I knew we would be taking the left turn fast enough to likely spill a few more of our passengers onto the floor.
“Hold on!” I yelled.
We power slid, our ass end coming around easy. Like magic, we seemed to straighten out relatively smoothly and take off for the road that would take us on a winding path up into the hills.
“Nice,” I commented.
“Cars,” Randi said with a smile.
“Huh?” I didn’t get it.
“The Disney move, Cars.”
“What about it?” I wasn’t any clearer as to what her point was.
“The scene where the old car teaches the flashy red one how to corner on a dirt track.”
“Ka-chow!” a tiny voice from in back hooted.
“That’s right, baby.” Randi glanced up in the rearview mirror and smiled.
I didn’t have any kids. I guess you had to have children to understand. But whatever it was that taught Randi to accelerate through the corner like that was o
kay by me. I looked in back for the source of the tiny voice and took the first actual headcount of the folks we’d just rescued: four women, three men, one child—a boy about six or seven, not much older than Thalia.
“We’ve got Melissa and she’s fine,” the radio came to life.
I grabbed the headset and keyed the mic. “That is excellent news!” I made no attempt to mask how glad I was. “We are en route to the rally point with eight survivors. Any sign of Barry or Jamie yet, Teresa?”
“Saw two figures running through the smoke, but the cloud got thicker and we lost ‘em,” came the reply. I noticed Randi’s grip tighten on the steering wheel.
“Well,” I touched Randi’s arm, trying to provide a small measure of comfort, “keep your eyes open and have everybody scanning for them. We stay put until we are absolutely certain one way or the other.”
“Okee-Dokee,” Teresa answered.
The rest of the ride was in silence. When we reached the turn off, I could see Teresa had already arrived. Everybody was present except Jamie and Barry.
Dr. Zahn climbed out and helped everybody from the Hummer with assistance from Dave. Teresa, Melissa, and Aaron only turned and waved to acknowledge us, then went back to scanning with their binoculars.
“Is anybody bit or scratched?” I heard Dr. Zahn ask as I walked over to the waist-high stone wall that was intended to let people look into the valley below while protecting them from tumbling down the hill.
“Got something!” Aaron crowed. “Left of that large red brick building.”
“See ‘em!” Melissa and Teresa chimed almost simultaneously.
Randi ran to the trio. Aaron handed his binoculars to her and pointed. I actually saw the tension leave her shoulders.
“That’s my Barry!” she laughed. “What in heaven above is that man doin’?”
“Haulin’ ass on a motorcycle,” Melissa answered with a hint of laughter in her voice.
“He’s gonna break his fool neck!” Randi snapped. Now that it was clear her husband was safe from zombies or explosions, she had a new thing to worry and fret over.
“I imagine that sidecar keeps him stable,” Teresa chuckled.
“Not if he don’t slow his ass down on the corners,” Randi snapped.
“Steve?” It was Dr. Zahn.
“What’s up? I turned, and the smile I’d allowed myself to have melted away at the look on her face.
“One of ‘em’s bit,” Dave hissed. Dr. Zahn shot him a withering glance—I now know what one actually looks like—and he dropped his head and stepped back.
I looked at the doctor. She nodded and I felt a new sensation of nausea. What was I supposed to do? It’s not like we loaded out the “toxic cocktail” used back in Serenity Base to put down whoever we had in our midst that got bit.
“It’s the child,” Dr. Zahn said, making my really bad situation instantly and exponentially worse.
“This is gonna sound stupid,” I couldn’t even look her in the eye when I asked, “but are you sure?”
“I wish I could say otherwise, but I’m positive.”
Shit. I kept that particular sentiment to myself.
“It’s Barry!”
“It’s Jamie!”
Teresa and Randi both exclaimed simultaneously. I turned and had no trouble spotting a motorcycle with the attached sidecar dart down a back street obviously attempting to give the slip to a few hundred pursuing corpses. They were doing all the right things—driving with no discernible pattern, doubling back on themselves, not taking any sort of direct route to our location.
Finally, they vanished behind some trees, but it was obvious that they were now heading for the road that would lead to us. Several minutes later, Randi and Teresa were bounding towards their men in a huggy, kissy, tearful, joyous reunion. Everybody had made it back intact. Plus…we had some new faces.
Unfortunately, it was not over. We had the issue of the infected child to deal with. I looked over at our new arrivals. They were huddled close, each of them clinging to at least one other member of their group. The child was sandwiched between two women and looked the least worn out and frightened. Most of the real fear was on the faces of the adults. Looking just a bit closer, I realized something else, the child was the least malnourished in appearance. My guess was that the adults had done everything possible to care for the child, which included favoring him when it came to rationing food.
A surge of anger and sorrow hit me hard and sudden. They’d done everything including deprive themselves of food—and most likely water—to preserve that child’s life. And for what? They’d been rescued, and the child would not live to see the next sunrise.
“What do you want to do?” Dr. Zahn interrupted my daydreaming.
“Huh?” I blinked my eyes a few times and bit down on the inside of my mouth. The tears were there, but now wasn’t the time. “Well, I guess you and I should talk to them and figure out who we’ll need to tell.”
“You’re not gonna…” Dave’s voice trailed off as he turned and looked in the direction of the tiny group of survivors.
“And what would you suggest?” Dr. Zahn said in a tight, clipped voice.
“But, Francis—” Dave started to protest.
“There’s nothing to debate here, David,” Dr. Zahn cut him off.
Francis? All this time I’d never known her first name. As far as I was concerned, it was Doctor. I guess you learn something new every day.
“It’s a child.” Dave wasn’t trying to keep back his tears.
“How ‘bout we keep it down,” I said, stepping between them. People were no longer interested in the happy reunions of Barry and Randi, Teresa and Jamie. We were now becoming center stage.
One of the women detached herself from the group and walked across the open dirt and gravel strewn parking area towards me, Dave, and Dr. Zahn. Great, I thought, I’ve got about twenty seconds to decide how I’ll be handling this.
8
New Attitudes
“Thank you so much.” The lucky woman’s voice was dry and raspy like a chain-smoker’s.
Looking at her up close, I’d guess her to have about a two-percent body-fat. Under the layers of grime was the heavily freckled but ivory-white skin so common in honest-to-goodness redheads. Her face resides on the homely side of plain, not helped by an over-generous sprinkling of more freckles. Her gray eyes only added to her hawkish appearance. Nobody could be less aptly named Sunshine.
“The child is my responsibility,” Sunshine continued. “I know the injury is a concern, so let me just assure you that we will deal with it.”
I looked around at my group. The faces that stared back showed the range of every emotion I felt swirling inside. Dave, hope; Dr. Zahn, skepticism; Teresa, concern; Jamie, total confusion. Once more I asked myself when I’d been crowned King of Every Awful Choice.
“Somebody needs to keep a twenty-four hour watch on the child.” I did my best to sound authoritative like Paul Wimmer or Randall Smith.
“Steve?” Dr. Zahn stepped up beside me.
“In a minute.” I did not want to have the conversation I knew was coming in front of the new additions.
“Is the child the only one injured?” Teresa butted in.
“Yes,” Sunshine nodded, “it happened on the way to the roof.”
“Steve.” Dr. Francis Zahn was no longer sounding pleasant. All the more reason to have the dreaded conversation later.
“Wait till we get loaded up,” I tried to say it with a smile.
“Thalia!” Teresa screamed.
At some point, she’d climbed out of the Hummer. She was with the group of new arrivals. Talking to the injured child! Injured? I can’t even get myself to say “bitten” or “infected”, but my little girl is standing there babbling to this stranger like children do. She doesn’t see the danger. She only sees another child like herself. This one isn’t like Emily. This one is more her size, and thus, a more suitable playmate. All I see is a coral snake. It
looks pretty, but it is death. Death to my little girl.
Teresa is running, and before I really realize it, I’m right on her heels. The newcomers look terrified. The little boy vanishes behind a sea of legs. Thalia looks totally confused. I hear Sunshine say something that sounds angry, and I hear Dr. Zahn say something back equally harsh. I don’t hear the words as much as sense a battle of outrage versus justification.
“Papi?” Thalia steps away from Teresa and to me. That’s a first, I thought as I scooped her into my arms.
“Can we sort this out later?” Barry breaks into the picture with Randi at his back. “Those things down there,” he points down the long, steep hill, “they’re coming this way.”
I walk to the edge. Sure enough. I can’t hold back my gasp. “My God,” I barely manage. There are thousands. Not hundreds. Thousands! And they are coming.
“Load up!” I holler. Being quiet is pointless. I opened the door, waving my arms. In no time, the dead city of La Grande faded from sight. I know there are other groups here fighting to survive. I wish we had a fleet of busses to save everybody.
We don’t.
***
“Papi?” Thalia tugged on my arm. “Why can’t I play with Matt? I ate all my dinner and even washed my plate.”
Dammit. I looked down into those large, brown eyes that were staring up at me with genuine puzzlement. She thinks I’m punishing her, I thought.
“Sweetie,” I picked the tiny girl up and set her in my lap and put my dinner plate on the ground. I really wasn’t that hungry anyways. “Matt is sick and needs to rest.”
Liar.
“Maybe tomorrow, if he’s feeling better.”
Liar.
“There’ll be plenty of time to play once we find a place to stay.”
Oh my God! Just add ‘and maybe your mom will meet us there.’
Thalia looked at me with that absolute trust and belief. Her eyes blinked once, showing off those long dark lashes that added to her innocent, angelic look.
“If Matt is sick,” Thalia got that look that told me she was searching for words, “he should have my blanket.”