What he didn’t know and couldn’t have known was that with the absence of the normal sounds of the city to obscure it, his own pounding footsteps as he ran down the sky bridge were heard clearly in the street below. When all was said and done, he did draw attention to himself but the eyes looking and the ears listening to the sky bridge overhead were very aware that the source had gone into the Egan. As a singular force, the entire group of zombies moved out of the street and against the glass walls of the Egan Center. It was just a matter of time before the glass gave way to the pressure and they would be through.
Neil saw all of this as he ran through the Egan Center lobby. He felt like he was a fish on display in a large aquarium being viewed by hungry predators. “Well that didn’t work.”
When the first window shattered and came crashing down in a storm of sound, he rounded the corner toward the exit. Jerry was still there holding the door but everyone else had already departed.
Jerry asked, “We still good?”
“No! Get movin’! I’m right behind you!”
The echo of pounding fists, slapping palms, and scratching nails against the windows behind him had spread across the entire glass front of the building by the time he was passing through the door.
Jerry said in awe, “Jesus! Jesus!”
He let the door close and joined Neil who was already running after the others well ahead of him. The explosion of sound that followed the breaking of all those windows was something that could be felt as much as it could be heard. It startled all of them to a stop.
Claire ducked down as if anticipating the approach of flying shrapnel and debris. Of course, Art sneered at her and even chuckled to himself.
Meghan saw it and thought to herself that this was no time to be petty. Neil was still a bit behind them, but at least now she could see him again. She took an awful lot of comfort in that. Neil just seemed to be able to keep them at least one step ahead of tragedy all the time. Forget about the fact that she was finding herself falling for him more and more every day. She was even convinced that had she met him outside of the current circumstances she would have felt the same way. Granted, her engagement would have been a bit of an obstacle, but then again, they weren’t outside of the current situation.
Her comfort quickly turned to concern when she saw Neil waving frantically and shouting, “Runnnnn! Runnnnnnnn! Get outta sight! They’re—” That was when she heard the dull thuds of angry fists against the inside of the door from which Neil and Jerry had just emerged. Those things were right behind them. Luckily, Jerry and Neil were close to a full city block away from the Egan Center, and, unfortunately, still almost two blocks away from Meghan and the rest of their party.
It didn’t appear that the two men were in any immediate danger, though there was no time to dawdle. When the door exploded outward, its hinges buckling and sagging from the force, she felt that familiar chill in her heart that dried her mouth and soaked her palms.
Then she realized that there had been so many of the undead creatures on Fifth Avenue in front of the Egan Center that they had spilled around the edges of the building. They were even then coming up the streets on either side of the Egan and heading straight for them.
Neil yelled again, “Go! Run! Gooooooooo!!!”
Realizing that there was no way they would catch up with the others before they were cut off, Neil and Jerry adjusted their course so that they would be running straight away from the oncoming crowd rather than traversing across it. They were running up a street that, upon crossing the next street, started to slope down slightly as it started its descent toward the Ship Creek area and the Alaska Railroad Depot. Neil and Jerry had the same thought. There was a large Hilton Hotel at the end of that patch of street and its multiple entrances and exits presented the best opportunity to possibly lose their stalkers. Neil hoped that he and Jerry would be able to keep the attention of the horde on them and allow the others to get away. He knew it would be much easier for the two of them to evade and escape than it would be for the larger group. Even so, it wasn’t going to be easy. There were so damned many of them and they seemed to be multiplying. Both Jerry and Neil quietly hoped that the Hilton wasn’t already crawling with the abominations.
Neil could plainly hear and feel the vibrating buzz that preceded the undead and impregnated the air with its presence. To Neil, it was the same sensation one might experience while sitting on a vibrating chair that was shaking too much and for too long. It left him feeling disoriented and queasy. He was thankful that he was only able to feel it when there were so many and so close. Poor Jerry, Claire, Danny and Jules were much more sensitive to the vibrations and were subject to the nausea almost constantly.
Still on the run, Neil peered over his shoulder to assess the situation. There were literally hundreds and possibly more than a thousand of the demons behind them now. They seemed to be intent on following Jerry and him, not even aware of the other group. There was a strangely comforting and unsettling sense of satisfaction in that. The fiends didn’t seem to be capable of running any longer, but their pace was much more than a casual walk. They moved with a purpose and that was the hunt.
The walkie-talkie still gripped in his left hand began to squawk. He had completely forgotten about it.
Never slowing his pace, breathlessly he shouted into the radio, “Say again.”
It was Meghan. “We’re safe. We’re away and no one’s following. How ‘bout you two?”
“Still trying to get away,” Neil said. “Gettin’ there. I’ll give you a shout when we’re clear. Find a safe spot to hide.”
“Be careful.”
Remembering that it was a cell phone chirp that had given away their last hiding spot, Neil was careful to turn off the radio and slip it into his jacket pocket. To Jerry, he said, “They’ve gotten away. Now it’s our turn.”
Starting to sound winded himself, Jerry answered, “I didn’t realize we were waiting for our own turn.” He smiled over at Neil as they continued down the street.
Chapter 33
Running was fast becoming a fact of life. Even so, Dr. Caldwell wasn’t any happier about doing it again. He looked back behind them and was relieved to see an empty street. They weren’t being followed. Neil and Jerry had thankfully drawn the throngs of undead after them, buying time and distance for everyone else. He would have liked to slow his pace but the fear that was twisting his stomach into knots was propelling his legs forward.
Malachi was still leading the pack. He was, at that moment, kneeling behind a small sport utility vehicle sitting in the middle of the road. He had his sidearm drawn and held in a ready position in front of himself. He peeked up over the back of the vehicle and scanned the street in front of them.
On the street, the sidewalks, and tucked into doorways were the shattered and mutilated remains of scores of Anchorage’s former residents. The undead had set upon them like locusts upon crops, leaving so little of their victims as to prevent reanimation. Even their bones had been splintered and broken as the fiends devoured the marrow within. Tiny bits of shredded clothing and personal effects, such as wallets and purses, were all that identified these piles of rubbish as skeletal remains.
Watching Malachi, his mannerisms and disposition reminded the doctor of images of police officers from television crime dramas. Officer Ivanoff had just fallen into old habits and training, as if there was the slightest possibility that the threat to his safety was from some perpetrator’s gun.
As each bisecting avenue crossed the street ahead, increasing numbers of cars were packed tighter and tighter together. To Dr. Caldwell, it looked like a giant rodent maze. Wrong turns; dead ends; and of course the unknown, hidden things that lurked somewhere within the turns or on the other side. What to do? Where the hell was Neil?
And then Malachi made a move. The former police officer ran from the back of one vehicle to the next and then to a newspaper-vending box. He paused and looked back at the balance of the group, still trying to f
ollow. His breathing was slightly labored and short. With his dirty sleeve, he wiped away the running beads of sweat from his brow. Again, he surveyed the street and the deadlocked press of cars and trucks.
Perspective, and how it changed one’s vision of the world, was an amazing phenomenon and not lost on Dr. Caldwell. Malachi didn’t see the maze that Dr. Caldwell saw; or at the very least, he wasn’t overwhelmed with the imagery. He just let his instincts and his training do his thinking for him. This, of course, wasn’t all that different than the little white rat’s behavior in the lab. Perhaps his actions were a little more complex and calculated, but otherwise very comparable. It was of little consequence, however, as the rest of them fell in behind and followed the police officer, trusting in his judgment.
The next street up was C Street, and straddling it was a large, abandoned People Mover public bus. Around the stalled mass transit vehicle, a pocket of tightly packed cars and trucks had formed an impassable barrier.
Dr. Caldwell said from behind, “Malachi, I think we should stop and catch our breaths at the parking garage up ahead there. Maybe Neil and Jerry will be able to catch up with us then.”
Meghan, of course, appreciated that comment and the sentiment more than anyone else, though she was clearly not the only one who was noticing Neil’s absence. The further they had gotten from Neil, the more anxious her thoughts and fears had become.
From Meghan’s side and trying to comfort despite struggling for air herself, Emma said, “He’s alright.”
Meghan held up the now static-filled radio and let her grief take her. She shook her head and tried to speak but the knot in her chest was restricting her communication to pantomime. She shrugged her shoulders and accepted Emma’s sympathetic embrace.
Emma peered over Meghan’s shoulder at Dr. Caldwell’s questioning look. She forced her mouth into a partial crescent and gave him a half nod. She didn’t know if Meghan was going to be able to keep it together or not, but the reality was that it didn’t really matter. They were going to keep moving regardless. Meghan’s state of mind would not and could not figure into that simple fact.
Malachi was now leaning himself against the rear corner of the bus and peeking around it. He was pleasantly surprised to find he was keeping his wits about himself. He could still feel some lingering hostility and raw anger toward Emma, but even that was becoming more nebulous, like the fading memory of a dream after waking. Each moment still held unspeakable terror for him, but dealing with these new horrors and not those of his past was helping him stay alive. He had seen neither his loving mother, nor his angry father, nor his sad cousin in days. He missed his mother but was thankful for the absence of the other two.
There was just enough room to maneuver himself along the side of the bus. Dr. Caldwell, by that time, had leveled his shotgun into a firing stance and was watching every step Malachi made. He looked into car windows and in the minimal gaps between cars, while he continued his own, careful pace forward, on the lookout for anything that seemed like a menace waiting to pounce.
When the hand suddenly appeared in the bus window above and slightly behind Malachi, he almost choked. He brought the twelve-gauge shotgun to his shoulder but hesitated for a better target. He knew that shooting the thing’s hand off would do little more than create a noise to attract more of them. If he was going to shoot, he wanted it to count.
And when the hand slid the window open slightly, he was, to say the least, confused. They had all agreed that the zombies didn’t seem to possess the faculties necessary to perform even the simplest, most rudimentary of tasks, and yet, the window was clearly opening.
Malachi backed away and looked decidedly spooked. The words, “Help us,” drifting out of the bus caused both of the men to jump back in surprise.
They looked at one another. Dr. Caldwell said with a hush, “Are they alive?”
He was answered by an equally wispy, “Please,” emanating from inside the bus like a distant echo.
Emma and Meghan were now approaching, each sporting a pistol in clenched fists.
Dr. Caldwell looked at Malachi then said to the women, “There’s someone...something in there. Malachi and I are going to go check it out and we need you two to watch out for...anything...unusual.”
“Unusual?” Emma smirked. “Okay, Doc, I’ll let you know when anything unusual happens. Oh, sorry. If anything unusual happens. All things considered, the lines separating usual and unusual have been kind of blurred over the past few weeks. I mean, what do you—”
Dr. Caldwell cut her off abruptly. “Stop! We don’t have the time right now for this. Just be on the lookout, okay? Don’t let anything sneak up on us or you.”
“On it.” Her demeanor lost all condescension just like that.
Malachi and Dr. Caldwell wasted no time. They vaulted over cars and, on one occasion, went through the still open doors on both sides of a minivan. Once at the entrance to the bus, they tried to look in the windows but found them covered with what appeared to be cardboard. The mystery was still contained within. And then like Pandora opening her box, the door labored itself open with a series of clicks and clanks.
There stood a man whose gaunt, emaciated frame needed to add some weight in order to qualify as a wraith. He smiled wearily but said nothing.
After a brief pause, Dr. Caldwell asked, “Are there others with you?”
The man nodded slowly. His eyes were struggling in the sunlight. Still he said nothing.
The doctor didn’t want to pressure this obviously tortured soul but he needed him to understand the urgency of the situation. “We can help but we have to go now. Do you understand?”
A distant gunshot captured both of their attention and seemed to add the exclamation point to the doctor’s statement. Standing there, Dr. Caldwell was able to smell the horrible rot that filled the air of the bus. It was a mixture of death, sweat, and feces being swirled together into a potent aroma. He wondered how anyone could possibly exist in such conditions.
There were two others with him; another man and a woman. All of them shared enough in common with Holocaust survivors that Dr. Caldwell found himself inspecting their arms in search of the telltale black numbers, dashes, and letters.
The other man was an older black man whose greying curls were only slightly lighter than his sickly looking skin. He smiled as he descended the bus stairs and almost stumbled when his feet hit the pavement. He apologized for his misstep and the involuntary grab onto Malachi’s arm to prevent his plunge. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent more time crawling around on that damned bus than I have on my feet in…actually, I don’t know how long it’s been. Guess I still need to get my sea legs under me.”
The woman coming behind him did fall. Dr. Caldwell was suddenly very concerned about her mobility, or lack thereof. Her legs weren’t much bigger around than the typical mop handle. The doctor got a hand under her arm to hoist her up. To him, she didn’t feel like she weighed much more than a mop either. She was likely in her fifties, about Dr. Caldwell’s age, but she had the physical affect of an elderly senior. She seemed weak and vulnerable, a lethal combination that could prove problematic for all of them. He was relieved when he withdrew his hand and she was able to stand on her own.
The first man to greet them and the last off the bus was younger than the other two. He also appeared to be much more fit, though his muscles too had suffered and atrophied from the conditions they’d had to endure recently.
He drew in a deep breath of air, savoring it like fine wine. He closed his eyes and exhaled with gusto. “I forgot what air could smell and taste like. All I’ve had to breathe for as long as I can remember has been shit and death, death and shit. Poison with every single breath.”
The other new man shot a look in his direction and said defensively, “It worked didn’t it?!”
Meghan asked, “What worked?”
The woman answered, “It was Daniel’s idea. He thought that maybe if they couldn’t smell us and we didn’t move
around enough for them to hear, then maybe we could be safe.”
“No such thing as safe anymore,” Art commented from behind them.
Again, the other man said, “Well it worked and we were safe. Weren’t we?”
Seeking clarification, Meghan asked the man who insisted that whatever had worked, “So you’re Daniel then?”
“No. He’s still...he’s still...” stammered the woman, unable to complete her sentence.
The first man finished for her, “He’s still on the bus. He died a couple of days ago.”
Emma asked tentatively, “Was he...?”
“Bitten? No. He just went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up the next morning,”
“What do you think caused it?”
His voice meandering like a long Alaskan summer day, the first man answered as he looked up at the cloudy sky, “What does it matter what caused it? He’s dead, just like the rest of them.”
“We haven’t eaten in days,” the woman continued, “and the water ran out about three days ago. A few of us tried to drink our own urine but then that stopped too. I think it was just hope that had sustained most of us these past few days. I just knew that someone would happen along; well, someone that didn’t want to eat us, that is.”
Dr. Caldwell said, “We’ve got some food and water but I think we should get off the street. Emma, can you conjure up some granola bars and water or something? Anything that can be chewed on the go.”
“Sure.”
The parking garage was a short jaunt up the street. Though agonizingly slow, they moved as quickly as the three newcomers would allow them. Luckily, they were able to get up to the third level of the parking deck without incident.
In getting to the parking structure and then up the winding driveway to the third floor, they heard two gunshots and then nothing else. It was both worrisome and promising. The gunshots could only be from Neil and Jerry, which meant that they were still alive but it also meant that they were still in trouble.
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