Until the End

by Tracey Ward

  “Run!” he shouts, and once he gets me moving he releases me and starts swinging.

  He’s not aiming for the heads every time, he’s mostly just trying to clear a path and with how slow these guys move it’s actually working. I pop my arrow back into the quiver on my back and follow his lead, swinging my bow and bracing it between my hands to slam against shoulders and chests, knocking them out of my way. A lot of them go down and roll on their backs like turtles trapped on their shells. They snap and claw at us as we run through, but we’re careful to never get close to too many at one time. Two or three it seems you can fight off, but I worry that if more than that get around me, or if even two get their hands on me, I won’t be able to fend them all off before one takes a bite. I’m also stressing my back, wondering if a crowd of them is forming behind me, reaching for me, grabbing at my hair—I lock the panic down as I am so skilled at doing and force my way forward. I can’t do anything about what’s behind me. The best I can do is forge ahead.

  I lock my eyes on Jordan, shut out the rest of the world and I run.

  Chapter Seven

  After leaving the crush of undead behind us at the apartment we run for several blocks, away from campus and heading east. I’m not sure where we’re going or how far away he parked, but I’m getting seriously winded. After the adrenaline rush of fighting our way through the horde, I ran with what seemed like unending energy. Now, however, I am crashing down and my lungs are starting to burn. We’re still going full tilt, running at a sprint, cutting down side streets and weaving between cars crashed onto the sidewalks and stopped at angles on the street. Finally I notice that we’ve taken four lefts and I call out for Jordan to stop.

  I lean over, putting my hands on my knees and gasping. “Where are… we going?”

  He stands in front of me with his bat raised over his head and stretches out. His stained shirt lifts with the movement and in my hunched position I’m eye level with his stomach. With his abs. Jordan, it seems, works out. His breathing isn’t as labored as mine but I find myself mesmerized but the steady movements of his stomach in time with his breathes.

  “Alissa.” he says, and it doesn’t sound like the first time.

  “Yeah.” I say, snapping to attention and wincing.

  “Are you okay?”

  I groan and stretch from side to side to loosen a stitch that’s building. “I’m great.”

  “We shouldn’t stay stopped like this. We need to keep moving.”

  “You’re running us in a circle. Where are we going? Where is your car?”

  “Truck.”

  “Whatever. Where is it?”

  His face is flushed from running, but I still see the blush of embarrassment hit his cheeks.

  “I don’t know. I thought I parked it on this block but I don’t see it.”

  I look around, but for what I’m not sure. I have no idea what his truck looks like.

  “Maybe someone stole it?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Okay, so what’s the plan now? You’re right, we can’t just stand here. We need a car, right?”

  “Preferably.”

  “Okay.”

  I jog down the street to where a car has plowed into a yard and sits parked on the lawn. My thinking is that the owner was overtaken by The Fever while driving and crashed when they changed, and from what I’ve seen I doubt they had the presence of mind to take their keys with them. When I poke my head in the window of the little green Ford Focus, I give a quick shout of triumph. Jordan comes running up behind me and I turn to smile at him.

  “Are you driving or am I?”

  Jordan is driving because I have no idea where we’re going. We have reached the extent of my knowledge of The Plan. We make slow progress through the streets and I can feel Jordan’s anxiety rolling off of him.

  “This is exactly why we’re not getting on the freeway.” he says, pointing at the chaos of cars on the street. “Can you imagine what it looks like now? People were probably devoured as they sat in rush hour yesterday and there will be car after car abandoned and in the way. Not to mention confused zombies roaming around the road, grabbing a snack when they can find it. We’d be trapped with them. It’s so stupid.”

  I nod my head and listen to his rant, hoping it helps with his frustration.

  “If we’re not getting on the freeway, then where are we going?”

  He smiles as we slide into a roundabout and then come to stop.

  “There.” he says, pointing out my window.

  To my right is a marina loaded with boats of all shapes and sizes resting on the shimmering Willamette River.

  “We’re taking a boat?” I ask, looking back at him with surprise. “Can you drive a boat?”

  He smiles and scans the area, making sure it’s clear. “The kind of boat we’re taking? Yes.”

  “Okay, but why are we taking a boat? Where are we going?”

  “Come on.” he says, and jumps from the car. We grab our packs from the backseat where we tossed them and jog toward the ramp that leads out onto the water. “Here’s a fun zombie fact; they can’t swim.”

  “So if we get out on the water, they can’t touch us.”

  “Exactly. They don’t have the coordination for it and I doubt they have the reasoning skills to find a way out there. At the most, they’ll walk straight into the water, float a bit and get taken away by the current. And look at the river. Do you see any ten boat pile ups? Any congestion? There’s no one here, it’s completely clear. Unlike the freeway that’s probably a death trap from here to Seattle.”

  “Alright, but you still haven’t answered about where we’re going.” I say as we step onto the ramp and jog down to the docks.

  We’re surrounded by sailboats and large yachts scattered with a few open speed boats. I hope he means it when he says he can drive (or is it pilot?) one of these because I sure can’t. I could probably figure out a speed boat, but one of these mammoth yachts or the sailboats, no way.

  Jordan steps up to the first yacht and motions me closer. He sets down his pack on the dock so I do likewise, but when I go to step onboard he stops me.

  “Wait. I’m just jumping up there to untie that.” He points to a small white boat that looks more like an industrial inflatable raft. It’s only about eight feet long and wide enough to fit two people side by side. I’ve seen boats like this before, only a little larger and used for fishing. “Cover me while I untie it.”

  “That’s what we’re taking?” I ask incredulously as I get my bow ready.

  With all of the boats to choose from, with all of the massive engines and extra room, we’re stealing a dinghy. The two of us with our packs will barely fit in it.

  Jordan nods as he walks around and starts working on the knot securing the dinghy to the yacht. “It’s perfect.”

  “Is it?” I ask sarcastically.

  He smiles. “Yes. We want something that we can easily run ashore. These are made for that. And I want something small and quiet, something we can camouflage and hide on the shore if we need to leave it for a bit to go inland.”

  “Jordan?”

  “Hmm?” he replies distractedly, his eyes never leaving the rope he’s working on.

  I don’t know what I was going to say. The early morning sun is shining in his brown hair, making it look gold in places. His tan skin is set off by the wan yellow light and his face is furrowed in deep concentration, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth. He’s handsome and adorable and there’s a zombie walking up behind him, inches from grabbing his neck.

  Running on pure instinct, I get an arrow in my bow, sight the eye socket and let fly. The wiz of the arrow shoots right past Jordan’s head and the zombie drops before Jordan even knows what happened. He shoots up straight at the sound, looks at me, then looks behind himself and I’m worried he’ll faint. It all happened so fast and he’s having a hard time catching up with it even though it’s over. My own heart is steady and strong, the only indication my body
gives me of the danger is the telltale adrenaline response of pin pricks across my skin.

  Jordan looks down at me on the dock, his chest heaving with short, panting breaths.

  “You really are a good shot.” he breathes. “An inch to the right and you would have hit me instead.”

  “Less than an inch.” I tease him with a grin.

  I pull the hand towel from my waist and hold it up toward him. He nods, yanks the arrow free and tosses it to me.

  “Sick!” I cry, and hurry to the edge of the dock to scrape the arrow against it.

  “What?”

  There’s a plop as the eyeball slips off the end of the arrow and lands in the water. It floats there, bobbing around lazily. Staring at me.

  Jordan is chuckling and I glare at him.

  “How is that funny?”

  “How is that not funny?”

  I lower my head, focus on cleaning my arrow, and grumble incoherent curses about fan boys.

  “Thanks, by the way.” he says seriously, and when I look back up, I see he’s standing perfectly still and watching me intently

  “Just doin’ my job.” I say with a grin. “It’s what I’m here for, right? Watching your back?”

  He smiles briefly and takes a somewhat shuddering, deep breath before going back to work on the dinghy tie. He works faster this time and soon it’s free and in his hand. He leads the small boat toward the dock and secures it tightly to it. We grab our packs, toss them in and then hop in ourselves. It’s not as small as I thought, though it is a little cramped with us and our gear. There are two oars attached to the sides and Jordan tells me to sit in the front while he slips them into their guides. Once we’re untied from the dock, he sits with his back to me and starts rowing in powerful, even strokes. We clear the marina in no time and are out in the middle of the wide river, the water lapping gently against the sides of our boat.

  “So, on to Corvallis?” I ask, scanning the empty banks of the river.

  “Yep. It’s as good a destination as any.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Where were you going to go if you weren’t taking me there?”

  “No clue.”

  I frown at him. “What?”

  “I don’t know, I hadn’t decided. My first thought was getting to the safety of the water. Beyond that, I didn’t have a plan.”

  My blind faith in the plan (it has been demoted in my mind, no more caps) is beginning to fade. What happened here? When he was sitting around playing Xbox, absent mindedly dreaming this up, did he get bored at this point and switch to thinking about something else? Like who would win in a fight; Batman or Superman? It’s Batman, don’t kid yourself. The point is, where is the second half of this brilliant plan?

  “This isn’t very well thought out, Jordan.”

  He shrugs. He’s unbothered by my questions and I have to admire his resolve, his confidence. I question every sight I see, every noise I hear, every decision I make because of my illness, and his ability to make a choice and hold true to it without wavering, even in the face of my obvious adversity, is astounding.

  I ache with jealousy.

  “I put more thought into it than you.” he says, smirking at me over his shoulder. “And besides, we’re still alive aren’t we?”

  “That’s true.”

  “What matters is getting away from that.”

  He points to the Portland skyline where it rises and glows in the morning sun. It looks as it always has, unchanged by the chaos that I know lurks within the buildings and crisscrossing streets. Seeing it from here, it’s hard to imagine that it’s not a safe place to be, but he’s right. As this disease rolls through it, it’s a powder keg set to explode and we need to get as far away from it as possible.

  “Who knows.” he says. “Maybe they’ll contain it, or already have. Maybe Salem or Corvallis aren’t even touched by it and that’s as far as we’ll need to go.”

  I nod my head in agreement, hoping he’s right that The Fever hasn’t made it out of Portland. I hope that by the end of the day we come into a clean city, my pack full of snacks and first aid will feel ridiculous and unnecessary, and we’ll find a safe place to stay. Maybe there will even be more meds for me and we’ll sit and sip cocoa together while we wait for the nightmare to blow over. Happy ever after.

  I may have hallucinations, but I’m not delusional.

  Jordan is rowing us up the river into the current and I’m tired just watching him. I want to lay my head down on a fluffy pillow, fall asleep and come to in a world that isn’t ending. It’s this image that sends my searching through my pack wildly, digging in every corner and coming up empty.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” I mutter.

  Jordan glances over his shoulder at me, his rowing rhythm disrupted. “What’s wrong?”

  I sigh heavily and huck my pack back down.

  “I forgot my damn toothbrush.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jordan is tireless. He rows us down the river with even strokes, cutting up the current. His shoulders roll with each pull, stretching the cotton of his shirt over his back. His arms flex and strain against the sleeves and I feel my hands get twitchy. I look away, out over the water and the riverbank, watching Portland slide by. Businesses, apartments and parks scroll by slowly and as the sun heats up my skin I think I should have packed sunblock. I turn to mention to Jordan that we need to add that to our looting list along with my toothbrush, but I immediately turn back to the bank. A figure has emerged from a building and is running down the slope.

  "Jordan, stop! Look!" I quickly grab hold of his arm, halting his rowing and pulling him in the direction of the bank.

  The figure, I think it's a man, runs all out down the bank, stumbling briefly before righting himself. I can hear it now coming across the water, the sound of his cries. He's shouting loudly but I can't make out the words. I image it's something along the lines of They are trying to eat me! Save me!

  "We have to help him. Row us to shore."

  "Wait."

  "What?" I glance briefly at Jordan before watching the man again. I'm scared to lose sight of him, as though my notice alone will save him. "Wait for what? We have to help him."

  "Just wait." he says, and his voice is oddly calm.

  "Jordan!" I cry, horrified by his indifference. "They're going to eat him! We can't just sit by and watch!"

  "Who, Alissa? Show me who is going to eat him?"

  "The..." I look up the bank behind the running man and am shocked to find no one. No shambling zombies, no dragging half corpses. Nothing. "What... what is he running from?"

  "He's not running from anything. He's running toward us."

  The guy reaches the line where the water meets the shore and slows. He wades in until he is shin deep and then stops. He looks down, looks up at us, and then lets out a mournful wail.

  "He's a zombie?" I ask, my voice constricted with confusion and aggravation. "I thought they couldn't run!"

  I say it like it’s an accusation against him and he shrugs, never taking his eyes off the zombie on the shore.

  "Me too."

  I study the guy closer and see that his skin is a normal color, not pale and nearly gray as the others have been. He looks like a normal, healthy person if you can ignore the inarticulate wailing. Even that, though, is more human than the sounds the others make. Speak of the Devil. Around the corner of the building the runner came out of, a group of shamblers comes wandering out onto the grass and toward the water.

  "They must be who infected him." I whisper, irrationally afraid they will hear me.

  "Look!" Jordan shouts and points to the open stretch of road we can see behind the building. A car engine roars, the red compact fishtailing and then speeding out of sight. I look back to the runner and his clean appearance and relatively healthy state immediately makes sense.

  "Do you think he was their friend?"

  Jordan nods. "How much time do you think has passed since you first saw him?"

  I'm surp
rised by the question. "Um, I don’t know. Two minutes max."

  "Do you have a watch on?"

  "No, but I have my phone still."

  "Start timing this."

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and look at the clock, noting the time. "What am I timing?"

  He glances over at me, looks at my hands to make sure I've taken my phone out, and goes back to our zombie who still stands on the shore with his feet in the water.

  "How long it takes him to go from that," he says, pointing at the runner. Then he points to the shamblers and says, “To that.”

  "Do you think he will? Do they all start out like him?"

  "I hope so." His tone is grim. “Otherwise we’re in trouble.”

  We watch in silence for almost twenty minutes. The others make it down to shore and most walk into the water trying to get to us, but are swept away when they lose footing and the current gets them, just as Jordan said it would. He has to row us upstream several times because the current keeps trying to take us away too, and all the while the runner stands and stares. Occasionally he yells at us and it's starting to sound hoarse, but I can’t be sure if it’s from overuse and strain or his rapid decomp.

  "He's getting paler." I say in a low voice.

  "Yeah. And his body has been trembling. Did you see that? He's twitching."

  He’s right; the runner is starting to show signs of muscle spasm, and when he releases another shout, it comes out as a growl that tapers off into a very distinctive groan. He takes another step into the water but this time doesn't appear to notice it. He looks straight at us, his nose in the air catching our scent on the wind, then stumbles deep into the water, catches the current and is swept away.

  "How long?" Jordan asks, grabbing the oars and rowing us back upstream, getting some distance between us and the zombie.