"How do we do that? How many people are even left?"
"Who knows," Jake shrugged. "There were somewhere around 350 million people in America alone before the infection broke out. There have to be millions still alive. Some form of civilization must still exist. We'll find it."
Jake cleaned up the trays and silverware and came back to find Vickie still slump shouldered in the chair, staring down at the tabletop.
“Listen, you should get some rest. Do you know how to use a gun?" he asked, holding out one of his 9mms.
Vickie stared at the automatic as if she'd never seen a gun before.
"Okay, you really won't need one in the building here. Take the single bedroom upstairs. The shutters can be closed and locked but it should be safe enough that far off the ground that you can leave them open if you want some fresh air. You can lock the door from the inside and there's a Coleman lantern so you won't have to fumble around in the dark, just close the shutters again while you have it lit, okay?"
"Okay. What's a Coleman lantern?"
With a sigh, Jake went upstairs with her and showed her how to operate the lantern.
"Alright. All set now?" he asked as he paused in the doorway on his way out.
"Yes. And, Jake? Thank you for saving me."
"Well, at least now I'll have someone to talk to. Get some sleep. I'll wake you for breakfast."
Chapter 8: Trip to the Mall
The party was in full swing. Trace and Joyce were there along with Kevin and Mandy and at least a dozen other friends and friends of friends. Vickie was dancing with Chuck, pressing close to him, enjoying being in his arms, feeling his arousal rubbing against her through his pants. He whispered in her ear and she giggled and nodded and they slipped away into one of the bedrooms. His hands roamed her body, caressing, fondling, squeezing. She raised her blouse and Chuck took a firm nipple into his mouth as Vickie moaned softly. He tugged at her shorts and she stepped out of them and allowed him to lower her onto the bed, shuck his trousers and move atop her. There was a knock at the door and Vickie became even more excited at the prospect of being discovered. The knock sounded again, louder and she called out for whomever it was to go away as she wrapped her legs around Chuck's back.
The knocking came once again, louder and more insistent and Vickie opened her eyes in annoyance and discovered she was alone in a strange room on a strange bed. She heard Jake's voice calling her name and sat up.
"Yes! What is it?"
"Breakfast is nearly ready."
"Breakfast? What time is it?"
"It's a little after seven. I let you sleep in a while. Figured you were tired. Come on down when you're ready. There's a lot to do today."
"Seven o'clock?" thought Vickie. "That's sleeping in?"
Reluctantly she threw off the covers. She'd not thought about that night, that party, her rendezvous with Chuck since the world collapsed. It was the night before the first reports were released of the outbreak hitting U.S. soil. He'd picked her up at her place and they barhopped for a couple of hours before heading over to his friend's house for the party. They danced, they drank, and smoked some good weed and they laughed and joked with their friends and co-workers. That happy night was barely two months in the past, but she knew her world would never be that carefree again. Chuck was supposed to pick her up after work on that last day, but the streets had been sheer chaos; people hurrying, screaming, shouting, looting, fighting. Scotty had commandeered a short bus, Peterson finally persuaded her to join him and the rest of the workers, and they made a harrowing journey to his house. Along the way, Vickie recognized Chuck's blue Mustang abandoned two blocks down the road, blood staining the front seat and open door; so much blood. Last night was the first time she could remember dreaming about anything but horror and her eyes welled up with tears thinking about the man she'd thought she might spend the rest of her life with.
Drying her eyes, she went into the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, she walked into the dining area to find pancakes and fried spam and coffee waiting. Jake was just finishing his breakfast when she plopped down into a chair in front of the plate he'd made for her.
"Good morning," he said with just a hint of impatience.
"How long have you been up?" she asked him.
"Since around five."
"Five o'clock? What on earth did you get up at five for?"
"Had things to do," he shrugged. "I did a perimeter check, cleaned the rifle I used yesterday, packed a few things for the trip to the strip mall, made this delicious meal."
"Wait, a trip to the mall? Why are you going to the mall?"
"Correction; we're both going to the mall."
"What on earth for?"
"Well, for starters, there's a couple clothing stores there. I thought you might like something other than those fatigues you're wearing, and some shoes that actually fit,” he said, glancing at her flip-flops. “I cleaned up the ones you were wearing when I found you as best I could, but you need something more practical. Then there's the drug store, where we can pick up things like painkillers, antiseptics, bandages, maybe antibiotics in the pharmacy section. I had a lot of that at my old place and there are some basic first aid supplies here on the island, but I need to restock now. And, I'm sure there are probably some, ah, feminine products you might need. There's also a supply of water jugs, like the ones they use in water coolers. We'll grab as many of them as we can find. Cases of bottled water, canned food, boxed food, anything that doesn't need refrigerated, tools, anything useful we might come across."
"But, we've got plenty of food and water here already, haven’t we? Why do we have to go out there where... where -they- are?"
"Yeah, we do have enough food and water to last a while, but you'd be surprised at how fast it goes. If we have to leave here for some reason, we can't just take one of those huge water cubes with us, and after the boxed and canned stuff is gone the MREs will still fill you up, but they tend to get a little boring when you're on a steady diet of them. I'm also hoping to find some LP bottles to hook up to the stove so we can save the tank for when we need to run the generator, maybe take a spin by the hardware store to see if we can pick up some lumber later on to reinforce the fence and the gate, maybe-"
"Okay, I get the idea. It sounds like we're going to be here a while."
"It's as good a place as we're likely to find for the time being. We’re well supplied here; the building is defensible, comfortable, or as comfortable as can be expected at any rate. How much of what's going on out there have you actually seen?"
"Not much beyond what was on television before the power went out. After that, we all stayed inside at Mr. Peterson's house. I don't think anyone except Jerry ever went outside. And he never came back."
"The infection hit this area pretty hard. It seemed like hundreds of people all turned around the same time and it was more than the authorities could contain,” Jake told her. “Television didn't show a tenth of what really went on. You're lucky you missed the worst of it."
"I can't imagine anything worse than the things I've seen in the last two days," Vickie protested.
Jake looked at her for a long moment.
"You have no idea. I’ve seen corpses by the thousands, people taken down and eaten alive right in front of me. You’re the first living soul I’ve come across in two weeks. From what I've seen just lately, there are so many dead the infected must be having a hard time finding meals now. They're beginning to move around a lot more, migrating more, searching for prey, I suppose. The healthier ones, for want of a better term, have started to feed off the slower, weaker ones. Just starting to now, mind you, but I think it's going to start happening more often in the coming weeks."
"So, they're dying off?” Vickie cried with a note of hopefulness in her voice.
"I didn't say that. Don't get your hopes up too much; they're not going to go away any time soon. I do think their numbers will start to dwindle, at least a bit. And I suspect they'll have a hard time of it once
winter hits. I don't think most of them have the brainpower to try to find somewhere warm to hole up. They'll freeze once the weather gets too cold, and I'm hoping for a cold winter."
"What about us? Will we be able to survive the winter here?"
"We should be fine until spring. We'll have to start scouting for a new location before then."
"But, why?" she looked at him pleadingly. "You said yourself this is a good place to hole up!"
"It is. It's a great place. Trouble is, it's in the middle of the river. In normal times, that wouldn't be a problem, but there's a small dam upriver, about five or so miles. They usually start to drain the reservoir over the winter so it can handle the spring thaw, but if no one is left to open the floodgates, the water behind the dam is going to keep building up and the dam might not be able to hold it back. If the dam fails, it’s possible the island will get washed away or flooded out. I’ll check it out when the weather starts to warm up to see how much water there is, but we’ll have to be ready to move out of here, away from the river and onto higher ground if it looks bad. Anyway, I see I'm going to have to show you how to handle a weapon, and we'll want to do that away from the island so the neighbors won't get curious. Right now I'll show you a few things with an unloaded gun, in case you need it before then."
. . .
Twenty minutes later, after a brief tutorial on loading, aiming and firing a Glock, they were in the Hummer heading south down the road toward the strip mall. Vickie gazed nervously out the windows at scenes of horror all along the highway. The throngs of infected that had inundated the area seemed to have dwindled into small groups and loners, but they had left death and gore in their wake. Jake used the big Hummer to nudge abandoned cars off to the side of the road here and there, but mostly the roads were relatively clear; the infection had hit this area too suddenly and spread too quickly for a mass exodus to take place. Infected occasionally charged the car in their clumsy, staggering way and he bounced more than a few off the fenders.
The mall came into view half an hour further on; a line of stores and shops along the roadside. Two fast food joints, clothing stores, a drug store, tattoo and tanning parlor, a few specialty shops and a gas station along with a number of empty storefronts constituted the old, declining strip mall. Jake had rigged up a hand pump with a long hose and the first thing he did was stop at the gas station, pry the lid off one of the underground tanks and fill three, five gallon gas cans and top off the Hummer. So far, so good as no infected came near enough to be a threat.
Next, they hit the drug store, filling a duffel bag with pill bottles, salves and ointments, bandages and whatever else he thought might be useful. While Vickie picked up some feminine products, he went into the pharmacy section, pried open a locked cabinet and swept prescription painkillers and antibiotics into the duffel along with all the bags of filled prescriptions waiting to be picked up by people who would never come to claim them. Then they carried six cases of bottled water out to the Hummer, plus all the non-perishable food they could find, Jake also taking the time to load a dozen cartons of cigarettes. After that, they went into the clothing store and Vickie sorted through the racks of clothing while Jake loaded jeans, shirts, jackets, shoes, socks and underwear into a shopping cart. As he headed for the door, he saw Vickie holding up two hangered blouses, looking back and forth between them as if trying to decide which she liked better.
"This isn't the time to be fashion conscious," he growled at her. "Grab an armful and let's get moving!"
She placed several outfits and pairs of shoes neatly into a cart and began looking at sunglasses and Jake dragged both carts to the Hummer, shaking his head. After loading the contents into the back of the vehicle, he decided he could afford to indulge her for a few minutes while he stopped and lit a cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs while scanning the area for threats. On his third puff, he heard Vickie scream. She'd opened a bathroom door and found an infected sitting on the floor. Backing away in panic, she tripped on the leg of a display rack, fell and began scuttling backward as fast as she could manage. Jake came running, his machete in hand, and split the creature's skull. Vickie screamed again and he spun around to see four more infected stumbling out of the bathroom. He all but decapitated the first one while drawing a Glock with his left hand and put two slugs into the second one's chest but the third was on him.
Jake held his right arm up to shield his throat and the infected sank its teeth into the heavy leather armlet. It hurt like hell, but didn't penetrate the leather and break the skin. The last one moved in and Jake managed to get his left hand at its throat to hold it back, away from his face.
"Shoot!" he screamed at Vickie. "Shoot them! For God's sake, do something!"
Vickie was too shocked to do anything but continue to scuttle along the floor, putting distance between her and the remaining two infected. With both of them pressing him, Jake began to backpedal quickly toward the wall to keep from being bowled over. He came up hard against a wall-mounted display rack and a protruding metal peg sank into the flesh of his left shoulder as his body slammed into it. His back now braced, he had enough leverage to kick out with his right foot, the heavy steel toe snapping the shinbone of the infected chewing at his arm. It released his arm as it fell to the floor and Jake hit the other one hard in the side of its face with the butt of the machete. He had only a moment’s respite, but he managed to draw his second pistol and shot the one still standing through the eye and put two bullets into the head of the one on the floor.
He braced his right hand against the wall, gritting his teeth and groaning loudly in pain as he pulled free from the post. He stumbled, fell to his knees, then got up again and looked at Vickie, still lying on the floor, wide-eyed.
"We have to go now!" he spat, and Vickie's eyes seemed to focus and she got clumsily to her feet and they went straight to the vehicle. Vickie tried to apologize to him several times on the drive back to the island, but he answered in the form of impatient, painful grunts. At the bridge, he grabbed the duffel in his right hand and staggered across to the building, twice stumbling to his knees, with Vickie following behind, weeping softly.
Inside, he made it into the dining room, dropped the bag and stripped to the waist before plopping onto a chair. He'd lost quite a lot of blood, the whole left side of his body from shoulder to calf was wet with it, but he was managing the pain. There was a large, ugly bruise on his right forearm where the infected had tried to bite into him and he flexed the fingers of his right hand painfully. Vickie stood staring at him, unable to move while he dumped the contents of the bag onto the floor.
"Are you going to stand there and watch me bleed to death?" he snarled at her.
Vickie took a hesitant step forward and then stopped again, eyes wide, mouth open, frozen in fear.
"Damn it! Get that bottle of peroxide and pour it over my wound!"
Still dazed, Vickie managed to open the bottle and pour it mostly on the open wound, then held a patch of gauze to it.
"You have to get some clean gauze and wet it down with the peroxide and clean out the wound so it doesn't get infected,” he explained to her, trying to keep his voice calm and level. “Then smear this antiseptic cream over it and hold this bandage tightly to it until the bleeding stops. Then tape a fresh bandage over the wound."
Vickie poured peroxide on the gauze and, very gingerly dabbed around the edges of the wound with it.
"You need to clean it out, Vickie. I need you to do this. I can't reach it to do it myself. It has to be cleaned out. You have to do it for me," he instructed her, keeping his voice as even and steady as he could manage.
Hesitantly, she probed the wound, pressing the gauze into it with her finger. Jake flinched in pain and she stopped and drew away, trembling.
"Vickie," he said softly. "There's no time for you to be queasy. This has to be done and you're the only one who can do it. Please, Vickie!"
She nodded and began to clean the wound again, her skin crawling an
d her stomach rebelling as she poked at the bloody opening while Jake gripped the table edge tightly. At last, she smeared the cream over and into the wound and pressed a bandage to it for several minutes until the bleeding slackened off to a slow seepage. After taping another bandage in place, she tried to help him to the stairs, but he went to his knees and couldn't get back up. She went up to the bunkroom while he sorted through the containers on the floor to find some strong painkillers. She pulled the thin mattress off one of the bunks and brought it down, helping him onto it, then she went back up and got a pillow and a couple of blankets and brought those down to him, too. She made him as comfortable as she could and he gazed up at her with unfocusing eyes, which slowly closed as he drifted off into unconsciousness.
Still shaking, Vickie sat on the floor next to him, watching his chest rise and fall while he slept, frightened at how pale his face looked. When she glanced down at her bloody hands, bile suddenly began to boil up in her throat and she ran through the kitchen and out the back door to vomit in the grass. When she was finally done heaving, she went back into the kitchen and washed her hands and face. Back in the dining hall, she pulled a chair up closer to Jake and sat with her head buried in her arms on the table. She knew that, for all practical purposes, she'd been useless to him. Even after the danger had passed, it was only at his repeated urging that she attempted to help with his wound and, at that, she nearly wasn't able to cope. All her life there had always been someone else to help her, to do the hard or dirty things she couldn’t or didn't want to do herself. Now, when someone else needed to count on her, she'd let him down. Tears came to her eyes and washed down her cheeks and she sobbed, feeling sorry for herself.
Long minutes later, she decided she had to do something. Back in the kitchen, she washed her face again with cold water and went back, cleaned the blood from the floor and picked up the contents of the duffel that had been strewn over it. She organized and arranged the antibiotics and painkillers neatly in a couple of small baskets and stored them in the cupboard at the right end of the kitchen. Next, she opened the front door and scanned the area around the bridge and the Hummer, making sure no infected were nearby. Then she went across the bridge with the wheelbarrow and began loading their supplies and pushing them back across. After her third trip, pushing a load of bottled water across and unloading it in the entrance hall, she leaned against the doorway to let overused muscles rest. She lit up a cigarette, the first one she'd smoked since quitting shortly after high-school and, after a brief coughing fit, settled down on the grass for a short rest.
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 4