by AJ Powers
“CALLING FOR HELP… CALL HAS FAILED… REDIALING… CALL HAS FAILED. PLEASE DIAL 9-1-1 FROM YOUR CELLULAR DEVICE.”
Dazed and feeling woozy, Tessa shrugged off the speaking voice and turned around to see Naomi grabbing at her stomach, doubled over in pain. TJ, who was just coming back to reality, started to cry. His expression was filled with fear rather than pain.
“Are you okay?” Tessa asked Naomi.
“My stomach really hurts, but I think I’m okay.”
Tessa was terrified at the possible diagnosis, but there was nothing she could do out in the middle of the street, especially with the large group of infected chasing after their scent. They needed to get out of the area and find somewhere safe before she could assess the injuries.
Twisting the key, the engine kicked and sputtered for several seconds before coming back to life. “Yes!” Tessa shrieked excitedly. Wasting no time, she dropped the car into reverse and backed out onto the road. Slamming it into drive while still rolling backward, the Porsche bucked forward as Tessa pressed down on the gas.
Even without the host of warnings lighting up the dashboard, Tessa could tell the engine wasn’t running properly. It misfired several times in a matter of minutes, and the acceleration was dramatically reduced. There was a shudder in the steering wheel that hadn’t been there before, and she was constantly fighting the car’s urge to drift to the right. She didn’t need to be a mechanic to know the car was in rough shape, but hopefully it would hold out long enough to get to the marina.
A short time later, the LED display on her dash spat out another, but more immediate problem: ENGINE COOLANT LOW.
With nothing to be done about the issue, Tessa continued to drive around the neighborhood, looking for the main road they’d come in on. But before they could find their exit, white smoke began trickling out of the hood. A few blocks later, the smoke was too thick to see through. The temperature gauge kept rising, and soon the engine started knocking.
Then it died.
Tessa hit the brake and slowed to a stop next to the curb. “Get your brother,” she ordered as she reached across the seat for the medical bag. Throwing the strap over her neck, she opened the door and nearly fell out of the car. She felt weak, and the world was still spinning, but she didn’t have the luxury of allowing the likely concussion to sideline her. She needed to get her children somewhere safe.
“Over here!” Tessa said quietly while Naomi struggled to pull her hysterical brother out of his car seat.
Tessa pulled her gun out as they limped their way to the front porch of a small duplex on the corner of the street. Keeping her gun trained on the door, Tessa reached for the handle with her free hand.
Locked.
“Damn it,” she sighed as she moved over to the second door on the opposite end of the porch. Also locked. “Follow me,” Tessa said before stumbling down the porch steps. She moved around to the back of the house and fumbled with the gate latch for what felt like an eternity before she was finally able to push it open.
Keeping her pistol aimed at the back door, she cautiously approached and tried the handle. Still no luck. But Tessa decided to make her own luck and used the handle of her gun to knock out the corner of the window. Reaching inside, she unlatched the deadbolt and popped the door open. Stepping aside, Tessa held the door open. “Hurry!” she said, as if Naomi wasn’t already aware of the gravity of their situation.
Following them inside, Tessa shut and locked the door, hoping the infected wouldn’t find them. Or, if they did, hoping they weren’t smart enough to figure out how to work the lock on the other side of the broken window. From her limited experience, and what she’d heard on TV, the infected weren’t terribly bright. However, their aggressive behavior more than made up for their dimwitted nature.
Closing the curtains on the back door, Tessa walked through the tiny kitchen into the living room, where Naomi was trying to soothe TJ. It took the better part of twenty minutes to comfort him, but after Naomi was able to find a pack of cookies in one of the cabinets, the boy finally calmed down.
During the respite of tears, Tessa took the opportunity to examine injuries. The fact that some sweets and a picture book could distract TJ from his pain was a relief, and Tessa knew she didn’t need to be too worried about him at the moment. But Naomi was still holding her stomach, and that had Tessa panicked. Grabbing the stethoscope and blood pressure cuff out of the bag, Tessa had Naomi lie down on the couch while she asked a series of questions.
Without lab equipment or advanced imaging systems, Tessa couldn’t be one hundred percent confident there wasn’t any internal bleeding, but as best as she could tell, Naomi didn’t have any injuries. At least, nothing that wouldn’t heal over the next couple of weeks, anyway.
With Naomi still resting on the couch, Tessa did a precautionary check on TJ, who seemed more bothered that he needed to stop eating his snack than with any of the wounds he might have sustained. Tessa felt her muscles relax for the first time since she was blindsided by the infected man. The children would be okay, and although her head was pounding, and she still felt the urge to throw up, she’d live.
Most likely.
Between her violent trembles and the disabled car out front, Tessa abandoned their plans to make it to the marina by nightfall. They would stay for the night to try to recover from the accident, and, one way or another, finish the rest of the trip tomorrow.
Chapter Six
6 – Springdale, Ohio – May 24th
Malcom spent the morning reliving family memories, both great and small, as he toured the family’s favorite spots. He’d first stopped by a small coffee house in Seven Mile that they visited nearly every Sunday morning before church. The children’s joy when they ordered their favorite frozen drinks echoed through his heart. He could still see the twins toddle from the counter, proudly holding their very first drinks. One of them, but he couldn’t remember which one, dropped her cup, spilling the contents across the floor. With wide eyes, she looked to Malcom and said, “Uh-oh,” before turning around to get napkins so she could clean the mess herself.
After the coffee shop, he headed over to Joyce Park, which was not only the scene for Mackenzie’s first soccer goal, but also the location where he and Cameron held their budget wedding reception. The outdoor reception was as memorable as it was enjoyable, and even the rain hadn’t stopped the bridal party and some guests from playing softball. Cameron’s parents’ refusal to pay for any of the wedding was a bitter slap in the face to his bride-to-be, but the memories they made that day—the laughter they shared—were far greater than anything money could have given them. The hostile feelings her parents had toward their marriage was something of a blessing in disguise. And even though it took Cameron several years to truly patch things up with her parents, Malcom didn’t regret how any of it played out. Up until recently, that is.
Frontier Freddy’s, a local grocery store-turned-tourist-attraction, was his next stop. The kids always loved going there to dance with the various singing animatronics, or gaze in awe at the large tanks of fresh lobsters and catfish milling about in the water. They also enjoyed the small candy shop section that offered a sizable variety of unusual sweet treats.
Malcom ventured over to the impossibly large beer and wine section, where he took his time choosing a bottle of beer. He tried several that he really didn’t care for before finally finding an IPA from Texas. Satisfied with his choice, he grabbed an extra one and put it into his backpack before heading over to the opposite side of the store for a pack of his favorite venison jerky.
It was there that he’d run into a pair of infected.
Despite standing in the middle of the largest grocery store in the greater Cincinnati area, gorging themselves on rotting packs of meat and produce, the man and woman looked at him as if he was the first bite of food they’d seen in years. In a different life, their cries of bloodlust might have sent a tremor down Malcom’s spine, but he had no fear left to offer the monste
rs.
Instead, he welcomed their attempts to make him dinner.
The woman screeched toward him furiously, her bare feet slapping against the vinyl floor as she let out a piercing howl. Saving his ammo for more dire situations, Malcom reached for a metal stand that held produce bags and stepped into his swing. The broad, flat base of the stand connected with the side of the woman’s head, the sharp point of the corner driving into her skull. The crunch of her fracturing bone and twang of the metal stand reverberated off the metal ceiling above, creating a rather sickly sound that prompted the infected man to charge.
Letting out a hungry cry equally as shrill as the woman’s, the heavy man stamped across the floor, looking as if he had eaten another person. Malcom dropped the metal stanchion in favor of a half-full cart of groceries. Angling the cart toward the man, Malcom ran at him full speed, initiating a mortal game of chicken with the human rotunda. The bottom rail of the cart made first contact with the man’s right ankle, forcing his upper body into the basket.
Hopping to the side, Malcom gleefully watched as the small train wreck unfolded in front of him. The cart and its passenger nearly did a full three-sixty before tipping over, smacking the man and the groceries into the ground. A furious roar from the depths of the infected man’s gut echoed through the store as he tried to stand up, but his right foot flopped around, causing him to drop back to the floor.
Undeterred, the man crawled vengefully toward his prey until Malcom drove his knee into the infected’s spine. Grabbing a fistful of hair, Malcom yanked the man’s head back and reached for the knife on his belt.
“Burn in hell,” Malcom said through gritted teeth as his blade swept across the infected man’s throat.
The man kicked and thrashed at Malcom, but his resistance slowly faded with each ounce of blood that poured from his neck. Within thirty seconds, the movement ceased, and the store fell quiet once again.
After he caught his breath, Malcom calmly walked over to the shelves in front of him and got what he came for: a pack of venison jerky. After he indulged on a few pieces, he stuck the rest of the bag into his pocket and left the store, satisfied that two less demons walked among the living.
Malcom parked his truck beneath the large awning in front of Arcadia and headed inside. A trio of infected immediately rushed him, forcing him to turn his FAL loose. All three infected went down without protest, and Malcom waited in the lobby for more to come. As expected, infected staggered out from all over the massive sports bar-slash-restaurant-slash-arcade to investigate the rifle’s thunderous boom. Hiding in the shadowed corner with no chance of being ambushed, Malcom lined up each of his shots as the infected came down the long corridor leading to the arcade. One by one, they fell, none of them making it more than halfway before a full metal jacket bullet rocketed through their heads. Then, as if God decided to give him an easy lay-up, two infected started their run down the hallway, one perfectly behind the other. Malcom squeezed the trigger and watched as the bullet bored through the woman leading the charge, striking the man directly behind her.
Malcom counted nineteen shots and initiated a reload. However, he was forced to abandon the reload when he heard another scream. He reached for his pistol as the gangly man came out from behind the bar, getting closer than Malcom would have liked. But the two shots to the chest from his Glock stunned the man long enough for Malcom to level his sights for a head shot.
The man’s head flicked back before his body fell forward, collapsing onto a small table in front of him.
Malcom finished his reload as he listened for more threats. Satisfied that there were none, he stepped behind the front desk and grabbed a charge card from the rubber-banded stack next to the register. He pried open the cash register with his knife and emptied the till of all its twenties.
Navigating his way around seventeen bodies, Malcom traipsed down the deadly hallway and into the arcade. The sounds and lights bombarded him as he used the cash from the register to load the game card at a reload kiosk. With thousands of credits to use, he looked around the large, open room, trying to decide which game to play first. Some of them were old enough that Malcom remembered playing them as a kid, but most were newer and offered optional virtual reality headsets for those with a strong stomach. Of course, he avoided any of the games that required VR goggles, as it eliminated his ability to see actual threats coming his way.
Malcom started out with some Skee-Ball before moving on to a football-tossing game. He then spent twenty-five minutes trying to knock tokens off the edge of a platform with other tokens. The endeavor was pointless since the goal of the game was to earn tickets to purchase cheap merchandise inside the gift shop, but he continued to incessantly swipe his card for more tokens. There was something fulfilling about the sound as big piles of tokens spilled over and the ticket counter whirred to life.
Eventually growing bored with the ticket games, Malcom crossed over to the other side of the room to play the actual arcade games. After becoming a grandmaster martial artist on Teekin, Malcom’s eyes were drawn to the sleek, black, armored car in the middle of the room. His knees rocked as he nervously approached the latest and greatest superhero racing game. His palms grew sweaty, and his heart raced as he got closer. Despite the warnings his mind was screaming at him, Malcom climbed into the car and swiped his card. The game was incredibly realistic and very interactive, and as soon as he pressed start, life-like sound effects began to play as a canopy on the car shut overhead. A bright light came on above the screen, and he suddenly saw himself on display, a superhero mask decal covering his face. A camera shutter sound played, freezing a still image of Malcom’s solemn expression behind the mask.
This was a bad idea, he finally realized.
“Metro City needs your help, Hellbat!” the digital actress cried out on screen. “Please hurry!”
The screen went black, then the sound of what must have been a V-18 engine roared out of dozens of speakers inside the fake car’s cabin. The screen flashed to life, and suddenly Malcom was thrust into the middle of a high-speed car chase. Bad guys popped out from every which way, attempting to keep Malcom from reaching the boss, but Malcom made light work of the bad guys and progressed through the level with ease. Soon, he battled the evil clown and his henchmen, turning their rides into swiss cheese. The screen then flashed with excitement:
LEVEL COMPLETE.
RANKING: A+
TOP SCORES…
Malcom felt as if a horse had just kicked him in the chest. He couldn’t breathe and started to hyperventilate. He tore his eyes away from the screen, only to find them reluctantly returning.
The game displayed the top ten ranked players along with their avatar. In seventh place, Malcom saw the picture of himself. In his lap, little Donovan smiled brightly as they drove in his favorite hero’s car. So full of life. So full of joy.
Feeling like he was inside a coffin, Malcom slapped the canopy release button on the dashboard and the car’s roof slid back, allowing him to escape the nightmare. He dropped to the ground and leaned his back up against the car as he tried to get his breathing under control. He didn’t know why the picture evoked such a strong reaction from him. He looked at dozens of pictures of his son before he left the house that morning. Overwhelming pain always accompanied each picture he looked at, but the panic attack caught him off guard. Almost as if, for one moment in time while playing the game, Malcom believed that none of this had happened. That Donovan was right there in his lap, helping him steer and fire the Gatling guns at the bad guys. Squealing with joy as they restored order to Metro City. But, once Malcom saw the picture, he was reliving the apocalypse all over again in fast forward, reminding him that his family was gone. And they weren’t coming back.
Stricken with levels of grief that rivaled his darkest moments yet, Malcom was tempted to just end things there and then. But he decided against it. He had been planning this day for the past couple of weeks and was determined to see it through to the end. With a
reluctant groan, Malcom climbed to his feet and headed for the exit.
On to his final destination.
Chapter Seven
7 – Cincinnati, Ohio – May 24th
“Ahh, crap,” Malcom grunted as he threw the truck into park, letting it idle while he stared out the window at the mess in front of him.
He was a few miles out from downtown, and I-75 had become completely impassable. He thought about turning around and cutting across the Norwood Lateral to try his luck with I-71, but it had taken him several hours of juking and dodging stalled-out vehicles just to get this far, and for all he knew, 71 was in even worse shape.
Giving the clock on his dash a quick glance, Malcom decided to abandon the truck he’d had since high school and finish the journey on foot. He just hoped he’d be able to beat the sun.
Like with his rifle safe, Malcom left the keys in the ignition for anyone to take. There was about a quarter tank of gas left, and the thing still ran like a champ—even after all the years of abuse. He realized it was unlikely that the old girl would ever turn over again, but he felt better knowing he at least tried to help his fellow man in some small way while he was still alive.
Malcom dropped the tailgate and sat on the edge, enjoying a hearty meal of crumbled saltines and venison jerky. It wasn’t the best meal he’d ever had, but the caloric energy was necessary for him to finish out the rest of the trip on foot. After the jerky was gone, Malcom tossed what was left of the crackers into the bed of the truck, guzzled down the rest of his water, then hopped to his feet. Grabbing his FAL from the passenger’s seat, he press-checked to make sure his rifle was hot before he started walking.
He passed by several groups of infected along the way. He wanted to savagely execute each beast that crossed his path, but his location was anything but ideal for such engagements. He could take out a group or two, but the booming report from the 7.62x51 would eventually draw an entire herd, drastically reducing his chance to get off the highway at all. While living wasn’t exactly the end goal of his plan, he didn’t come all this way to go out like that. His life would end on his terms. Not theirs. So, Malcom kept his rifle lowered and judiciously slipped by undetected.