She was covered in sweat, her muscles ached and she smelled like old fear, but they had done it. One of the stairwells was empty of the undead and they had a clear path out.
14
Lacy
Day 10
Escape
Lacy gingerly unwound and untied the harness, with Carla’s help, as the others fussed over Phil and dressed the gouges on his hands with strips of clean t-shirt. They had been trapped for over a freaking week in here and they finally had a way out. She had been despondent over Jessie for a while, but she made herself buckle up. He had either turned into one of those things, or he hadn’t. He was dead of dehydration in the detention room, or he wasn’t. He was home waiting on them, or she would probably never find him. They’d played the survival card games around the table and had the ‘what if’ discussion. What if tornado, what if nuclear war, what if EMP burst and all the rest of the scenarios. Do what you could, but in the end, the final answer was always to meet back at the house. If he were still alive, he’d be there.
It was late in the afternoon, and as much as she wanted to leave right then and there, she knew it made sense to wait until they had a full day ahead of them. It was going to be bad enough on the streets, they didn’t want to try it at night.
She slept well on one of the couches, and in the morning there was a sense of anticipation in the air as they ate. For her, it was the joy and dread of finally seeing whether her son was alive. All they had to do was walk down some steps, find a suitable vehicle in the valet area, get the keys, then drive home. Simple as that. She didn’t notice the glances and long silences from the others as she chatted away at the prospect of getting to the house. They had guns and food and everything they needed there.
She wondered how the screaming woman who had decided to stay behind was doing up on the twenty-eighth floor. Should someone go back up and tell her the path to her car was clear? Lacy said she wasn’t running up eighteen flights of stairs. There were more shared looks from Mr. Sato, Alex and Carla.
She and Phil started putting on their battle gear. The carpet strips were quickly taped on their arms and legs, and they grabbed the few weapons available. They were armed, armored, and ready to go. They didn’t bother packing any food, or any other supplies. All they needed were weapons. If they didn’t make it back to Lacy’s house in the next couple of hours, it meant they were probably dead. Phil handed her his gun and the extra magazine. With his hands so heavily bandaged, he was clumsy with it.
She noticed the others weren’t gearing up when she asked them if any of them needed her roll of duct tape.
“What’s up?” she asked, seeing the hesitation in them.
Lacy and Phil were ready to go, he was already cracking the fire door open to peek out into the stairwell. They had to get out, to check on families, but she sensed something in the others. She stopped and turned to face them.
“Hold up a sec, Phil,” she said.
She looked at them and they looked at each other, with furtive glances. They looked guilty of something.
“Uh…” Alex started.
Lacy got it. Instantly and clearly. It made perfect sense. She had been so caught up in her own world, she hadn’t noticed the mood of the others. She thought Alex and Carla had hooked up during the insanity of their all-day drunk, and neither one of them had any real reason to leave the safety of the building. Sure, the food situation wasn’t good, but they had free reign, now that the stairs were clear. The Canteen on the second floor probably had a lot of things that were still good. They would find enough to last for weeks, easily, maybe even a month. More time for those undead things to wander off, or rot away some more and slow down. There was no reason for them to risk their lives going outside. Mr. Sato’s situation was similar. What did he have outside the protection of the building, except probably an agonizing death.
Carla started to say something, but Lacy reached out and hugged her tight.
“I understand,” she said. “I really do. If I were you, I would stay, too.”
Carla hugged her back, tears starting in her eyes.
“You don’t have to go, Lacy. You could stay. It’s bad out there.”
“Could you live with yourself if you had a child and you didn’t try? If you just abandoned him?” she asked.
Carla shook her head. She had a choice, Lacy didn’t. Phil had family here, too. He had to know, he couldn’t just abandon them, either.
They said their goodbyes quickly, and within minutes she and Phil had their ears pressed against the lower level doors, listening for any sounds of movement. They had come across a few mangled crawlers on the stairs, but they had made quick work of them with short thrusts to the head. They were standing in piles of rags that used to be thousand-dollar suits and random discarded shoes. The stench was cloying and gaggingly thick. Nearly bad enough to make their eyes water. The LED safety lights were nearly done for, the batteries on the last bit of life, so they could barely see. That was probably a good thing, Lacy thought, because some of the clothes she was stepping on felt like they might have body parts still in them.
Phil pushed against the door and felt resistance. Something, or somebody, was up against it. He tried a little harder, not wanting it to spring open too far and alert any undead out there. It gave a little, enough for Lacy to see out. The natural light from two stories above filtered down enough for her to spot the problem. A car was backed up against it. It had run over the railing that protected the walkway and came to a rest against the door. She could see the driver’s door was open. She’d bet dollars to donuts the owner hadn’t bothered to throw it in park before he bailed out in such a hurry. She looked all over for movement and didn’t see any.
“Push harder, it’s just a car,” she told Phil.
He rolled his eyes, grunted, and put his back into it. It moved forward enough for her to slip out and she grabbed the lumpy thing she was standing on to use as a wheel chock. Phil pushed a little harder and she kicked the arm under the rear tire to hold the car in place long enough for him to squeeze through the opening.
She made a face and wiped her hand off on one of the carpet strips taped to her arm.
“This way,” Phil whispered, and they hugged the wall, moving slow and staying in the shadows, making their way to the parking attendants’ booth. The windows were shattered, old blood was sprayed across the keys hanging neatly in rows, and the door was hanging askew on one hinge. They stepped quietly over the threshold, trying not to crunch on the glass. The keys were each hanging above a numbered parking spot. Phil pointed to a black rectangle with Range Rover imprinted in chrome on the B-97 hook.
“That one,” he whispered, looking over his shoulder for any movement. “That’s Mr. Young from 38th.”
“Good call,” Lacy whispered back as she snagged the smart key and they headed into the dimness half a story below. A Range Rover was a good choice. They’d never owned one, a little too rich for them, but she knew they were legendary for their toughness. They were four-wheel drive and could climb as well as a Jeep, but you’d get to the top of the mountain with massaging leather seats, while listening to a premium sound system and eating a fancy man’s sandwich slathered with Grey Poupon. When they came up to the parking spot, she stopped short and looked at Phil.
“Whose car is this?” she asked, just staring at it in disbelief.
“Armani Young,” Phil replied. “He’s a hip-hop producer. They got offices on the 38th.”
Lacy didn’t know what to say. She had expected a beefed-up luxury truck. A city guy’s idea of an off-road vehicle. Maybe some oversize mud tires, a big brush guard, and not a speck of dirt on it. What she saw was a lifted SUV, backed into the parking spot with tall, tall tires. One of those cars the kids called Donks. She was surprised it cleared the low ceilings. Phil saw the look on her face and quickly explained.
“We’re not in Ellijay, Miz Lacy. You won’t find any redneck pickup trucks in here. It’s got 33s and all-wheel drive. He’s got a
gold-plated skid plate up front. It’s got lots of ground clearance, and we ain’t going mudding. Those tires will climb over anything that gets in our way.”
He was right, of course. She just hadn’t expected to make her getaway in a hundred-thousand-dollar rapper’s car. She nodded and they slipped up next to it.
“What about him? What if he comes down and needs it, and we’ve stolen his car?”
“He just parks this here because we have the cameras and 24-hour security,” Phil said. “He usually drives a white Audi. An R8.”
She shook her head, staring at a car that cost as much as their house. “We were in the wrong business, Phil. Do the lights flash and the horn blip when we unlock it?” she asked, examining the fob, looking for the button that would extend the key so she could start it up as soon as they jumped in. This was so far above her pay grade, she couldn’t even figure out how to open the door.
“Naw,” Phil said. “He let me park it once. Just push the button.”
She did and the door scissored up toward the ceiling, Lamborghini style.
“Can you drive with your hands cut up?” she whispered and offered him the fob. “I’ll do the shooting, if it comes to that.”
He nodded and they climbed in and pulled the doors back down as quietly as they could. The gauges all came on and the shifter knob popped up when he hit the start button once. Soft classical music came over the sound system. They both smiled. Not at all what she had expected.
“You ready?” he asked one last time, taking a deep breath and pulling the seatbelt tight.
“Let’s roll,” she said, and he hit the start button again, bringing the big V-8 to life.
15
Jessie
Leaving Lake House
The refrigerator reeked when they opened it, so they pulled out everything that had spoiled and tossed it over the railing. After a few minutes debate, they took all the shelves out. It would make a ‘very last resort’ safe place to go. The absolute last line of defense for two of them, if the house was overrun. Doug grabbed two of the pistols and put them in. One in the freezer, one in the refrigerator. No one asked what they were for. It was kind of obvious. If you were forced to hide in the side by side, you didn’t have many options left. A bullet in the head was better than slow starvation, or insanity from hearing them clawing at the doors night and day.
They rigged one of the office chairs up for Gary. With a belt helping to hold him upright, and a couple of sticks with balls of tape wound around the ends, he was able to maneuver around by himself.
They checked their defenses.
Jessie’s mom had one of those gutter chains that fed into a rain barrel with a spout that she used to water her plants on the upper deck. They had gotten it for her for Mother’s Day last year. There wasn’t a hose spigot up there, and she hated dragging the garden hose up the steps. It would provide plenty of water whenever it rained.
Jessie's dad had nearly any tool they wanted in the garage, and after a little experimentation, they got the noise level down to almost nothing on the .22 rifles. Gary remembered a game where he used an oil filter as a silencer. After rooting around in the garage, Jessie came up with some for his dad’s truck and the Merc. A little tape around the end of the barrel and the oil filter could be shoved on and fit snugly. By mounting scopes from the big rifles, the cross hairs were up high enough to see over the canister. It took them a while to zero them in, but they had plenty of time and plenty of ammo. Soon, they were all getting headshots with every round. The bodies started piling up and soon they were tossing things out in the yard so they would chase it. Once they were away from the deck, they would drop them on the hillside. By late afternoon, there were hundreds of bodies spread out all over the grass. Probably got most of the zoms that were still in the neighborhood, they figured.
Sheila and Gary made pasta for dinner, heating up the sauce and water on the grill. Jessie dug out a deck of playing cards from the junk drawer. They didn’t know many games, they hadn’t grown up playing with these kinds of cards. They had Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering cards. Jessie had his decks of those, but not enough to pass around to everyone.
After the third argument of which hand was a winner in the poker game they were trying to play, Jessie had an idea.
“Hey,” he said. “You guys know Caleb?”
They did, and the looks on all of their faces said they knew him well. He was the uber-dork in the school. Every school had the best football player, the prettiest girl, the smartest math whiz and the dorkiest dork. Caleb was him. He was the guy who would eat his boogers in class. He would put hot sauce in his pudding. He still played with action figures at lunch time, even though he was in the tenth grade. He was also the president of the Society of Middle Earth Recreative Exploration. Better known as the Dungeons and Dragons club, that met at the comic book store every weekend.
“And you know this how?” Sheila had asked sarcastically when he told them he had the best D&D games and books. She was miffed that they had overruled her poker win. They insisted that three of a kind beat two pairs, but she still wasn’t convinced.
“He lives five houses down,” Jessie said.
The boys looked at each other appraisingly. They had all played. Doug and Jessie quite a bit. They were kind of too cool for it now, but it WAS the apocalypse and it was fun and they were bored. They used to spend days at a time playing campaigns. If they didn’t have the game consoles, it was the next best thing.
“I’ll stay here and fix snacks,” Gary volunteered, being the first to admit he’d like to play. Doug and Jessie grinned at each other.
“I’ll go if you do,” Jessie said, and they both jumped up to grab guns.
“Seriously, you’re going to risk your life for a stupid game?” Sheila asked.
“What risk?” Doug asked. “We’ve been killing zombies all day long. There isn’t any left around here.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and she’d played a few times with her brothers. It would be a fun way to pass the time. She was getting so bored with nothing to do. She’d been through Lacy’s closet a half dozen times already. She had such boring clothes.
“Check their fridge,” she said. “See if they have any Monster drinks.”
They were back in twenty minutes, arms loaded with campaign manuals, multi-sided dice and player’s handbooks. They had a bag full of hand-painted miniatures and reams of blank stat sheets. Gary had chips in a bowl and they all whooped when one of the bags revealed Mountain Dew, Red Bull, and Monster. The candles were lit as the sun dipped below the horizon and Doug volunteered to be Game Master. While Jessie told them about how easy it was, how they hadn’t even seen a single zombie, Doug quickly read over the rules of the campaign they chose. Soon they happily forgot the world around them as they rolled their characters and Doug led them into the Labyrinths of the Abyss.
They played until near dawn before they found their beds and slept. They were up at noon, and after a quick check of their surroundings, they heated up ravioli and spam for breakfast. They poured Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch in a bowl, cracked open Monsters or Red Bulls and continued their campaign, by now deep into the Labyrinth and searching for the lost treasure of Al Ba’nith.
They forgot about the outside world. They tried to forget about friends or family. If they were still alive, they would have come to the school to rescue them, they wouldn’t have left them to die. They were gone. All they had was each other. Jessie imagined his mom being trapped downtown with a million screaming zombies and knew she didn’t make it. His dad was thousands of miles away. Even if he had survived, he’d never be able to get back. He was on his own, just him and his friends. They were safe and secure, they had all they needed to survive. All they had to do was pass the time. It had been so easy to raid Caleb’s house. They just walked in, took whatever they wanted, and left. They would do it again when the food started running low, or they got bored with what they had. All the zombies nearby were dead and if more wa
ndered in, they would kill them, too. Life wasn’t so bad in the apocalypse. Nowhere near as bad as it was in all the games and TV shows.
They made more raids to the neighboring houses. Their supplies weren’t running low, they didn’t need anything. They were just bored, tired of sitting around at the table. Scared and careful at first, by the third house they were nearly swaggering as they broke in. It was so easy. They were heavily armed and just shot any zombie they came across. The neighborhood was nearly empty of the undead and they were quick to put down any they saw. They didn’t have to go out, they didn’t need anything. But they wanted things. They wanted the thrill of adventure. They wanted to open drawers and prowl through the neighbor’s secret things. They found the adult toys and had mock sword fights, laughing like only teenagers can. They looked longingly at the new PlayStation System and all the games they hadn’t played yet. They took the best foods they found.
Every day they lost a little bit more of who they were, and started becoming new people. Jessie, Doug, and even Sheila could kill one of the undead without any second thoughts. They didn’t even try to move the bodies from where they fell in the houses, just stepped over them and went about their business of looking around. Seeing what there was to see, and taking anything that caught their fancy. They didn’t even have any close calls. It was so easy dealing with the dead now that they knew how. It wasn’t like back at the school when they weren’t prepared. When they were scared. They had guns now, and they knew how to kill. They only skipped a few houses, people Jessie had known and liked. He told them not to bother the old retired couple’s house who lived at the end of the block. The old man had cooked up many a fried fish and pickles for him, he couldn’t bear rummaging through their things. His mom had taken them to the airport the day all this craziness started. He wondered if they made it to the cruise ship, or had been caught at the airport.
The Zombie Road Omnibus Page 44