by J N Wood
I opened my eyes to long thin trees stretching towards a brilliant blue sky. It was a beautiful but confusing sight.
A few moments later I realised I was lying flat on my back on the snow, my arms splayed out to my sides.
I tried to lift myself up, but an intense pounding pain in the back of my head made me immediately lie back down. My head came to rest on something incredibly hard and uncomfortable. I groaned in pain and tried to lift myself up again, just enough so I could touch my hand to the back of my head. It felt wet. I waved my red finger tips across my slightly blurred vision.
Why was I lying on the floor in the freezing cold snow?
I heard scuffling noises and a raspy voice saying my name. A wave of nausea washed over me when I managed to sit up. It took all of my concentration not to throw up last night’s food. I closed my eyes and tried to stop the world from spinning. A couple of seconds later I opened them, and looked slightly to my right. I could see the back of a huge man, down on his knees and hunched over something. There was another man lying under him kicking and thrashing his legs, sounding like he was really struggling to breathe. It was probably because the giant’s massive hands were wrapped around the person’s neck, who was clawing at the giant man’s face in a feeble attempt to escape.
I looked at the struggling guy’s face again.
He looks familiar…a lot like my mate Jack.
My senses snapped back to me in a sudden rush.
Fucking hell, that’s Jack’s face, the giant is strangling Jack. I need to stop the giant from strangling Jack.
I got to my feet and looked for some kind of weapon. The pounding pain in the back of my head gave me the answer. I picked up the rock that my head had been using as an uncomfortable pillow, and staggered over to the two men, with the stupidly heavy rock in my hands. The nausea was still rolling over me in increasingly bigger waves, but I finally reached them and managed to lift the rock above my head.
I really tried not to do it but I couldn’t stop myself. My mouth opened involuntarily and vomit spewed out to splash onto the back of the giant man. My stomach muscles were contracting and I desperately wanted to bend forwards to get some relief from the pain. Yellow bits of cheesy macaroni mixed with beer bounced off the giant’s back, splattering onto the snow around the fighting men.
The giant roared and turned his huge head to face me. I let gravity do the work, and brought the rock down on to the back of his neck. He immediately collapsed onto Jack.
After staggering away I fell to my knees and vomited some more.
Jack was gulping for air under the giant man. ‘Chris, get this fat fuck off me,’ he gasped.
After getting my breath back and attempting to wipe some of the puke from my face I stood up. With some effort I rolled the giant off Jack, who took my hand as I helped him get to his feet. I bent down and checked the giant’s neck for a pulse. It took me a while but I eventually felt a heartbeat.
Jack was really struggling to breathe. ‘You were sick all over me, what the fuck?’ he wheezed, in between deep rasping breaths.
I looked up at him, his neck was already bruising, horrible red and purple patches were slowly appearing.
‘Come on, let’s get packed up and get out of here before the giant wakes up. You might have to drive. I think I’ve got concussion.’
I started to walk but after three or four steps I had to stop, the world was spinning again. Jack appeared beside me and helped me into the house.
I leaned against the basin in the disgustingly decorated bathroom, while Jack dabbed the back of my head with some toilet roll. It felt like he was stabbing me with a knife.
‘It looks quite bad,’ Jack said. ‘There’s a lot of blood but I can’t really see because it’s under your hair, and it’s covered in blood.’
I flinched and screwed up my face as he dabbed at the wound again.
‘Very helpful Jack. It’ll be fine,’ I hissed. The throbbing headache combined with the stabbing pains was making me feel light headed again. ‘I don’t want to hang around here, how’s your neck? Are you okay to drive?’
Jack said he was fine but just needed to change out of his sick covered clothes. He complained that his neck was sore and he was still struggling to breathe properly, but he was well enough to drive.
We packed up our stuff as quickly as possible. We hadn’t brought much into the house so it didn’t take long. I grabbed a few towels to wrap around my head, only worrying about them being contagious after I’d already placed one onto my open wound, immediately killing me if it was.
Bollocks, too late now. Might as well leave it there.
I walked an extra long way to get around the incapacitated giant, not just because of the huge amount of space he covered, but also because I didn’t want him to suddenly wake up and be within grabbing distance of me.
Jack started the Raptor’s engine and started driving us back to the main road. When we reached the end of the lane I asked him to stop. I climbed out with one of the towels and filled it with snow, making sure to get some of the really hard stuff that was in the shade. My hands were freezing but hopefully the ice would help my headache.
I reclined my seat back as far as it would go and rested my head against the snow filled towel. The ice pack was doing absolutely nothing for my headache but at least the stabbing pains were withdrawing. Weariness was rapidly enveloping me and I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I asked Jack to tell me what happened.
He said a loud bang woke him up, and then he heard shouting from outside. I was nowhere to be seen in the house so he went out to investigate. When he walked out of the front door he found me lying on the floor.
‘I thought he had killed you, but more importantly, he was stealing the Raptor,’ Jack said.
‘Yeah thanks, I’m sure you were really worried about me,’ I responded.
‘To be honest I didn’t have time to think about anything, I just knew I had to stop him. I pulled my gun out and ran towards him.’
I perked up at the mention of his gun. Would Jack actually shoot someone?
‘I obviously didn’t want to shoot him, so I thought I’d whack him over the back of the head with the butt of the gun. You know? Gangster style.’
He demonstrated by clenching his right fist and bringing it down on the steering wheel.
‘Didn’t work then?’ I asked.
‘No, of course it fucking didn’t, just pissed him off even more. He picked me up and threw me against the truck.’ He touched his right hip and winced. ‘Next thing I knew I was on the floor and he was strangling me. I honestly thought I was going to die. You started moving around a bit so I tried to call your name, I’m not sure if I made any noise though. When you eventually did wake up, you walked over and covered me in sick.’
‘I was sick on you and then I saved your life, don’t forget about that part.’
‘Thanks very much! Next time do it without the sick.’
I told Jack I was gonna try and get some sleep. I was really struggling to stay awake. My eyes were closed and I was well on the way to a blissful slumber, hopefully. Just before I slipped into unconsciousness I heard him say something about waking me up every now and then to make sure I was still alive.
I opened my eyes and I could see grass, lots of green grass.
‘Where did the snow go?’ I asked, honestly puzzled.
‘We’re on the other side of the hills, we made it through but it took us fucking ages,’ Jack replied.
I sat up and couldn’t stop myself from letting out a moan, I’d forgotten about my head. My shoulders and back were soaking wet and freezing cold. I was about to ask what had happened until I remembered the snow I’d been using as a pillow.
It seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but when I looked behind us I could see we were in the car park of some kind of restaurant. The sign was in front of us on the main road but I couldn’t quite read what it said.
Jack was staring intently at the brow of a hill over to our left. I
picked up my water bottle and took a much needed sip.
‘What are we doing? What time is it? And what the fuck are you looking at?’ I asked. ‘You may answer them in whatever order you like.’
‘I think I saw a car behind us. Every now and then I’ve been seeing something on the horizon, so I decided to pull over and wait for it.’ Jack continued to stare at the road. ‘Oh, and its twelve o’clock, you’ve been asleep for about five hours. I gave up trying to wake you up a while ago. You were snoring really loudly so I knew you were still alive.’
‘My head is still fucking killing me. How far behind us was it?’
I checked the back of my head with a very light scratch. My fingers came back with dried blood. At least the bleeding had stopped.
‘Not sure, it’s hard to say around here, everything is so vast and open. Must be miles away because it’s not here yet. It wasn’t catching us up so I thought I’d stop and wait.’
My jaw was causing me pain when I spoke so I wiggled it from side to side. ‘Where are we?’ I asked, in between the loud cracking noises I could hear every time I moved my jaw to the left.
‘We are just coming up to Walden so…’ Jack picked up the map from between the seats. ‘So we’ve got loads of fucking miles to go, over a thousand maybe,’ he said, humourlessly.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll soon be in Mountain View.’ I popped a couple of ibuprofen tablets in my mouth, swallowing them with a mouthful of water. I was starving so I leaned into the back seat and grabbed some crisps.
‘How long have we been sat here waiting?’
‘Five minutes maybe, we had only just pulled over when you woke up.’
‘How’s your neck?’ I asked.
‘It’s fine, only hurts when I touch it.’ Jack very gently touched his neck with his fingertips.
‘Don’t touch it then.’ I shovelled a few of the crisps into my mouth. ‘What’s the plan when this car drives past?’
‘No idea.’
‘Excellent plan,’ I said dryly, giving him two thumb’s up.
‘Well I’m kind of winging it and you were unconscious, so I made a decision.’
Should I ask Jack if he had heard anything from Beth?
I must have been asking him too often because his responses were getting really snappy on that subject. He’d tell me if he did hear anything so I should probably stop asking. I really needed to speak to Joanne, just a text or an email would have been amazing.
I’d consumed another packet of crisps and a diet coke by the time I heard the car coming, a few seconds later and it appeared over the brow of the hill. It was some kind of army vehicle, like a Humvee maybe. We were parked about fifty feet from the main road and were far from looking inconspicuous. There was nothing else around, just our huge red truck parked in front of a restaurant.
‘Hey Jack.’
‘What?’
‘Do you think they saw us on the road in front of them?’
‘Our bright red truck? Yeah probably. Why?’
‘Erm…no reason,’ I replied. ‘Only that they’re definitely gonna recognise us when they drive past. Let’s hope they’re the friendly army types and not some murderers that have stolen an army vehicle.’
The Humvee hurtled down the hill at a brisk pace, but slowed when it reached the lane where we were parked. For a brief moment I thought it might turn but it just slowly lumbered past.
‘Is this the plan then? I don’t mind if it is.’
Before Jack could respond the Humvee must have slammed the brakes on, because it skidded to a halt. A few seconds later it started reversing back along the road and stopped directly opposite us. The khaki brown coloured vehicle just sat there with its engine idling.
‘Maybe we should have hidden behind the restaurant,’ Jack said, regretfully.
Some very long seconds later, the Humvee slowly started to turn and head in our direction. It travelled at a very leisurely pace and stopped about twenty feet from us. I didn’t know what to do so I just waved.
‘Stop waving,’ Jack said, slapping at my hand. ‘I’m getting out.’
He opened his door, but before he could place his left foot on the ground a deafening high pitched screech rang out from the Humvee.
The screeching soon stopped and was replaced by a deep booming voice. ‘Do not exit your vehicle! Remain seated and keep your doors closed!’
The voice was loud, like it was being spoken into a loudspeaker.
Jack quickly pulled himself back in the truck and closed the door.
The voice spoke again, ‘Stay in your vehicle and keep your hands where we can see them! We are coming over to you, if you leave your vehicle we will be forced to fire upon you!’
We immediately lifted our hands up, I placed mine on the dashboard in front of me and Jack put his on the steering wheel. We were silent as two of its occupants exited the Humvee. Apart from the khaki coloured boots, the same colour as the Humvee, they were dressed in green and brown camouflage. They were also wearing black disposable gloves, much cooler looking than our transparent ones, and gas masks that covered their entire faces. Both of them were carrying identical looking rifles.
One took the lead and kept his gun aimed at our windscreen, switching between Jack and me. The other soldier followed behind him, slowly spinning around and aiming his gun everywhere apart from at us. Two more guns were sticking out of either side of the Humvee.
The lead soldier stopped a few feet away from Jack’s side, while the other one now had his gun aimed solely at me.
Jack’s soldier took his left hand away from his gun and gestured with one finger to lower the window. With a shaking hand Jack slowly let go of the steering wheel and pressed the button to roll his window down.
‘Are you infected?’ The lead soldier asked, his voice muffled by his gas mask.
Jack shook his head and quickly pointed at his eyes. ‘No, definitely not, we don’t have any of the symptoms.’
I noticed the soldier flinched slightly when Jack moved his hand to his face.
Only the soldier’s eyes were visible through his mask, they were rapidly switching between the two of us, probably looking for any signs of the virus.
‘Have you had any contact with the infected?’ he barked.
‘No, we’ve been avoiding people,’ Jack quickly responded.
My attention had been on the soldier talking to Jack, so I was shocked when the other one started shouting really close to my side of the truck. The end of his gun was almost touching my window.
‘Staff Sergeant!’ he screamed. ‘This one is infected. There’s blood all over his neck.’
Fuck, he’s talking about me. I just haven’t cleaned the blood off yet.
I looked to Jack for some help, or something.
Both soldiers stepped back five paces and leaned forward into their rifles.
‘Is he infected?’ the Staff Sergeant asked Jack, before looking at me. ‘Are you infected?’
‘What? I’m not infected!’ I shouted desperately, as Jack frantically shook his head.
The soldier nearest me took one step closer and leaned further into his gun. ‘Get out of the fucking vehicle! Now, now, now!’
I thought they were definitely going to kill me but my legs suddenly felt like dead weights. I wanted to get out but I couldn’t move. It looked like they were going to shoot me either way.
The soldier moved another step closer to me. ‘Staff Sergeant?’ he called.
‘Stand down Corporal’. The Staff Sergeant’s voice was much calmer now. Pointing at Jack, and then at me, he said, ‘Very slowly, both of you get out of the vehicle.’
The Staff Sergeant’s new calm tone settled me down. I was able to move my legs again. I lowered one of my trembling hands and opened the door. Jack also opened his and we stepped out of the truck in unison.
Both soldiers backed away from us three or four steps.
The Staff Sergeant continued to shout his orders, but still in the calming tone. ‘Lay face dow
n on the floor and place your hands behind your head!’
I didn’t want to make any sudden movements and risk getting shot, so I gently lowered myself onto my knees, and then down onto my chest.
‘I am not infected. This is just blood from hitting my head this morning. I haven't had time to clean it yet,’ I said, trying to speak as slowly and as clearly as possible.
‘What are we doing here Staff Sergeant?’ The Corporal was still keeping his distance, but he was almost bouncing around me. He sounded nervous, which made me feel even more afraid.
‘Give it a rest Moberg,’ the Staff Sergeant said.
The Staff Sergeant was inspecting Jack’s face. He pointed at me. ‘Look at the guy’s face. Does he look infected?’
The Corporal took a few hesitant steps closer. ‘Lift your face up!’ he barked.
I lifted my head up off the floor, and tried to open my eyes as wide as I could, until I realised I must look crazy. I attempted to look as normal as possible.
‘I don’t know Staff Sergeant, he looks…’ He continued to inspect my face through the plastic visor on his gas mask. ‘His eyes don’t look infected, and he does have a wound on his head that could account for the blood.’
‘Do you have any weapons on you? Firearms, knives, anything?’ the Staff Sergeant asked.
My gun was in the truck so I said no. Jack also said no and went on to explain we had two handguns in the truck. This information didn’t seem to bother the soldier.
‘Okay, in a moment I’m going to ask you to stand up, but before that we have some rules,’ the Staff Sergeant informed us. ‘There is to be absolutely no physical contact, if you come within ten feet of us we will be forced to fire upon you. Do you understand?’
We both nodded and said yes.
He asked us to stand and they lowered their weapons slightly, not as much as I wanted though. We leaned against our truck while the Staff Sergeant called out two more soldiers from the Humvee. The other two joined them and they stood in a line facing us, making sure they were at least ten feet away.
The Staff Sergeant introduced himself as Abel. He pointed at the one he’d already separately referred to as Corporal and Moberg. ‘You can call this one Mo, and this is Hunter and Lassie.’