This Rotten World | Book 2 | Let It Burn

by Morris, Jacy

  They drove under the undead police officer, wondering just what had caused someone to hang the man. Here and there, wrecked automobiles and trucks dotted the road. They even saw one SUV sticking out of the front of a house, as if it had just plowed straight into the living room. Underneath its tires, more of the dead squirmed and waved their arms. The streets were alive with movement, however, none of it was alive.

  Joan wondered if there were more survivors out there, huddled up in these homes, just waiting for someone to come and save them. So far, every encounter they had with other humans had ended in guns being pointed at each other... encountering the living was becoming as dangerous as encountering the dead.

  The Jeep's body rang as one of the dead clanged off the front fender, even as Joan swerved to avoid it. In her mind, she couldn't stop thinking two words over and over again. A cure. A cure. A cure.

  She began to think of the dead as patients again, unfortunate members of the human race who became infected before humanity had the proper amount of time to find a cure. She jogged the Jeep left to avoid a one-armed man, long brown hair hanging over his eyes, shuffling about in saggy jeans that showed off his hip bones.

  There was no way a cure would help the already dead. If there were a cure, the world would go into an impossible cleanup mode, one that would take decades, if not an entire century to clean up. But she would be there. She would be there from the very beginning, helping the kid survive until they could find someone that could take the kid's blood or DNA and turn it into something that would save humanity. It would be an honor.

  They skidded to a stop in front of a Walgreen's. It was a newer building, and the darkness inside could only be glimpsed through the front doors. The rest of the building's walls were plain, gray cinderblock, devoid of personality.

  They didn't stop to watch. They hopped out immediately, trusting fate. They could see nothing through the black doors of the building. As they approached, they noted the shattered glass on the ground. It was not a good sign, as it meant two things, possible dead inside and the possibility that the pharmacy had already been raided.

  Mort was the first at the door, his machete in his hand. Clara and Joan, by no means marksmen, stood at the rear with the rifles in their hands. They understood the principles of shooting, and Rick had shown them how to work the rifles, but they had yet to actually fire the things. They would rely on the strong arms of Lou and Mort.

  Into the building they went, standing in the entrance to the Walgreen's waiting with their hearts thumping in their chest while their eyes adjusted to the darkness. With their ears, they strained to hear anything, the clomp of shoe on tile, the toppling of merchandise as the dead moved through the store. There was nothing, only the scrape of shoes on asphalt from the direction they had come. The dead were out there. The clock had begun, the countdown to extinction moving in on wobbly ankles.

  As his eyes adjusted to the shadows, Mort picked out a sign in the back of the building that said "pharmacy." They stuck to the walkways around the outskirts of the store. They were wider, less-cluttered, and provided more room for a swinging machete. They had seen none of the dead, but they knew they were only a few minutes away at best. And once they reached the store, there would be more.

  Product lay scattered all over the floor of the store, and the survivors grabbed stuff as they walked by. A bag of chips, a soda, some candy, anything that would provide sustenance and keep them alive. When you saw food, you grabbed food. That was the key to survival. Grab it when you can.

  Clara eyed the colorful packs of cigarettes with longing. Though she would have bet money that Rick or J.B. would have been smokers, she would have lost. When she had asked them for a smoke, they had just looked at her like she was crazy. The other possibility was that they were holding out on her. One does not simply give away cigarettes in the zombie apocalypse. But the medicine, that was priority number one. She wasn't going to screw things up for them just to get her nicotine fix.

  Mort pushed discarded food items and things that had no use off to the side with his boot, sliding his feet along the tiled floor. The shelves were messes, and the pharmacy had clearly been raided as all sorts of items were scattered on the floor. They stood outside the pharmacy, looking inside. The good news was that they wouldn't have to make any noise breaking into the rectangular room. The door had already been busted down. The bad news was that all of the medicine had been knocked off the shelves, creating a pile of white boxes with red-orange warning labels on the ground.

  "Shit," Joan said as she stepped into the pharmacy. "You guys guard the door. I'll try and find what we need." Joan sat on the ground, picking up boxes and holding them close to her eyes. She had to angle the boxes in order to catch the last rays of sunshine as they bent around the merchandise-light racks. She threw the boxes on the ground, discarding them one by one.

  Clara stood behind her, the rifle in her hands. Mort and Lou stood in the aisle, bouncing on their toes and gripping their machetes tightly.

  Come on, girl, Joan admonished herself, willing herself to kick it into high gear. One or two of the dead were fine, but if this became a block party, they had precious few options for escape. She began to get flustered, as she picked up another box. It was as if each bellow of the dead were a screwdriver that ratcheted up the tension that she felt, making it harder and harder to read the labels. She tried to take deep breaths to calm herself down, but then she heard the clang of blade against bone, the grunting of Mort or Lou as they put all of their weight into a decapitation attempt.

  She tossed another box on the ground behind her, hoping that she would find some antibiotics soon.

  "There are more coming," Clara said in a matter-of-fact manner. There was no panic in the statement. It was just something she said. Joan threw another box to the ground. She could hear her heartbeat in her ears. Cold sweat had broken out in the small of her back, and for a second, she was tempted to scoop all of the boxes into her bag and sort it out on the ride home... but that wasn't efficient. That meant they'd have to risk their necks again another day if she didn't get the right medication. That was unacceptable.

  She picked up another box... cortisone. She tossed the box on the ground. She picked up another box... an asthma inhaler. That would have been handy if Rudy was still around, but he wasn't, so she tossed the box on the ground.

  In the aisle, she heard Mort and Lou take a couple swings at another of the dead. This time, she heard the splatter of blood and the thump of something heavy as it landed on the ground. Another head rolled. If she didn't find the medicine soon, it could be their heads that would roll next.

  She picked up another box. Zithromax! Yes. She was in business. She rooted around in the area she had found the Zithromax and pulled another box free. Haha! Amoxicillin. Score. These were the big containers, the ones that the pharmacist would use to count out the correct amount of pills into smaller containers. The boxes were heavy, the containers inside rattled around as she shoved them into her bag.

  "We got it!" she said, standing up and threading her arms through the straps of the backpack.

  "Way to go, Joan. Let's get the hell out of here," Lou said.

  They worked their way back through the Walgreens. Mort and Lou chopping down the dead with brutal blows from the machetes. Clara and Joan packed everything that could provide calories into their bags. As they reached the entrance, Clara ran back inside and came back out with her pockets bulging, sharp corners pressing against the fabric in the rough shape of a cigarette package. She had a smile on her face as they ran to the jeep, swinging at the dead as they went.

  They piled in the vehicle, and Joan started the Jeep right up. Lou and Mort pulled the passenger seat forward and crawled awkwardly into the vehicle. The seat slammed downward, and Clara said, "Gimme a second."

  She held the rifle up to her shoulder and aimed down the sight, thumbing the safety catch off. "I wanna get a practice shot in, while we have the chance."

  "Stop mes
sing around, Clara," Joan yelled, in no mood for any further risk.

  But Clara didn't care. If she was going to have this rifle, she was going to have to learn to shoot it, or else when the time came where she really needed it, she might fail. She squeezed the trigger, and her shot appeared to go high and wide, as a cloud of concrete dust erupted off the cinder-blocked walls of the Walgreens. The dead woman, dressed in a red Highland Park Middle School sweatshirt, didn't seem to notice. Clara sighted in and pulled the trigger again. This time, a small hole appeared in the sweatshirt. The bullet punched a hole through the woman's chest, and a small amount of gore and flesh plopped onto the pavement. The echo of the shot rang through the air, fading until it sounded like distant thunder.

  "Hurry up," Lou yelled.

  "Just one more," Clara yelled back. She aimed one more time, and then squeezed the trigger, ignoring the force of the rifle as it smashed into her shoulder. A small red hole appeared in the bridge of the woman's nose, and a fine pink mist filled the air behind her. The woman fell backwards, and Clara was filled with a sense of elation. As more dead filled the parking lot, she hopped back into the rusted white Jeep, and slammed the door shut.

  "Nice shot!" Lou called, patting her on the shoulder.

  Joan spun the Jeep around, dodged a few of the dead, and then headed back the way they had come. Mort began doling out some of the food they had taken. All in all, it had been an easy run. They had food, they had guns, and now they had the medicine. Maybe things were going to be alright.

  Chapter 22: A Fool's Errand

  When they pulled up to the mansion, the door was wide open. Around the house, a pall of silence hung. Though the sun shone down, it only served to make the shadows darker. They stepped out of the car, and when Mort started grabbing their bags to bring inside, Lou said, "Leave it. I got a bad feeling about this."

  The mirth of the successful run was gone now. Clara clicked the safety off on her rifle, and they stalked up to the mansion, waiting to see J.B. or Rick come out to greet them. Lou used his tongue to work some mashed up chips out of one of his molars. He had passed on the candy bars. Over the past week, he had experienced intense pain every time he had eaten something sweet. He hoped it wasn't a cavity, but with their high-sugar diet and a constant shortage of toothpaste, he was beginning to suspect it was. The only way he could describe the pain was a white hot sensation that started in his teeth and drove straight up through his jaw and into his temple. He hoped it didn't get any worse. The idea of post-apocalyptic dentistry made his skin crawl.

  Inside the house, all was quiet. Lou was tempted to yell, "Hello!" But he knew it was just nerves tempting him to act stupid. In the silence, they could hear the sputtering of the generator. It's smooth hum was now more of a gasping chugging that meant that the fuel was low. As if to prove the point, the lights began to fade a little.

  "Should we refill that generator? I don't like the idea of being in this place when the lights go out," Joan said.

  "Good idea. Mort, you and Joan see if you can find that generator and put some gas in there. Me and Clara will see if we can find the others." They nodded their heads, and Lou watched as they disappeared down a side hall, using their ears to lead them to the generator. He turned his head to look up at the large staircase. The second floor. That's where they would be. Rick, J.B., Katie... the boy and the mom. Huh, he thought, I never stopped to ask what their names were. He supposed he had known somewhere in the back of his mind that this whole place was temporary, a dream shrouded in promises that couldn't be kept. This place was the past, and though it hadn't shown any signs of decay when they had first arrived, it was now here.

  The death of the world was not a sudden thing. It was slow-moving, creeping, spreading out from Portland. Even if they made it to the coast, he had no doubt that it would show up there eventually. The rot, the death, they were on the march, and there was nowhere that was going to be safe.

  All he could do was keep moving. He gripped the wooden handle of the machete tighter, and with Clara behind them they ascended underneath the strobing electric lights. Their footsteps were soft, masked by the expensive carpet they treaded upon and the knocking of the noisy generator out back. He knew where to go first. The boy was sick. He wasn't going anywhere on his own. They walked through the hallway, not saying a word. Lou could feel his pulse quicken.

  They reached the door, and Lou leaned his ear against it, hoping to hear something on the other side. There was nothing. He grabbed the door handle and threw the door open. He caught a glimpse of movement just before the lights went out.

  ****

  Mort and Joan moved through the hallway, trying to find some way to get to the back of the mansion. The house was big enough that, running outside and around the entire property could cost them precious time, so through the house they went. Mort tried to ignore all of the expensive items hanging on the walls. Just one of the paintings could have provided enough money for his entire life... back before money had ceased to have any value. He didn't know much about art, didn't know much about anything, in fact, but he was sure the paintings were expensive, and here they were just hanging in some rich dude's mansion, in a part of the house that the owner probably never even visited.

  They could hear the engine of the generator dying out, fading away. They hurried through the hallways, looking for a way out back.

  "Which way?" he asked as they came to an intersection.

  "That way," Joan pointed, and they hustled through a hallway and into a large living area. Daylight streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows that looked outward onto a lush forest space that butted up against the back of the house.

  They moved to a sliding-glass door, and tried to open it. It was locked, and it took them a second to figure out how to slide the thing open. They removed a metal bar from the track of the doorway, turned the latch on the handle, and slid the door open. The sound of the generator grew louder, and then it died.

  They stood, shocked by the silence. Only it wasn't silent. There was noise. In the dark of the forest, they could hear movement, as if something were plowing its way through all of the underbrush. They could see nothing, but they knew they needed to act quick. Whatever was coming out of those woods was not going to be something that they wanted to see.

  Mort stepped outside, his boots sinking slightly in a carpet of old pine needles. The trees in the back were tall, and they cast shadows that, mixed with the sunlight, made it hard to see anything for sure. It was mid-afternoon, maybe three o'clock, and the humidity from the forest gave the air an unwelcome stickiness.

  They stuck close to the house. "Better take that safety off," Mort whispered to Joan, as the sound from the forest became louder and more distinct. It didn't sound like one thing moving through the woods. It sounded like multiple, as the sounds seemed to be coming from everywhere.

  The back of the house was filled with windows, and the eaves loomed over them. In the distance, sitting about ten feet from the house was a large shed, the same maintenance shed they had grabbed the machetes from earlier. Mort heard the click of the safety, and as they approached the shed, the tension grew. Mort slowed up when he reached it. The door was already open. Slowly, he peered around the side.

  The inside of the shed was dim, but there was a form moving around in there. It swayed back and forth among the garden implements, its arms hanging by its side, as if it had become lost inside the enclosed space. Mort could see the red and black generator sitting behind it. It was a beast of a machine, mostly quiet when it was running well, but apparently, when it ran low on fuel, it began to sound like a chainsaw cutting through concrete.

  Mort didn't know how far away the generator could have been heard as it continued to run on fumes, but it had been far enough to draw the dead to this particular slice of heaven.

  The dead thing had to go. It was plain to see. They didn't have time, not with who knew how many of the dead making their way through the forest. He stepped into the shed, and rushed
at the dead thing. It turned lazily in his direction, but by the time it had thought to raise its hands, Mort had already severed its head. It slumped to the ground with a thump, and black blood poured out of its neck.

  He paid no attention to the severed head's still working jaw as he stepped up to the generator and picked up two ancient looking gasoline cans, shiny red metal, all covered in dust. The first can he picked up, felt light. He unscrewed the cap, which was attached to the can with a chain. It dangled to the side, clanging against the hollow metal can. He undid the cap of the generator, setting it carefully on top of the machinery, and he upended the can, hoping that there was something left inside. A trickle of gasoline fell out of the can and into the generator's reservoir. He tossed the can to the side., and grabbed the other one.

  "I think they're coming," Joan said.

  "Shoot 'em," Mort said as he unscrewed the cap of the next gas can. It was heavier, maybe half full. He hoped it was enough to keep the generator running for a little bit, or else, Lou and Clara were going to be in trouble.

  He dumped the can's contents into the generator, flinching as Joan fired her first shot.

  "Shit," she said, and then he heard her rack another round into the chamber. She fired again, the crack of the rifle deafening in the metal utility shed. He tossed a glance over his shoulder to see a man in camouflage advancing towards her. His head was shaved, of more than just hair, and his arms reached out for her.

  She brought the rifle up, and Mort was sure she was going to miss, but then the man's head exploded. Cordite hung heavy in the air, as Mort finished pouring the gasoline into the generator. Then he tried to figure out how to start it. There were more switches here than there needed to be. Choke, throttle, oil pressure, they all meant precious little to him. Machines were foreign in every way.

  He spotted a black plastic handle, like you would see on a lawnmower. He remembered that from being a kid, his dad yelling at him on Sunday morning to get his scrawny but up and go out and mow the lawn. He grabbed the handle in his hand and pulled on it as hard as he could. The engine sputtered, but it sounded as far from life as the two dead mean bleeding all over the concrete floor of the utility shed.