by Henson, Lynn
"I wonder how long he's been infected." What was left of her small smile disappeared, "You think maybe just by being cooped up in the car with him we're going to get sick too?"
He shook his head. "I'd guess that's probably not how it spreads. I think if it was in the air, we probably would've gotten sick a long time ago."
"But it's not like you know that for sure?"
"No," he admitted, "But I think he was bitten before he even got into the car with us."
"How could you know that?" she said skeptically.
"When I was groping around under the seat, I touched his leg which I think had little holes in them," he grimaced at the memory and started casting about for something to wipe his fingers on.
Bree gestured at the clipped on container of tissues above his head, "Gross," she agreed.
Blake liberated a tissue and arduously scrubbed his index finger. "I didn't exactly get a good feel, but I'm sure I wasn't the one who created the holes, so I'd guess someone bit him prior to getting into the car."
"I hope you're right."
twenty-three
More substantial signs of civilization started to manifest themselves in the windshield.
"Wow! Look at the M Casino!" Blake said excitedly, pointing at the large resort in front of them. From far away it looks like business as usual. Boy, I wouldn't mind rolling in there and spending a couple hours at the buffet.
As they drew closer, Blake started to be able to make out a writhing mass which would resolve itself into people walking around outside of the building. Hope for normalcy dissolved as they drove past the resort, the people all showing signs of having lost their humanity.
"Whoa, whoa, stop the car!" Blake frantically commanded.
Bree brought the car to a rapid stop, looking in the direction Blake was. "What? What the fuck?"
He pointed over at the resort and a little up. "Look! There's someone up there."
Bree looked over to where he was pointing and saw a person appear at the edge of the roof. It wasn't long before that person was joined by two more. The first seemed to look down at the ground for what seemed like a long time, then looked around frantically while the other two were looking in the direction that they'd come. The roof seemed to swell up as more and more people slowly appeared on the roof. One of the people charged into the crowd and the crowd swallowed him. The other person took a step back and then seemed to hurl himself after the first person and the crowd swallowed him too. The final person had been cornered, and the crowd encircled him. He looked off the roof again and seemed to look directly at Blake. Then just as the crowd lurched forward at him, the person lowered himself off the edge of the roof, holding himself on the edge with his fingers, but the crowd persisted and reached over to get him. One from the crowd tumbled over and hit the ground spectacularly. The person who held on let go of the edge of the roof and was trying to slide down the windows but another of the crowd fell and got a hold of him. He lost contact with the building and fell the rest of the way to the ground. He was mercifully lost from sight as the people on the ground swarmed him.
Blake looked over at Bree, aghast. Bree had stopped looking and now that Blake was also finished, she gently started the car forward again. She glanced sympathetically at him. "There was nothing we could've done."
He shook his head sadly and looked down at his shoes.
She sighed and drove on.
twenty-four
The city was in chaos. Bree avoided the strip, but Blake was able to see some of what was happening from the side streets. Las Vegas Blvd still bustled with activity but not the kind the city was famous for. The street was filled with cars, some abandoned, some still occupied. Filling in the spaces where there were no cars, zombies shambled around giving slow chase to those who still retained coherent thought. One of the worst things was how utterly strange the city looked with no lights. Without the light of day, buildings towered ominously above clashing with Blake's memories of how brilliantly tacky the city had seemed. That weekend road trip which now seemed so long ago had been colored with the sounds and sights of decadence. Buffets filled with pans and pans of food, drunken college kids loudly laughing and making boasts peppered with profanity to the delight of their peers, young girls in seemingly identical black cocktail dresses hoofing it from one nightclub to the next with their high heels dangling from their hands, and mostly just the sheer volume and variety of people everywhere. Well, at least it's still kind of like that. Blake thought miserably. There was still the incredible variety of people, but now they ambled the streets listlessly only stirred into action when someone who hadn't been contaminated happened to get too close. He was pretty sure he spied a group of five girls sporting cocktail dresses shuffling across the street though he doubted that they wanted to get their drink and dance on.
"I bet there are people holed up in casinos and hotels. Maybe some of them are even safe," he speculated.
"Probably. I also think though that safety only lasts as long as you have food, and you can keep from getting infected. Just have to last until the government can get everything back under control."
"That makes sense. How likely are they to allow other survivors to join their groups?"
"I think that'd depend a lot on who's running the group. I think that the biggest asshole tends to get his way and everyone else falls in line," she said bitterly. "And because assholes tend to be selfish, they'll probably turn away any new mouths to feed. Unless those people bring something new to the table. Like if you're a doctor."
"You're right. We've seen it firsthand with Mitch the mall cop," Blake confirmed.
"Yeah, but he wasn't even that big of an asshole. I don't think he was all that smart. He's more of the type that needs a bigger asshole to tell him what to do so he can go back to using his brain as little as possible," Bree clarified.
After a moment Blake said, "You could tell all that about him in the little time we were being held hostage by him?"
"I've met a lot of assholes."
They continued to roll slowly on the streets connecting to the strip with the headlights off. The strip was teeming with zombies, but that didn't mean that the streets running through it were totally devoid of them. Quite the contrary, plenty of zombies had spread out onto these streets and the motion of the car was enough to get their attention. Blake was looking at a guy wearing a surf t-shirt, baggy jeans, large sneakers, and black baseball cap rotated around so that the bill was in the back. He wondered where he had dropped his skateboard and if it even mattered to the guy. As he drew closer he could make out that his face was starting to look mummified, the eyes seemed not to even be there, appearing to be like black holes that bored into him. The skateboarder managed a feeble swipe as they rolled past.
It was hard having to watch when people in hiding panicked and took to the streets screaming for help. Such incidents either didn't end well or the outcome was indeterminate because the person ran out of sight. The hardest to watch was a barricaded gas station, completely mobbed by zombies who flailed at the defenses, eroding them away at a maddeningly slow pace. Inside the gas station's convenience mart was what appeared to be a family of four, the perfect nuclear family. The father was jabbing at the zombies, trying to keep them off the barricades with a mop handle. The mother, cradling her baby, was desperately looking out in the street for any sign of rescue, her daughter clutching her leg, face buried in her side. Blake felt helpless enough already at seeing this situation then an infusion of guilt was injected into him as the mother saw them cruising slowly by and she frantically starting screaming something and waving at them. The daughter withdrew her head from her mother's side and looked at him. The father tried to wave as well, but with so many invaders encroaching on their haven, he soon settled for just yelling to them.
Blake looked over at Bree, horrified. Bree didn't look from the road but sensed what he was going to ask. "It sucks. I know. But think about it. Is there anything we can really do for them?"
&n
bsp; Blake looked around inside their small car, back seat and trunk filled with their equipment, gasoline cans, and dry food. Despondent, he looked back out at the gas station as they continued to move away from it. He could hear the woman frantically screaming something and she was holding up her baby as if perhaps that would sway them into action. Tears welled up in his eyes as he forced himself to continue looking back at the family. We’ve got to do something. I’ve got to do something.
“Bree? Turn around,” he heard himself say.
“What? Why?” she objected.
“We have to help those people!”
“You have a plan??” she asked as she pulled the emergency brake to spin the car around to face the other way.
“Yes,” he lied.
Bree drove back in the direction of the besieged gas station. “Well?”
“Well, what?” he stalled.
“Your plan? Maybe now would be a good time to share it with me,” she demanded.
“Ok, I got nothing,” he confessed.
He heard her squeeze the steering wheel harder in response.
“We’ll think of something!” he promised with as much confidence as he could project.
She pulled onto the lot and honked the horn as she drove as close to the horde of zombies as she dared. Several of the zombies disengaged themselves from assaulting the barricade and turned their attention to them.
He looked back to reassess the situation, and while they had managed to pull several of the zombies off, too many still swarmed around the entrance for it to be possible for the family to come out.
“Does that place have a back door?” he thought aloud.
“Go find out,” she suggested as she turned the car towards the rear of the gas station and pushed down on the accelerator.
She came to a stop at the back of the building and he got out and ran to the back door. She sped off, honking the horn as she went. The zombies that were chasing the car rounded the corner and immediately focused on him. He kept his eyes on them as he got to the back door and started pounding on it with his fist.
“Open the door!” he screamed in frustration as he continued to pound on it as hard as he could. The zombies were slowly approaching and he quickly glanced around for something he could use to stall them. He’d just concluded that there was nothing useful when the back door burst open and out popped a woman holding an infant, with a girl attached to her leg.
“Hurry!” he urged as she looked around in a panic. She staggered out and stood there her kids crying, and looked right on the brink of having a breakdown.
“Where’s your husband?!” he yelled at her when he failed to appear.
She looked at him wide-eyed as if she had only just now remembered that she had one.
“Look! Run that way!” he ordered, pointing away from the zombies. “I’ll find your husband!”
She ran in the indicated direction as best as she could and he rushed into the gas station.
The interior was trashed. The shelves had been mostly emptied with a lot of the contents strewn about the floor. The dad was still at the doors, holding them closed with one hand and poking at the zombies just outside with his broom handle.
“Come on! Let’s go!” Blake yelled at him.
“My family?” the dad asked, still paying attention to his defensive tasks.
“They’re out! Come on! They need you!”
The man abandoned the doors which opened immediately allowing zombies to pour inside. Blake turned around and ran out the back, with the dad right behind him. They had to immediately run to the left when they got out to avoid running into the zombies that had followed Bree’s car around to the back.
Blake put some distance between himself and the gas station, glancing back to make sure he was out of harm’s way and saw the dad had stopped and was looking around frantically, oblivious to the group of zombies that had come to within a few feet of him.
“What the-? Fuck!” He skidded to a stop and ran back to the man. He grabbed the man by the wrist and the fucker actually tried to shake it off.
“No! My family! Where?” the man stammered, still looking around frantically.
“This way! Come one!” Blake screamed at him. “Move dipshit!”
The guy stopped resisting and moved in the direction Blake was pulling him. They moved away from the immediate threat of the zombies and Blake spotted the woman and her children getting into an SUV. “Over there, right?!” he pointed at them.
But the father was already running ahead of him, going faster than Blake could believe a guy his age could run. The man jumped in the driver seat, slammed the door, and laid down a good amount of rubber as he sped out of there.
“YOU’RE WELCOME!” he yelled after the SUV.
“Assholes!” he added.
There was the roar of an engine behind him and he turned in time to see Bree braking to a halt next to him. He got in immediately and she floored it the instant his door shut.
“Feeling good?” she asked.
“Shut up.”
twenty-five
They rolled past a low stone wall which glimmered in the moonlight. In gold letters, it declared: University of Nevada Las Vegas. Bree drove past it and then turned into a parking lot that belonged to the university.
"Think we’ll find her?" Blake asked sadly.
"Yes," she replied as scanned the parking lot and eased into a parking space. She killed the engine and stepped out of the car.
He unbuckled himself and got out as well, quietly closing the door behind him. Bree was already moving in the direction of a large building, he trotted after her to catch up.
She was moving with fierce determination. As they got closer, Blake started to be able to see that the building ahead didn't look overrun. In fact, it looks like whoever's in there is doing alright so far. The structure had an opening into a courtyard, so it was possible that the building was actually two buildings that complemented each other, like yin and yang. That opening was now filled with a white van that covered with enough dust, that it looked gray, a beat-up blue Ford Explorer, and a green station wagon with wood paneling that in dire need of a new paint job. They drew closer and Blake started to be able to make out orange flickering in some of the windows which might indicate that someone was still living there. He looked up higher and thought the name of the building was up there, but it was too dark to read it with the lights out. He almost smacked into Bree's back, not realizing that she'd come to a dead stop ahead of him. Suddenly they both were bathed in bright light coming from behind the station wagon. He squinted ahead, but the light was too intense to make out more than one figure.
"Well," said a male voice on the verge of cracking, "they don't seem to be armed."
"All the same," a gruff male voice said, "turn around with your hands in the air."
Bree complied, raising her hands up slowly as she rotated around. Blake sidestepped a little to create a clear line of sight between himself and the sentries and mimicked Bree.
There was some murmured discussion after which the gruff one said, "Alright, ladies first. Please climb over the hood of the car in front of me. Sir, please wait there with your hands in the air."
Bree put her hands down and walked forward towards the car. The light trained on her as she put her foot on the bumper of the station wagon and then up on the hood. The hood squawked with each step, and then there were two clops as Bree landed on the opposite side of the car. Blake was plunged into darkness as their lights focused on Bree. He could see there were two guys near her, one of them did a brief pat down while the other was more back and focusing his light on her. After a brief moment, the light trained back on him.
"Alright sir, climb over the hood please."
He lowered his hands and walked toward the station wagon. He stepped up onto the bumper as Bree had done, but then turned his back towards where he was going and sat on the hood which groaned in protest. He pivoted around on his butt and then pushed himself forward a
s he thrust his legs towards the ground, landing gracefully on the other side. He put his hands up again and the guy with the more high pitched voice came forward and whispered, "I'm just going to pat you down, ok? Be over in a second."
He allowed himself to be patted down, and then he joined Bree who was standing nearby with her back to a wall.
"Well," began whiney voice guy, "they're weaponless. I think we can now determine how we can be of assistance to them."
"Just more mouths to feed," gruff man said dismissively as he shut off his light. He walked off.
"Don't mind him," he said apologetically. "He's really pessimistic. If you could follow me, I'll get you two oriented."
He walked past them, opened a glass door framed in metal and went inside. Bree followed him in with Blake jogging after them to catch up.
Inside, the whiny guy had gone around behind what looked like a reception desk and lit a candle. He brought the candle with him and waved them into some cushioned chairs.
After Bree and Blake had seated themselves, their host took a seat as well and looked at them earnestly.
"I'm Commander Carrington," he said formally, "Along with Sergeant Harper whom you've already met, we're in command of this particular section of the university and trying to keep the student body here safe until this emergency is resolved by the local authorities."
"Oh!" replied Blake enthusiastically, "That's great news! So do you know what's going on in other parts of the country Commander?"
He shook his head. "I'm afraid not. Communications are still down at this time. In this type of emergency, it is clear that we must maintain order and prevent panic. Do you need assistance with being assigned quarters at this time? Or perhaps you're in need of nourishment?"
"No, no. That's not why we're here. I'm looking for someone," Bree said seriously, "She lives in this dorm."
"Well, you're certainly welcome to see if she's here," Carrington responded. "Anyone who happened to be here or near campus has managed to return here safely, but there are still many people unaccounted for."