by Jeff Olah
With his world fading, faster with each second that passed, they were back. The voices from somewhere in the distance, but now closer. And he recognized them, just not their names.
“ETHAN … ETHAN.”
He wanted to respond. He wanted to fight. He wanted to push away from his cramped position up against the unforgiving brick wall. But he couldn’t. He was again slipping. And this time as he tried to call out, his words caught in his throat. Then everything—all at once—went dark.
209
Griffin switched off the flashlight, set it carefully in the bag and leaned back into the wall. Three feet away he was reminded of just how unpredictable this life had become. There were no longer any certainties. No more plans to be made. No reason to set goals or want to accomplish anything. No weight to lose. No gym memberships and no social media. Well, that last part he didn’t care too much for anyhow, but now he found himself beginning to forget what life used to be, as if everything before forty-seven days ago was simply a dream.
He sat quietly for a moment, just listening. The sounds of the dead outside were now replaced with intermittent gunfire. It didn’t appear to be close, but as it echoed through the rear yard of the high school, something told Griffin he should be concerned. He needed to get the hell out there and find his friends.
One duffle at a time, he again crisscrossed the straps over his chest and switched back on the flashlight. Not more than twenty feet ahead was the door he had been searching for and the open space that could have saved his friend.
Griffin held the flashlight in his right hand while placing his left against the wall. He again tested his ankle, but nothing had changed. Stagger left, step right, stagger left, step right. He carried on until he stood directly across the hall from the Performing Arts Center. He shined the light through the ten-inch frame of glass that ran alongside the door and then back in the direction he’d come.
Without a reason to stop, he kept the light on the glass, moved awkwardly across the hall, and biting down through the pain, opened the door. Griffin placed his shoulder against the frame and ran the narrow beam of light slowly from the stage to the final row of balcony seats, two levels up. Satisfied he was now alone, he stepped over the threshold and allowed the door to close behind him.
Now using his opposite hand as a guide, he breathed deep through his nose and attempted to focus his mind on anything but the unforgiving pain coursing through his left ankle. He thought about what got him here, where his friends might be, and exactly how he planned on running. Because as much as it was going to suck, he was going to have to run. The only question now—which would give up first, the sinewy fibers connecting his calf and his foot, or his mind?
Reaching the stage, he lurched forward and rested his elbows on the edge. Balancing on only his right leg, he again moved the flashlight across the open room and stopped when he saw movement beyond the glass at the door.
Two Feeders, maybe more. They had their faces shoved into the back of the pane and snapped their jaws furiously, as if somehow they could bite their way through. He was safe for the moment; however, at some point they’d get through—they always did—and by then he needed to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Again on the move, Griffin used the stage as a guide as he started toward the exit at the west corner of the room. He had to slow twice to remove a pair of overturned chairs that blocked his way. He then placed them strategically in the path he assumed the group beyond the glass would take once they got inside.
Okay …
Then he stood at the door. The sounds of unrelenting combat less than a few feet away begged him to turn back. There were muffled voices shouting into the night and the low monotonous tone of those looking to feed.
Griffin pushed the bags away from his sides. The continued pulse of automatic gunfire was closer now. Much closer. It sounded as though a helicopter was touching down just outside the door, but not quite. There were a thousand reasons to crawl into a hole and let this end his story. But the images of his friends and what they were facing continued to push him forward.
He placed his hip on the panic bar and dropping the flashlight back into the bag, pulled the pistol he’d just used to end Boone’s transition. His attention was then called back to the right. The group in the hall had finally broken through. The window pane fell to the commercial grade carpeting in large chunks as one of the smaller Feeders attempted to navigate the ten inch opening.
Now or never.
With his left leg held less than an inch off the ground and his back leaned into the frame, Griffin inched open the door.
As the overwhelming stench from the rear yard filled his nose and nearly forced his gag reflex, a bullet slammed into the backside of the door, near the upper hinge. He rocked backward, dropped the pistol and grabbed for the door.
Missing with his right hand, Griffin stumbled backward and collided with the wall at his back. The crisscrossed bags then slammed into the ground, breaking his fall and sending him onto his left side.
As he continued in the direction he’d fallen, Griffin let the momentum take him. He was only inches away from rolling onto his stomach, but was stopped by the weight of the two bags.
Now reaching for the door frame—attempting to free himself from the tangled mess that had become the duffle straps—he kicked away from the door. A lightning bolt of white-hot pain shot from his left ankle and slammed into his hip as he pitched forward, instinctively grabbing for his injured limb.
Griffin bit through the pain, pulled the weapon out away from the door, and quickly slipped his right arm through the first strap. In less than twenty seconds he was free of both bags and slid up into a sitting position.
Back to the door at the opposite end of the room, a grouping of four Feeders had forced their way through the opening, which now appeared to be twice the size it had been only a minute before. The metal frame had been pushed aside and slabs of drywall hung at weird angles.
Through the darkened interior and out into the hall, another crowd was now taking notice. They were following the others toward the room, and without intervention, the small performing arts center would be overrun within minutes.
Okay, round two.
Still mostly hidden behind the last aisle, but knowing that wouldn’t last, Griffin brought his right leg up under and pressed his hands into the wall. He quietly slithered his way into a standing position just as the beasts near the stage turned in his direction.
Grab the bags and just go. Just do what you have to do.
As the first few Feeders rounded the corner near the end of the stage and started toward him, Griffin gritted his teeth, pulled the bags back onto his shoulder, and grabbed the weapon from beside his left foot.
He let out a pained grunt as he again stood upright and then turned back toward the door. The time had come. He needed to get to his friends. He no longer cared what happened to himself after reaching the others and delivering the twin black duffles. That was his only focus.
Quickly pushing the door open and stepping out into the cold night air, he stared into a wall of Feeders that marched in large groups, away from the rear fences. They blocked his view of anything beyond twenty feet and had begun funneling into the area, almost shoulder to shoulder.
Griffin allowed the door at his back to slam shut as he situated the bags and now clutched a pistol in each hand. He quickly disengaged the safety on the second weapon and limped out to the right, trying to get a better vantage of the rest of the rear lot. No luck. His friends had either already made it to the portables or become split up and were somewhere amongst the riotous crowd.
As Griffin raised the pistols and eyed the horde, the approaching gunfire quickly died away. It was replaced by the sound of rapid footfalls pounding the pavement, hundreds running in unison away from the schoolyard. And then somewhere almost out of earshot came an unfamiliar voice.
“STOP … TURN AROUND, WE AREN’T FINISHED.”
Griffin tilted his hea
d toward the now echoing words as they faded into the distance. He was waiting for what was to come next. Had those who destroyed his home just decided to pick up and walk away? Unlikely, but then what was this?
He was certain that an answer wasn’t far off.
Back to the converging crowd, he took aim at one of the larger Feeders who had managed to break away and was moving at a pace slightly faster than the others who’d followed. From where he stood, a head shot was not completely out of the question; however, he had another idea.
Taking down the gargantuan beast with one shot would allow him to move on to the rest of the horde, but it wasn’t his best option. And with his chances of leaving the rear lot falling progressively with each second he wasted, every single movement had to happen exactly the way he was picturing in his head. His margin for error was less than zero.
Griffin held his breath as the former airline mechanic stepped to within fifteen feet and without blinking, he fired a single shot. The round slashed through night air and everything now moved in slow motion. He watched as the projectile tore through the coveralls just above the Feeder’s knee and then nearly ripped its leg in half, sending the large male to the asphalt as its right hamstring lay in a mangled mess three feet away.
With no time to admire his mini-victory or watch as the next few attempted to sidestep the former mechanic, Griffin quickly turned toward the left flank. A grouping of three Feeders moved away from the others and would be the next to reach him. His world was growing smaller with each breath he took, and for the first time the belief that he may not survive, that he was going to die without reaching his friends, was actually beginning to take root.
Here we go.
He stumbled back and to the right, again biting through the pain. Squirming out from under the twin duffles, he placed them carefully on the ground and then standing up straight, noticed movement fifty yards beyond the massive horde.
A group of ten, running in the opposite direction while carrying two limp bodies. They were close, but it didn’t matter, they could have been a million miles away. They also weren’t heading toward the portables. It appeared as though they were moving in a straight line toward the vehicles, like they were leaving. He wasn’t going to get to them, not now, and maybe not ever.
Griffin placed his left foot down, squared his shoulders, and attempted to forget about the debilitating pain radiating from his injured ankle. He sucked in a quick breath, leveled the weapons at the crowd, and fired off six quick rounds.
The ringing in his ears had just begun to die away as his attention was pulled back to the street. A high-pitched whir grew from the silence of the night just before a fourth massive explosion detonated fifty feet from where he stood.
Time again slowed to a crawl as he could feel himself being lifted off the asphalt and thrown backward into the brick building. Griffin dropped the pistols and crossed his arms over his face as he was pelted from head to toe with the fragmented ruins of the rear lot. The skin along his arms and neck felt as though it was being melted off in sheets, and although he’d closed his eyes, he was sure the shockwave had at least temporarily blinded him.
Coming to rest against the southwest exterior corner of the performing art center, Griffin dropped to his left side and began to dry heave. He struggled to breathe through the billowing smoke, and although the ringing in his ears nearly cut out the world around, he could hear their footsteps.
The horde hadn’t forgotten, nor were they deterred in the slightest. One by one, they stumbled to their feet and continued to come for him. And now as his world descended into darkness, as the angered beasts closed in around him, all he could do was wait for the end.
210
They were gone. Not all of them, but enough that his plan would have to be drastically altered. These people who had pledged their undying allegiance to the cause had fled. At the first sign of trouble they scattered like cockroaches. He had accounted for a handful of defectors, maybe even as many as half, but this showing had caught him completely by surprise.
Disoriented and fighting to take a breath, Roland Mayhew pushed into a sitting position, picked himself up off the ground, and wiped at the blood that ran from his face and neck.
He quickly brushed himself off and turned to the six who remained. They had begun to run just like the others, but for whatever reason, be it their loyalty to the Guardians or the fear of living alone in this new world, they had decided to stand with him.
Searching the dust cloud now descending on the eerily quiet street, Roland scanned the faces of the half-dozen who had also been taken from their feet. Four women and two men. Not one of which was the man who swore he’d be at Roland’s side to the very end.
Cory Shift had run away, just like the others.
Again wiping at his face, Roland ran his fingers over a rough patch and winced as he pulled free a splintered piece of scorched concrete. Blood poured out of the open wound and pooled along the collar of his tan leather jacket. He then ran his hand through his hair, pushing it away from his face and looked around at the street to his right, the area closest to the impact zone.
Bodies.
Everywhere.
Those he thought had run from the area—not all of them, but a number somewhere approaching thirty to forty—lay motionless and dismembered. Most were either face down or on their sides and pushed into one another. A few had been thrown into the only remaining section of chain-link that hadn’t been flattened. And just beyond the sidewalk, flames grew out of the windows of the two pickup trucks that sat overturned.
To the six who remained, he motioned toward the school. “I didn’t come here to give up, and neither did they. You can run away if that’s what you choose, but I’m not done. That monster isn’t going to take my home.”
Not one of the six spoke. They appeared every bit as disoriented as he did, but looked over the field of broken bodies with empathy. Something he figured may be a factor as they attempted to come to a decision.
They stared at one another for a long moment and then back at Roland, unable or unwilling to speak.
Four quick shots rang out from somewhere near the east corner of the rear lot. Three of the women quickly turned and followed one of the men as he sprinted back toward the intersection at Mayfair Lane.
Roland nodded to the two remaining and motioned in the direction the others had run. He looked briefly to the sky, collecting his thoughts, and then to the couple he smiled.
“Go … follow them. Find whoever is left out there and take them back to the homes. Let them know we aren’t finished and that if anyone runs across Blake or his people, they are to kill them on sight. No questions, no discussions, and no compromises. We own this town.”
The pair continued to stare at him as if they weren’t completely convinced, and for the moment, he wasn’t so sure if the words he’d spoken even held any meaning. With what remained of his following, even counting those who’d already left the area, Roland estimated that Blake’s tribe now greatly outnumbered his own.
Without waiting for a response, Roland turned back toward the school and walked away. He stopped near one of the devastated bodies and pried a Glock 21 out from under the weighty individual. He avoided looking at anything other than the weapon and instead moved quickly up onto the sidewalk.
Roland looked out over the yard and placing the pistol into his waistband, stepped around two fallen Feeders. He was still a bit disoriented and turning back toward the front of the school he struggled to see anything beyond the tennis courts. Blake and his people were out there and probably much closer than he’d like, but for now they were hidden.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Back to the rear lot, Roland squatted down and just took a moment to watch the horde. They didn’t appear to have any interest in him or the events that had just played out in the street, instead they moved with a purpose toward the eastern end of the yard.
On the move again, Roland stayed low and made his way b
etween the overturned pickups. He positioned himself just beyond the thick line of black smoke that rose from the cab of the larger truck and scanned the three buildings straight ahead.
Sixty feet away, he found the door leading to the rear of the gymnasium. However without mechanical assistance, there was no way he’d enter there. Further on, the horde appeared to gather in tight groups near the second entrance, also not an option. He’d have to go around the portables and enter through a window on the west side.
With a glance back toward the street, he could see what appeared to be Blake and his people clearing the front steps. They quickly tossed aside what remained of the destroyed front entrance and disappeared into the building he was to call home.
Shaking his head, he was beginning to wonder if this was all worth the trouble. The pissing match he’d gotten into with Mitchell Blake more than a month before was starting to annoy him. At one point, he was willing to come to some sort of a compromise, maybe split the city and find a way to coexist without starting a war. But that was before tonight, now his only objective was to put a bullet in that psychopath’s head.
As Roland continued to watch the crowd near the east end, he spotted another group moving quickly away from the area, toward the parking lot at the entrance to the football field. From this distance, it was much too dark to get an accurate count; however, they numbered somewhere between six and ten. And they were running. Definitely not Feeders.
The group could be heard shouting at one another as they were being followed by a crowd of Feeders that had broken off from the others. Their words were lost to the distance, but as they moved toward a line of vehicles parked alongside the field’s scoreboard, Roland was certain that this parking lot was where they’d end their journey.