The Redemption Trilogy

by A. J. Sikes

  When she looked around her hiding place, Meg’s heart sank.

  What have I done? I haven’t helped anyone but myself.

  “Oh, Tim,” Meg said, worried now that her husband might be losing his sanity. If the virus acted as fast as she’d seen, what would be left of him even if they did get to a hospital? His brain could boil away from fever before—

  “Someone will come,” she said, forcing calm into her chest. “Help is on the way. It has to be.”

  Meg’s breathing slowed, but she still felt guilty that she wasn’t out there bringing that help where it was needed right now. There had to be people who needed medical attention. Emergency crews would—

  Why haven’t they called me yet?

  Her fear magnified until it felt like she would suffocate under it, trapped in the attic and with no one to call or any way to get out. Meg practiced her breathing exercises, relaxing her chest and abdomen, letting the tension out of her shoulders and arms.

  A scraping along the roof shook Meg from her calm. Then a ghastly shriek sounded out and was answered by more calls from nearby. Including one inside the house, under her feet. She felt it move, whatever it was, scampering away from her and going into the bedroom below. Then she heard the shattering of glass and more screams from outside the house.

  Meg flinched with every sound that reached her ears. Even the tiniest creak set her off, fighting down the urge to panic. She shook her head to clear her vision as the room went dim around her. Meg blinked and turned, slowly, to look down the length of the attic space.

  Even with the boxes in the way, Meg couldn’t help seeing the dark shape moving outside the window.

  But that means they’re on the wall outside. They can climb walls!

  Tim’s voice came through the boards beneath her.

  “Mee-eg. Help mee-e. Hel—”

  He coughed and Meg heard retching sounds below. Another voice was added to his. Then someone screamed in agony and Meg heard gunshots as the snarling and shrieking sounds moved through the house and toward the front door.

  “Tim!” she yelled, dashing on her hands and knees, following the sound beneath her toward the end of the attic. But it was too late. Meg could see him outside now, through the attic window. Tim raced across their front lawn with another infected person.

  They moved in a crouch, on all fours, and their arms and legs seemed to have extra joints in them, almost whirling in their motion as Tim and the other one galloped across the lawn. They darted side to side in a zigzag as they chased a police officer who had her gun out. The woman screamed and fired behind her as she ran.

  Meg cried out when Tim tackled the officer and latched his mouth onto her neck. Blood sprayed out onto the street and the other infected person raced up to join Tim as they—

  Oh, God. They’re…they’re feeding.

  — 4 —

  Elmhurst, Queens

  Jed caught up to Chips at the next block. Together, they raced away from screams and shrieks that split the quiet air around their neighborhood. They jammed down streets choked with cars that had stopped in the middle of the road. He spotted a couple of nice rides all the way up on the sidewalk, like they’d been crashed there.

  “Chips, we should grab one of these rides man.”

  “I ain’t stopping for shit. Just keep running.”

  Jed kept pace with his friend. Two blocks along, he was about to argue about getting a car again when Chips split off the street and dashed into the side yard of a boarded-up house.

  “Yo, where you going?” Jed yelled, chasing after him.

  Chips didn’t say anything, just sped off around the back of the house. Jed followed and rounded the corner just as Chips was lifting a board away from a basement window.

  “C’mon,” Chips said. “This another stash house. We can hide out.”

  Jed came up beside Chips and helped move the thick plywood out of the way. A rope that was dangling from one corner of the board kept getting tangled around Jed’s arms. He had to swat it aside twice before he could get a grip on the board. He nearly lost it when an animal shriek sounded from a few yards over.

  The sound of breaking glass and a few gunshots followed. Then a scream and some wet noises. Jed didn’t want to think about what the noises meant. He just wanted to get inside, but the damn rope kept twisting in his sweaty hands and he couldn’t get it off of him.

  “Help me, man!”

  Chips reached over and slapped Jed’s hands aside. He grabbed the rope and coiled it in a couple of quick motions.

  “Get inside, homie,” Chips said, jerking his chin toward the basement window.

  Jed dropped to his stomach and crawled backward through the small window. He dropped into the damp basement and fell back on his ass. Chips’ feet stuck through the window. Then he was down and still holding the rope. Jed looked back at the window.

  “How we gonna close it up?”

  Chips tugged on the rope, hand over hand, until the board moved back in place, covering the window and blocking all the light.

  “Light is on the box behind you, homie,” Chips said. “Get it on so I can put the rope back.”

  Jed felt around in the dark until he bumped against a wooden crate. He was sweating like mad from the run, and the adrenaline rush of being chased by monsters. His hands shook, and his breathing came in ragged, short gasps.

  “Yo, Jed,” Chips said right behind him. Jed jerked to the side and yelped.

  “Fuck! You scared the shit out of me, man. Don’t do that. Please.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Okay, man. Okay. I get the light.”

  Jed heard Chips patting the wooden crate, and then a light flared in the darkness, showing the inside of the basement. Chips had an electric Coleman lantern in one hand and a gun in the other.

  “The hell you get that from?” Jed asked.

  “This our home away from home. Got everything we need here.”

  Chips tucked the gun into his pants and went back to the rope.

  “Yo, come hold the light for me,” he said.

  Jed went up and took the lantern from his friend. He watched as Chips wrapped the rope around a peg stuck in the wall and then fastened it there with a clasp attached to a spring.

  “You pull the rope on the outside and the little thing lets go,” he said.

  “Pretty tight, man.”

  “C’mon upstairs. Gotta get you a piece.”

  Chips led the way up a set of narrow wooden steps to a door that opened into what used to be a kitchen. A busted porcelain sink hung off its pipes against a wall, underneath some windows. But the place didn’t have any counters or cabinets, and the floor was torn up like hell.

  “Man,” Jed said, “Gunny Bayles would tear hell through whoever shammed off this detail.”

  “The fuck you talking about?” Chips asked.

  “My old platoon sergeant. Gunny Bayles. He was always on us—”

  “Man, I don’t need to hear about some pinche gringo culero who ain’t here now and wouldn’t help us even if he was. I thought you was out anyway, homie. The fuck you talkin’ about that dude for? He gonna come save your ass? That what you think?”

  Chips had gone through the kitchen to the next room. Jed went in, ready to give Chips some shit for lighting into him like that. Chips was on his knees. He’d pulled up a floorboard and was digging around in the space below. The room, like the kitchen, was bare bones. Nothing in it but dust and dirt, and his friend. Except Chips wasn’t looking like much of a friend now. His hair was slick with sweat from their run, and every time Jed met his eyes, Chips held his face in a wince, like he couldn’t wait to get clear of Jed.

  “Dude, chill. I was just remembering, okay?”

  “Yeah, you was remembering. Well remember who got your back, Jed. Remember that, huh? Here, take this.”

  Chips held out a black pistol with a square slide, all boxy like the one Jed’s parole officer used to carry.

  Jed accepted the gun from Chips and hefted it in
his hands. It felt thick in his grip, even more than the M9 he’d held once.

  “That’s a Glock, homie,” Chips said. “You gotta watch—”

  The gunshot clapped in Jed’s ears and he nearly lost his grip on the gun. For a second he was back in Iraq, remembering the one time he’d heard gunfire close up that wasn’t on a shooting range. His ears rang with a steady hum that grew and then slowly went quiet.

  “Yo, Jed,” Chips said. His eyes were wider now. “You cool, man?”

  Jed felt cool. The bullet hole in the floor told him different, but at least he hadn’t shot Chips. “Yeah, m’cool. I’m just a little wired up is all. Ain’t held a piece since the sandbox. And this shit outside man. I don’t know—”

  Chips put a hand out to take the gun and Jed passed it over. He watched while Chips cleared the weapon. He passed it back to Jed.

  “Like I was sayin’, you gotta watch the trigger. That chingadera right there. That’s your safety, homie.”

  Jed looked carefully at the weapon and saw the little half-trigger poking out from the real one.

  “Okay, man. Can I have the ammo back?”

  Chips tossed him the magazine and Jed slotted it home. He was about to rack the slide, but Chips gave him a look.

  “Yeah. Better safe than sorry, huh?”

  “You speak true, cabrón,” Chips said. He stood up and went to a hallway that led out of the room. “We can go out the front door. It got a lock on it.”

  “Cool, but hey, man, I gotta take a dump. The toilets work in this heap?”

  “Over there,” Chips said, pointing to a door that hung half off its hinges. “Make it quick, amigo. We gotta get back to my place. Make sure my little brothers are okay.”

  Jed went to the bathroom and heard Chips walking into a room at the front of the house, saying he’d be waiting for him by the door.

  In the bathroom, Jed put the Glock on the counter by the sink, next to a roll of toilet paper with just enough on it for his needs. He dropped his pants and flopped down on the seat, wrapping his arms around himself. He felt the scar under his left arm.

  Jed remembered the burning sensation against his ribs. And he remembered the cigar that his squad leader held pressed against a hundred-dollar bill that he’d laid up tight against Jed’s skin.

  That was Jed’s first night in Iraq. He’d been assigned to a platoon that had lost almost half their men the week before. They were at that fucking Camp Baharia place…

  They called it Dreamland when he got there. Everybody said he’d spend every day wishing he could just wake the fuck up back at home. Jed blew it off, saying he’d been waiting for a chance to show Al-Qaeda how he felt about what they did to New York.

  But the other guys were right. Jed didn’t get twenty minutes at Dreamland before he wanted to leave.

  The platoon was picking up newbies. Jed and ten others guys. They all got in a line and the squad leaders picked them one by one. Jed and one other guy were in 3rd Squad. The other guy was a bible thumper, and he looked like an all-American kid from next door. All square chin, blond hair and shit, praying every night and probably helping old ladies cross the street before he signed up.

  The blond kid with the chin got in easy. Everybody liked him right off. But the squad leader had a test for Jed, to prove he could be a Marine like the rest of them.

  Just a way to give a man his cred. Fucking assholes.

  Jed figured he was wearing the uniform, so that was proof enough. Hell, he’d signed up for the suck just like they all had. But the other guys wanted to test him.

  “Okay, Welch,” the sergeant said. “You keep it there until the cigar burns through, you can have the C-note.”

  Funny motherfucker. Jed went along with the bet, thinking it wouldn’t take that long. Most that might happen is he’d get a little red mark and then he’d be a hundred bucks richer and be done with the proving himself bullshit.

  But money don’t burn like that, do it? It don’t burn if you don’t let any oxygen get behind the bill. Just hold it tight to your brother’s skin and watch him squirm until he can’t take it anymore. Then you laugh like a bitch while he goes looking for the burn ointment.

  “Funny motherfucker,” Jed said to himself, remembering how everyone had laughed at him. After that, Jed figured a bad conduct discharge was his only ticket home. Either that or a long black bag with a zipper down the front.

  Chips is right. Those assholes wouldn’t have my back if shit went down.

  Chips’ voice broke in on Jed’s memories.

  “Yo, Jed. Pinch it off, cabrón.”

  Jed finished his business and flushed.

  When he heard Chips screaming for him to hurry, Jed nearly fell over his own feet trying to get his pants on and grab the Glock at the same time.

  “Jed! Get the fuck up here. We got trouble—”

  Then he heard gunfire from the front of the house and felt his heart jump into his throat.

  — 5 —

  South Jamaica, Queens

  Meg refused to watch what was happening below her hiding place. She wasn’t worried about being seen, though. If the monsters could still think at all, they would find her. Her end would come just as quickly as Tim’s had. She sat back, landing on her hip and sliding away from the window, no longer thinking about getting Tim to a hospital or about anything other than how unfair it all was.

  I could have helped. It didn’t have to be like this.

  She had lost her husband. He was dead, gone forever and replaced by a horrific monster. But as far away as she moved from the window, she couldn’t escape the growling and sucking sounds that mixed with cries and moans coming from the street outside.

  Tears flooded Meg’s vision and she clapped her hands over her ears to hide from the horror show that her world had become. In her mind’s eye, she saw monsters roaming the streets, and leaping like demons from cars onto walls and rooftops. The beasts smashed their way into homes and dragged the innocent into the streets to be broken and devoured, and Meg could do nothing to stop it.

  Her heart beat a staccato against her ribs, and the pummeling sounds from below kept ringing in her ears. The blows came to her in a steady punching rhythm. Chop-chop-chop-chop. Pop-pop-pop. Chop—

  Meg wiped at her eyes. That was gunfire. It had to be. A second later, and Meg was moving cautiously back to the window. The sounds had stopped. Now she heard shrieks, but also shouting.

  A lot of shouting. Men giving orders in between bursts of gunfire. Meg risked a look outside but stayed back from the window in case the one on the wall was still out there. Smears and sprays of blood decorated the street. The dead police officer lay on their lawn, but she saw no sign of Tim or the other monsters. Shaking, and half afraid that one of them would crash in to attack her, Meg leaned close against the window. She tried to get a view in every direction she could.

  The street seemed empty. She couldn’t hear any of the telltale scraping or clicking sounds that signaled the monsters’ movements. And the only shrieks she heard came from further down the street. In a split second, Meg was back at the heavy boxes and pushing them out of the way. She shoved them aside, not caring that they slammed and banged against the boards.

  Meg took a deep breath and put her feet at the edge of the plywood covering the hole she’d come in through. With a quick shove, the board moved and Meg whipped her legs up and away, rolling to her side in case one of them was down there.

  She came up against more boxes and scrambled to get a good position to defend herself with a kick in case anything popped up from the bathroom below. The room was still dark below her. The bathroom door was still closed.

  Something moved inside the house, though. Something big, scraping along the wooden floors.

  What if it’s Tim? What if he’s come back for you?

  Nothing moved in the hall. No shrieks of recognition, nothing to signal that prey had been found. Then the house seemed to go quiet altogether.

  It’s gone. It’s gone an
d you’re good. Now go!

  Meg shook herself. She couldn’t allow the luxury of worry or fear. People needed help out there, and that meant she had to act. Meg moved to the hole and dropped slowly, setting her feet on the vanity first.

  All the noise she heard was from outside the house. Meg opened the bathroom door and stepped into the hall. The house was quiet. And it felt empty. She moved to their bedroom at the back, to the sliding glass door. Glass littered the carpet everywhere, in splinters and shards as big as her arm. Biggins was nowhere to be seen, but there wasn’t any blood either. She hoped he’d gotten away.

  Meg grabbed a towel from the linen chest beside their bed and used it to pick up the most sword-like piece of glass she could find. It might not save her if she were attacked, but it felt good to have some kind of weapon in her hand.

  The backyard was quiet as far as she could tell. Nothing seemed to be moving out there. Meg stepped to the broken door and kicked out the remaining bits of glass that might cut her if she had to get back in quickly. When she’d made a clear path for herself, she looked left and right quickly before whipping back inside. She hadn’t seen anything, but better safe than sorry.

  You’re good. Everything is okay.

  Meg chanted her grandmother’s comforting words in her mind as she went back to the doorway and stepped outside. For the first time she caught the reek of rotten fruit and realized she’d been smelling it as she made her way through the house. It had been faint inside, but out here it came to her like a wave of funk from a dumpster on a hot city day.

  Gunshots peppered the neighborhood around her, along with the occasional shriek or squeal of the monsters. Meg didn’t hear any more human screams, though.

  If she could find the police, maybe they could get her somewhere safe.

  And somewhere she could start to help.

  Meg winced when she heard a scream of terror from across the back yard. Their neighbors had never been nice people, but they didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. The screams continued and then stopped abruptly. Were they dead? Were they like Tim? What if they were just hurt? If Meg could get to them, maybe she could help.