by Brown, TW
There was a burst of bitter laughter, and a voice could be heard saying something unintelligible. “Dave says that the cops never ran out of bullets in the movies, but I keep telling him that we almost never saw any cops except the dirty ones in the movies…well, the dirty ones, the two that raided Monroeville Mall’s conveniently located gun shop, and Ving Rhames. Most of them didn’t really count, and they weren’t anything like the men and women that we have watched literally sacrifice their lives to save as many people as possible—”
“You said you guys are breaking for it when the sun is fully up?” Erin interrupted. “So about an hour or so from now?”
“Probably,” Cherry agreed. “And I will get to you any way that I can. Trust m—”
And then there was silence.
“Cherry?” Erin whispered it first, but then she found her voice and cried it over and over.
Rose didn’t know what to do. It was in that instant that she realized that she had been eavesdropping on what was basically a private conversation. Jason was the first to move as he stepped forward and eased the phone from Erin’s hand. She fought him at first, insisting that her friend Cherry might still be on the line.
“It says, ‘call ended’ on the screen,” Jason pointed out.
“No,” Erin wept and collapsed into Jason. He glanced over the woman’s head with an expression that clearly indicated that he was at a loss as for what to do.
Rose stepped up and eased an arm in, allowing Erin to sort of fall into her. She stroked the woman’s hair and whispered soothing words as she hugged the distraught semi-stranger.
She’d known Erin only in passing. Actually, she thought that Violet knew her pretty well. However, Erin had always seemed to be on the way out every single time that she came to visit. They’d maybe spoken less than a hundred words in the past three or four years. It was not as if there had been any animosity, they simply had never really been formally introduced. Rose had always thought that it might have something to do with how her sister had so few friends over the years. Even when she had managed to make one, they would meet her younger and more easy-going sister Rose and slowly, Violet would be pushed out of the picture. It had never been Rose’s intention, and she hadn’t even been aware that it was a thing until Violet’s twenty-ninth birthday a couple of years back.
Rose had come over for their usual birthday dinner and went to grab something to drink while the steaks finished on the barbecue. She’d seen the ice cream cake when she opened the freezer for ice cubes. She hadn’t said anything right away. She had regretted that decision later. Maybe if Violet had not been drunk off her ass on birthday wine, maybe then she would not have laid into Rose so bitterly about how Rose always stole her friends.
“…going after her,” Erin announced as she pushed away from Rose, scrubbing at her face with her hands.
***
“I’m going after her.” Erin pushed away from Rose’s arms and scrubbed at her face with what almost looked like anger.
“You’re gonna do what?” Ken asked.
Jason glanced at the man and was surprised to find himself on the same page as the ex-cop. After all, hadn’t they just made the choice not to go check the site of a helicopter that had crashed nearby. Hadn’t Erin said something about not taking foolish risks? Now she was seriously considering…no, Jason shook that first thought away. She wasn’t considering a damn thing. It was etched in stone. The woman had her mind made up.
“I am going back to Portland.” It was a simple declaration, but Jason heard the dare implied to any who might think to stop her.
“And that makes sense how?” Ken pushed the issue.
“This isn’t about making sense,” Erin said with a chill in her voice that Jason recognized as threatening violence. Apparently the ex-cop recognized it as well.
“How do you expect to survive the thirty mile trip back into Portland? I think it is safe to say that it has grown exponentially worse since yesterday. Hell, this entire fucking country was still basically in denial until just a few hours ago, and I think we can safely say that they are so late to the party that the band has already packed up and left.”
Jason swung his head around and was surprised to discover Juanita standing in the doorway to the house. Her hair was a mess, and it was clear that she had not been awake for more than a few minutes, but she obviously had heard enough to know what was going on.
“The news is showing scenes of cities in flames,” Juanita continued, talking over Erin’s attempt at a response. “New York is burning out of control. Chicago…Los Angeles…they just appear to be gone. The ticker says that none of the media centers are responding. Oh, and now there are reports that our own military is fracturing. People are now being told to avoid the FEMA centers. The military is either deserting their posts or conscripting civilians…or using them as human shields as they bug out and abandon their posts.”
“Jesus,” Rose breathed.
“Jesus has nothing to do with this,” Juanita replied flatly.
“How did it get so bad so fast?” Ken asked with disbelief ringing clear in his voice.
“So fast?” Erin spun on the man. “This has been building for a few weeks. It has simply been suppressed. It was a back page story. Any attempts by people to point out what was going on were met with derision and open mocking. That Dr. Sing bitch called it juvenile fantasies. Who the fuck fantasizes about the end of the world and humanity with any seriousness?”
There was a moment of silence. Jason looked from one face to another. When he locked eyes with Juanita, she obviously saw what was flitting around behind his eyes. She pursed her lips and gave a curt nod. It was not so much angry as it was acceptance.
“I’m going with you,” Jason finally said once he was positive that he could stand by those words. It had actually been a mental debate. Deep down, he knew for a fact that he was afraid of what was out there. He’d heard the screams of those being torn apart. It would probably haunt him forever.
Erin faced him and cocked her head to one side. “Why?”
At first, Jason did not think he’d heard the entire question. After a moment, he just shrugged. “It is the right thing to do.” That earned a scoffing snort from Ken.
“You two go ahead and rush off to your death.” Ken shot a look at the loaded bed of his truck. “I imagine you’ll be wanting to pick from the haul we just brought back.”
“I will.” Erin left no doubt that there would be no debate.
“And your friends? What do you want us to tell them?” Ken shot back. If Jason didn’t know any better, he would swear that the man was trying to talk them—or at least Erin—out of this fool’s errand.
“Don’t care.” With that, Erin turned to Rose. “Your sister has some stuff stored in her pantry. Could I take a few things? I won’t take much, just enough to hold me over and keep my energy up. We can forage on the way back. I will replace everything I take.”
Ken made another sound, but it seemed to get caught in his throat when Erin shot him an icy glare. Rose was a different story.
“You can take whatever you think we will need.” Rose stood there patiently while the statement sunk in.
“We?” Erin asked with open skepticism.
“I’m coming with you.”
“This is not going to be pretty,” Jason warned. He thought that the woman might be biting off more than she could chew. Where Erin was compact and just a bit muscular, Rose was long, lean, and lanky.
“No illusions that it would be,” Rose replied with just a hint of gruffness hardening her voice.
“Then we can’t stand around talking.” Erin clapped her hands together with enough force to cause the black and white Border Collie to come out and investigate. “We grab enough food and water to keep us going, but hopefully not enough to weigh us down.”
Rose’s face seemed to brighten suddenly. She made a sound that was almost a squeal and rushed to her car. Popping the trunk, she came up quickly with what looke
d to Jason like some sort of funky backpack.
“My Camelbak!” she exclaimed. She obviously saw Jason’s confusion. “It holds two liters of water, and they are easy to refill along the way at any spigot.”
“Nice.” Erin actually smiled.
It didn’t take long. They whipped up a few peanut butter sandwiches and grabbed the bunch of bananas from the counter. Even though they were taking Rose’s car, they were making allowances for the possibility that anything could happen between here and the hospital.
Ken watched quietly, making no offers to help. Jason heard Juanita ask him why he would not help them and was actually surprised at the answer.
“They didn’t do anything to deserve the death sentence. I won’t lift a finger to send them to Hell.”
Just before they left, Rose made arrangements with Juanita to look after her dogs. The woman seemed happy to be given something to look after. And with the briefest of goodbyes, Jason, Erin, and Rose climbed into Rose’s small car and headed for the gate.
9
Into the Breach
Jason eased past a cluster of three zombies that were hunched over and feeding. He could see well enough in the gloom of pre-dawn to pick out a pair of legs. They looked small.
“Oh, my God,” Rose breathed from the back seat.
“Don’t look out at that,” Jason said, doing his best not to sound like he was scolding her. “You are going to see enough to fill a thousand lifetimes’ worth of nightmares. Just sit back and try to relax.”
It had been mostly uneventful up to this point. The occasional zombie was easy to swerve around. As they cruised along Highway 26, Jason was surprised at how many accidents they encountered. Even more eerie was the fact that none of them had been responded to by emergency vehicles. To see two, three, and even a seven car accident scene just sitting there in the road was surreal. A few of them were not void of movement. They passed more than a handful of accident scenes where occupants could be seen moving in the vehicles. He did not so much as slow down.
As they passed the first one earlier on, it had been Rose that asked why he wasn’t even going to see if they could help. Fortunately, Erin answered so that he did not have to be the heavy.
“If they are injured, we can’t help them.”
“But we are headed for a hospital,” Rose insisted.
“A hospital that is overrun with the undead,” Erin reminded.
Jason did not think that too many of the “people” they were passing in those cars were of the living variety. He still shivered at one image in particular. They’d passed a three car wreck that forced them to move into the right hand emergency lane as they drove by. The wreck was just outside his window, and he made the mistake of peeking into the mangled minivan that had its sliding door ripped off in the collision. Inside was a car seat that was well lit by the interior light that would remain on for as long as the van’s battery held its finite charge. The small figure that turned its head his way and opened its mouth in a moan that he was thankful not to have heard over the running loop of the EBS warning that was on the radio was missing both legs right around the knee. It was very obvious that those tiny legs had been ripped off by the now absent attackers. The tattered flesh hung around the two grisly stumps were more ropy than tattered like you would see if they’d been chewed on. Just before he paid heed to the screaming demand that he look away coming from the rational part of his mind, he saw one arm come up as if to reach for him. The other arm was gone, leaving nothing but the exposed socket joint that he swore he could see amidst all the black, dried blood.
He could not imagine the horror experienced by that child in his last moments. Had it been the rest of his family that came for him and literally tore him limb from limb? It was in that moment that he understood the screams that he’d heard earlier. The people that were dying were not doing so in a quick manner. Instead, they were being ripped open, torn apart, and feasted upon by the undead. How many of those attacks were made worse by the attacker being a loved one?
“We’re coming up on Gresham in a few miles,” Erin announced. “I imagine it will start to get hairy right around there.”
Jason nodded and shook his mind free of the image that was burned in more permanent than any of his tattoos. A tattoo could be covered and made into something beautiful. What he’d seen inside that van would never fade. He was as certain of that as he could be of anything.
Almost as if her words had acted as a cue, Jason began to pick out wispy columns of smoke on the horizon. He stopped counting at thirty. Fires of varying sizes were going to burn out of control until they simply petered out, got a good old-fashioned Northwest rainstorm to douse them, or ran out of fuel. Judging by the clear and cloudless sky that was turning a soft blue, rain was not going to be coming anytime soon. Granted, it was the Pacific Northwest, where, if you didn’t like the weather, just wait ten minutes and it would change; still he did not see anything on the horizon that gave hope to any form of moisture falling soon.
“Still nothing on your phone?” Jason asked to take his mind off of everything else.
“Nothing,” Erin stated the obvious as she tapped the screen with her thumb and tried once again to call Cherry.
There had been one moment where they got their hopes up. It had been all for naught. The audible click, pause, and then a single ring took a total of perhaps three seconds. It seemed like an eternity, but, just as suddenly, there was another clicking sound and then the silence. Not even the “All circuits are busy now” message was playing.
They rounded a long, arcing corner and just passed the “Welcome to Gresham” sign when Jason took his foot off the gas. In the distance, a pack of figures had flooded the highway. At first, he thought that they were zombies. His throat was tightening when he saw most of them were running!
“Crap,” he breathed. “This is gonna be a short fucking apocalypse.” He had always dismissed sprinting zombies anytime the topic arose. The conversation usually went something along the lines of:
“Zombies can’t sprint.”
“Why not?”
“Because, they would lack the control and coordination of being able to physiologically perform such things.”
“You do remember that we are debating things that rise from the dead and become mindless eating machines with apparently no need to poop or otherwise void all the human snacks they consume, right?”
“Fuck off.”
Jason did not see one bit of humor in recalling those conversations at the moment. If zombies could do that whole Snyder Dawn of the Dead remake thing and sprint? Humanity had about a week at best.
“What’s wrong?” Erin asked as she looked up from the useless phone in her hand.
Jason did not need to answer. He was looking straight ahead, so Erin (and Rose) simply followed his gaze. Rose actually crawled forward a bit and was wedged in between the two front seats.
“Are those—” Rose began, but a scream cut her off as if providing the answer.
“Thank God,” Jason blurted before realizing exactly to what he had just given thanks. “I mean…”
“You thought they were sprinters,” Erin said with a wince. “I think we can cut you slack on that one. But for now…we need to get moving.”
“Where are they all coming from?” Rose asked as she continued leaning forward between the seats.
Jason’s eyes were scanning the highway in the general direction that this relatively large group was pouring out. When he saw it, he felt another stab at his conscience. It wasn’t bad enough that he’d just thanked God that these were people running for their lives and falling under attack by zombies in their midst; nope, they were all pouring from a massive church.
Looking at the scene ahead, he made a decision. Stomping on the gas, Jason swerved to the left and crossed into the eastbound lane. With no oncoming traffic, he only had to dodge the people…and undead. However, he knew very well that he would have to be cautious. This older model Honda Civic would no
t withstand much in the way of an impact. Despite what cars might be able to endure on television and in the movies, one body to the grill of this baby would end their trip in a hurry; of that much he was damn near certain.
“Be careful!” Erin hissed as he jerked hard to the right on the wheel to avoid a man who tumbled down the little slope and then came leaping out of the irrigation ditch that ran alongside the highway.
There was a thud, and Rose squealed as the passenger side smacked into one of the people or zombies, it was too much of a blur to be able to tell. What was not lost in the chaos were the cries of the living as they begged for the car to stop.
Jason felt his heart physically ache as he listened to all those pleas. He knew very well that there was nothing to be gained from stopping. They would be swamped, and that would be the end of things.
The highway began a long gradual downslope into a swirling cloud. To the same side of the highway as the church was one of the fires that seemed to be burning out of control. As they neared, Jason could make out the boxy shapes of the residences populating the manufactured home community that was now becoming a raging inferno. He stepped on the gas and urged the Honda to give all it could give. Even inside the vehicle, the heat was almost enough to hurt his skin. Worse still was the stench. The bitter smell of burning rubber, plastic, and bodies was enough to make all three of them gag.
