Someone runs around the side of the dam, followed by someone else, and then a third, and a fourth. I’m assuming there’s more but I stop watching. These must be the reservoir rebels that followed us through the tunnel.
Can’t we just get five minutes? That’s all I’m asking. Five minutes so I can catch my freakin’ breath. And maybe get a drink because I feel like I’m gonna fall over the second Felecia and Norwood pull their arms out from under me.
I’ve been sweating all day long, in the hot sun. My face feels so tight I swear it could crack at any second. At least then I’d blend in with the infects and they’d leave me alone for a little, just long enough to guzzle a gallon or two of water. I’m starting to see spots everywhere I look. And I know I can’t be alone. We need to find some way to rest.
A growing pack of ravenous mouth breathers make a beeline for us as we race towards the maintenance garage. Oh god I hope someone left the keys in the truck. You see, trucks are a lot like boats, you need a key to start them. Figured I’d say it before Felecia gets the chance to.
Max races ahead, aiming for the small building as Norwood springs into action, playing defense. He severs a head with a wild swing, spinning his entire body around, Norwood style. I don’t even think he’s back on both feet before he tackles another one with a shoulder to the stomach that might have just knocked this bastard out of his shoes. Remind me to bow to him as soon… as…
There’s no truck. How is there no truck in there? What kind of fucked up maintenance garage doesn’t have a god damn pickup?
CHAPTER 16
Maxwell races into the darkness of the garage, as if the truck must be in there somewhere, hiding behind the gas can. Someone’s already taken it, even from here I can see where they peeled out, probably because there were a bunch of dead people chasing them. Time for a new plan, unless we’re going to ride the lawnmower to–
She’s starting the lawnmower. Oh come on, I was being sarcastic! Are we seriously doing this?
A riding mower tractor thingy emerges from the maintenance building, pulling a flatbed trailer that’s probably meant for push mowers and weed-whackers. We’d be better off on foot. How fast do lawnmowers even go? I’ve only ever used the push kind, which is probably why I didn’t know they needed keys. Do you just keep it on your keychain with all the others?
Oh okay, I guess they go kinda fast, I mean, she’s cruising out of there. It is one sleek looking machine. She’s gotta be pushing 15mph or so. Still, there’s no way in hell we’re outrunning these things, I’ve seen them chase cars, they’ll be keeping pace beside us as we spit grass clippings at them.
Not sure we have a choice though. I know my body can’t go on much longer. I can see myself physically trembling. I don’t think it’s from the cold water anymore. If I were to try to take a drink, I’d be lucky to get a couple drops in my mouth. And I know I’m not alone, we’ve all had way too many close calls in the past couple hours, we need time to recover. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not an option, it’s become a necessity. We need to rest.
“Woman, are you insane?” Norwood calls over his shoulder, beheading another dam dweller he unnecessarily tackled, clipping him at the shins. “We can run faster than that thing drives.”
“How much more running you think you can handle?” she shouts back over the sound of the engine sputtering away. Maybe sputtering’s not quite the right word because it sounds pretty smooth.
“You can run beside it all you want brother,” Marty says, hopping over the metal railing, just tall enough to stop things from rolling off. “I’m hopping on the magical tractor ride. Who knows, we might even get some apple cider.”
“Don’t push your luck old man,” Maxwell scoffs, tipping her imaginary straw hat in his direction.
I follow Marty’s lead, grateful Neil’s helping Norwood hold off the frontline of infected warriors eager to hitch a ride on our wagon. There’s no way I can fight, I can barely see or breathe or feel my extremities. I’d be dead within seconds of sloppily swinging my sword at a butterfly, thinking it was a walking corpse, and getting mauled by the onlookers wondering what the hell I’m doing.
Felecia hops onto the moving metal platform, reaching back for Sami. I know we need to be out there helping Neil and Norwood but I feel like I’m watching the world through a pinhole.
I’m so far away. So drained.
The sky is nothing but a dot above me, the brilliant colors of the sunset beginning to fade. It’ll be dark soon. Do riding mowers have headlights? Where is this dirt road even taking us? Because if we’re going into the woods, I hope we have more than two pairs of night vision goggles.
How the hell are we getting across this flooded river? I don’t even know what the plan is here, we’re still in stay alive mode, and it was looking mighty iffy back there. We’re stuck in this constant state of doing whatever it takes to survive the moment, and then figuring out what to do if we’re still alive.
And I might be seeing it through a pinhole, but I’m pretty sure they’re overcrowding the platform on top of the dam and spilling over the edge. They must have found a way into the tunnel, whether that means they filled the turbine room to capacity and just walked over their fallen comrades, or they crammed themselves into every hallway until they popped out the other side. But they’ve arrived, and it doesn’t look like their line of undead forces are showing any signs of retreating
My limbs are beginning to tingle, coming back to life. I can feel my fingers, I think I’m moving them. I’m so far past the point of exhaustion, my body’s shutting down and I’m left with little say in the matter.
Through the pinhole speck in my delirium, I can make out Neil and Norwood trying to fight off a never ending army of undead soldiers. What are they thinking? They can’t fight them all. They need to hop on so Max can really punch it and speed on out of here. Please tell me this thing goes faster than we’re currently doing because I’m pretty sure the puffy pink clouds are passing us.
“Leesh,” I mumble, but I doubt she can hear me over the roar of the engine. “Felecia, we gotta seal the entrance.”
“What?” she asks, lowering her ear to my mouth. Her heavy breaths cause her entire body to convulse. “Say it slowly.”
My words must be jumbled, which makes sense seeing as how I can’t feel my lips. “The stairway, the one we came up, to the top of the dam. We need to blow it up, to stop them. They’re just gonna keep coming. Rocket launcher.”
“I think I got it. Just rest sweetie.” She rubs my forehead before planting the tenderest of kisses on it, that or she’s full on tonguing it right now and I just can’t feel a thing.
“What the hell is he saying?” Marty asks, confused yet clearly worried for me. “You understood that?”
“Most of it. Remember, Nolecia? We got that bond. Maxwell, you gotta switch with Marty. We need you to shoot the stairway that comes onto the platform. That’s where they’re coming from. Back left corner.”
“One trip to boom town, coming right up. Marty, you good to take the wheel?”
“I once drove monster trucks, I can take any wheel. Except the Wheel Of Fortune, I can’t spell for diddly. Now scooch over Toots, I’ll show you how to drive a lawnmower.”
Is it me or did Maxwell flinch a little? Might have just been a bump in the dirt road, or her letting off the gas or whatever you do with a lawnmower. I tried to get Dad to buy a riding one but he insisted on the push kind, probably because he had me and Ma– my little brother, to do it.
Max, the new one, hops into the trailer beside me. Not the Max who became enamored with the Buckley way of living and decided his big brother was a pussy because he didn’t want to shoot animals and deport illegals. He changed right along with Dad, it broke my heart to witness. The kid who used to collect caterpillars in his giant reptile case and let them fly free when they became butterflies, somehow morphed into a bully. The kind who has to switch schools. The kind you don’t want to admit is related to you.
“Want me to kick his ass for calling you Toots?” Felecia asks.
“Old perv would probably like it. I don’t mind, believe me, in my line of work, I’ve been called much worse. It’s just, that’s what Denny used to call me,” she says, ripping into the duffel bag.
Denny, like Denny’s? I could go for Denny’s.
“Sorry, Dennis, Wolfe.”
Oh, so, not Denny’s. Leave me alone, I’m watching the world through a toilet paper tube right now.
“It wasn’t like a cute little nickname for me, Toots is just what he called women.”
“And you were his woman?”
“No, Felecia, god no. I mean, I wished, at one point, but, no. We came up together. Couldn’t stand that racist prick at first. You know he used to call me Blackswell?” She loads a miniature missile into the cannon before hoisting it to her shoulder. “But he was just so damn hot, and confident. That smile. Raaaaa!”
She screams, pulling the trigger, her roar drowned out only slightly by the explosive discharge. I may not be able to see a whole hell of a lot, but I can see the resentment in her eyes. The resentment towards herself for falling for someone like him.
Before the blast of the first bomb is done raining infected carcasses, she’s loading another missile. I don’t know if a second shot is needed, but she’s taking it anyway.
“He was the first person who really made me understand racism. He didn’t hate black people, he hated this stereotype that he thought we all were. How could I be in love with someone who hated the color of my skin?”
She shoots again, a fireball exploding from the cannon on her shoulder. It rocks the platform Felecia and I were standing on what feels like days ago, but mustn’t be more than an hour or two, if that.
“Honey,” Felecia says with a smile, “I dated Blake Oliver. No judgment from me. You were still in love with him, weren’t you?”
I’m looking in the other direction, watching as more bodies rain down from the overlook atop the dam, but I can tell she’s nodding her head silently. We can’t choose what our hearts do. I dated Michelle for over a year, and I don’t think I ever actually liked her. I had feelings for her, certainly not love, but there were feelings there, and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. I think maybe our hearts concede over time, eventually giving in and taking what they can get, just so we’re not alone.
I understand what Maxwell’s going through. Our situations are different, but when it comes down to it, we’re both mad at ourselves for caring about people we don’t want to care about. We look past things that maybe we shouldn’t. We disappoint ourselves by not doing what we know needs to be done.
The influx of bodies swarming the viewing platform dwindles. It worked, she sealed the exit! She closed the portal.
I can finally close my eyes. The light coming through the pinhole in my vision fades to black.
CHAPTER 17
A sudden jolt wakes me. Did I fall asleep? Oh please tell me this was all a dream. Let me wake up Tuesday morning and get a do-over.
This time, how about nobody comes back from the dead? I promise, I’ll dump my old friends and make new ones. I’ll run away with Felecia, and maybe take Caylee with us.
I’ll help Norwood and the guys build that fallout shelter. I’ll tell my dad I forgive him, even though I don’t, but maybe it’ll restore our relationship. I’ll chain my little brother to the radiator and make him watch Disney movies until he forgets every hateful lesson that’s been ingrained in him.
I’ll do everything I would have done if I’d known what was coming. Just, please, don’t let there be dead people trying to eat me.
I’m not in the safety of my bed. There’s no shelf above me with dinosaur models on it. The candles Jenny made me aren’t sitting on the bookcase in front of my dad’s comics, the ones he threw in the trash years ago, that I rescued without him knowing. The ones I admittedly don’t know how to read. I tried, I always read the bubbles in the wrong order. No fossils from the dig site me and Max got to go on with Dad. You have to stop calling him that, he’s not Maxfield anymore.
And this isn’t your bedroom. Not the tiny one in Mom’s apartment downtown or the giant one in the old house, with the window seat overlooking the backyard.
I’m on a trailer, being pulled along a bumpy dirt road by a lawnmower that looks like it could cut through the underbrush of a jungle. It sounds like there’s a jet about to take off beside us, but it’s just the river, attempting to swallow anything that dares get close enough to its banks.
The atmosphere darkens every time we pass beneath a tree. The shallow woods that border the overflowing ravine offer little light with the sun so low in the sky. I don’t know where this utility road goes but it’s leading us downstream.
Norwood and Neil just jumped on the flatbed, that must be the bang that woke me up. My fingers wiggle when I try to move them so Neil doesn’t accidentally step on me. I’m not a carpet. I might look like a Noah skin rug but I assure you, I am not.
“You alright buddy?” he asks, his voice half a mile away. He’s breathing so heavy it feels like wind whipping off the ocean. “That was too close back there, even for you. I swore you were a goner. Do you realize you used a zombie, who was trying to eat you, to surf down a rock cliff? Dude, I have never seen anything like that, ever. Felecia, you okay?”
“Just give me a minute.”
Wait, was that Felecia talking, or my stomach? I swear her voice came from… Oh, she’s using my belly as a pillow. I didn’t even feel her there. Or her hand on my chest. She sounds just as out of it as I am.
“Guys, I don’t think they’re alright.”
I try to reassure Neil but he doesn’t hear me. Maybe if I pat his shoulder he’ll understand.
“They can’t do this,” he says, nudging my hand away from his nose as I try to tap his shoulder. “Not after everything they’ve been through. Last night, today, they haven’t even slept. They need water and rest, food.”
He stops talking what feels like midsentence and stands to lean over the edge of the trailer. Is he taking a leak? Or puking? What is he doing? Why isn’t he just letting me pet his shoulder so he knows I’m alright? I’m here, I’m with it.
He swings his sword, halting the footsteps that had been growing louder, crunching the gravel of the utility road.
They’re chasing us. We’re not going fast enough to outrun them. Maxwell and Norwood are on the other side, their swords clanging on the metal rail as they hold off infected intruders. Sami’s by my feet, swinging my morningstar mace, trying to keep them from climbing aboard.
They need my help. I try to sit up but I don’t think I made it too far. The back of my head rests against the wooden floorboards before I’m able to maneuver myself out from under Felecia.
“We gotta find someplace to regroup,” Neil continues, putting his hand to my chest to hold me down. It doesn’t take much.
“I second that.” Norwood plops down. He doesn’t look much better than we do, but at least he’s still moving.
“They’re dehydrated,” Maxwell says, swinging a sword of her own. “They’ve been fighting in 90 degree heat all day, on no sleep. Sami, can you get MREs from the bag? How can we be this close to water and not have any to drink?”
“Look, there’s a canteen in here,” Sami says, excitedly, pulling out something that is most certainly not a canteen, it looks like a plastic pouch. Oh I get it now, it gets big when you fill it with water. “I’ll run over to the river.”
“I can’t let you do that.” Maxwell holds out her hand to stop Sami from hopping over the rail. “What if you can’t catch back up? We can’t slow down, they’re gaining on us as it is. You are so brave for offering but–”
“They’re my friends, and they’d do it for me. They’d do it for every one of us. I know I just met you guys, but it’s not easy for me to make friends. Everyone thinks I’m weird. They treat me different because of my brother. No one ever comes over to my house to play. Noa
h and Felecia treat me like I’m one of them, like I’m just one of the guys. I’m not a kid, I haven’t been in a long time. They would let me go, because they trust me. I’m one of you now. They need water and if no one else is gonna risk their life for it, I will.”
Okay, when did this girl get so awesome? Why couldn’t my sister be more like her?
“Kid’s right,” Maxwell sighs. “I don’t know where you came from, but I served with a lot of soldiers who coulda learned a thing or two from you. I’ll get the water, you get their MREs.”
“I got it.” Neil says, taking the canteen from her. “I owe it to them. If it weren’t for me, they wouldn’t have gone through half the shit they did. Hell, they came back to get me off the island, this is the least I can do. Marty, whatever you do, don’t slow down. I’ll catch up.”
I try to thank him but he disappears over the side of the trailer before I can get the words out. At the start of all this, I never could have imagined Neil doing anything to help me. A few days ago, we were literally trying to kill each other.
“Here, I found you a sausage, I think, this might be the pastry thing, I don’t know.” Sami nibbles a piece off the corner before holding it to my mouth. “Yeah, it’s the sausage, probably. It says sausage. Just eat it. See, yum yum, it’s good. Eat.”
When we first agreed to take her and her brother, I thought she was going to be a burden, we all did. But she’s the furthest thing from it. She needs to know that she’s not weird.
“No, no, don’t talk, it’s okay.”
“We gotta find the meatballs.” Maxwell’s trying to dig through the bag while keeping an eye on the approaching footsteps. “Felecia, you with it enough to eat?”
“Eat? Ummm.” She sounds like she’s half asleep. No wonder they can’t understand me when I talk.
Call me crazy, but this sausage isn’t half bad. I don’t know, I’ve always liked MREs. When I was little, that was one of my favorite parts about camping, before camping became hunting. It was fun eating out of a little pouch. Maybe I was always meant for this.
Blood Type Infected (Book 5): The Departed Page 10
