The Turning

by Thomas Key

  The dream began like most others, or at least I thought so. Rachel and I were sitting in chairs along some unnamed beach. Our hands were intertwined and as I glanced over, I saw her in a bikini. It was going to be one of those dreams, I thought, marveling in the absolute beauty of her female figure. If you’re a man, you know what I’m talking about. Then again; Ladies, you probably have similar dreams just with less cheesy fantasy types. Who knows, maybe y’all are as goofy in your dreams as we are. I blinked, enjoying the scenery. The sand on the beach began to swirl into the air, causing me to try to cover my eyes from the assault. The wind picked up as if a storm was moving ashore. Dark clouds seemed to arrive quicker than I think I had ever seen clouds move in all of my years. I looked at my fiancé and the longer that I stared at her, the more distant she seemed to become. In a split instant, I saw her move impossibly fast, still in her chair and now far enough that I could no longer see her. My hand outstretched as if I could somehow reach out to grab her. The world around me turned into what felt like the center of hurricane. A storm raged all around me and I was alone. The cold feeling of rain swept over me and suddenly, a rifle was in my hand, and I was firing into a mass of infected. They were building up, creating an undead ramp up to the top floor of the building that I stood upon. Above me was a helicopter, its propellers kicking up dust all around me. I looked up at it, and saw several children boarding, with Rachel ushering them into the waiting bird. Kenneth was beside me, matching me round for round. I yelled at him to board the black hawk. He didn’t. Maybe he hadn't heard me, so I pointed and shouted again. “Get on the fucking chopper!” He didn’t move or acknowledge me in anyway. I ran towards him just as the infected made the rooftop. As I watched, the crowd of undead avalanched straight towards him. He screamed. Oh God, did he scream as they swarmed over him. I pulled my trigger with every fiber of my being, screaming my own scream of pain and anguish as I pushed forward, popping heads as I went. “No!” I yelled as I neared the pile of corpses in front of me. His bloody lifeless face peered up at me, with a look of sheer terror still etched on it. I heard another scream and looked up. The infected had made it to the helicopter. How?! I yelled in my head as I ran towards my love. It was pointless. Like the devil’s personal flood of bodies, it rose and pulled the helicopter down. My fiancé, my only reason for living was enveloped in the horde. I fired every round that I had left in my magazine but it was useless. As the black hawk crashed to the ground, a fiery mess of destruction rained down around me. I dropped my rifle as I was consumed by grief. “No no no,” I repeated to myself, hitting the ground on my knees. All of the noise; the explosions and the moans of the infected stopped in that instant. As I realized that it was pure quiet, I looked up, the tears rolling down my cheeks in full force. All of the zombies had crowded around me and were staring at me hungrily. As I turned my head from side to side, I saw everyone that I knew. There was Kenneth, freshly risen. Isabel, Atencio and Jaylin off to my right. Ashmore to my left, still holding her medical bag. Directly in front was Rachel, dressed in a wedding gown. Oh God, I thought as they all lunged at me at once. Fitting, I thought as I stood and lifted my arms, ready to go willingly into the afterlife. I felt the first set of teeth tear into me and I screamed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  My scream carried over into life as I screamed out in my sleep. Rachel was immediately shaking me out of my nightmare. It took a few moments as my eyes finally opened and I stared up at her, tears still streaming down my face. I hugged her as hard as she could take, and I didn’t want to let her go. She rubbed her fingers through my hair and along the skin of my back, trying whatever she could to comfort me. I heard a knock on the door to the room. Rachel shouted, “He’s fine, everything's okay,” to whomever came to check on us. I still couldn’t speak and just kept my head buried into my fiancé’s arms. Like the amazing woman she is, she didn’t budge. Eventually, I passed back into sleep, the exhaustion getting the best of me.

  I awoke several hours later, still wrapped in her arms. If the room had been filled with other men, man card policy dictated that I be the one holding her. I’m not a fool though, I know damn well that women are the fairer sex. They are the strongest, and the most cunning. Some men will say what? Strongest, how is that possible? To them, I say, until we squeeze a living child out of us, I don’t care how much we can bench press, they’re stronger. Which may or may not be good news for men. I learned this very early on in my dating life and have stuck to the knowledge that I will never truly understand what a woman is thinking, or how they really feel. They are a complete mystery, like the black holes eating up whole galaxies in the night sky. Does NASA know what makes them tick? Nope. Do men really know what makes women tick? Not a chance in hell and any man that says otherwise is a goof. As my inner dialogue came to an end, my chivalry came to the forefront as I unwrapped her arms from around me and immediately wrapped her up in mine. I couldn’t lay there and not return the favor. For what I estimated as an hour, I watched the beauty sleep, rubbing my own fingers through her hair. When she woke up, she slowly looked up at me. A small grin crept over her face. “How long?” she said simply. “Like 37 years,” I responded, a smile forming on my own face. “You’ve been watching me sleep for 37 years?” she asked. “Yes, and worth every damn minute of it,” I said, giving her a light kiss on her forehead. Her smile was now full on. A light tap on the door interrupted our revelry. “Can you two please get dressed so we can go?” a small woman's voice from the other side of the door said loudly. “Nope, you go get em’ tiger, we’ll stay here and bang each other like a brand-new set of drums on Christmas day,” I yelled back. “Cringe,” I heard the voice say as they walked away. “We should get up,” Rachel said to me, still staring at me. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to bang you like a drum,” I said, a shit eating grin still plastered on my face. “Not right now Romeo, we’ve got a job to do.” She stood, and stretched. “But!” I stammered out, still holding out hope. She put her index finger to my lips. “Shush. When we get back,” she whispered to me as she kissed me passionately. She then turned and began to get dressed. I too got dressed but begrudgingly so. Blue balls be damned. Finally, we were prepped and ready to go. We were the last ones to the Humvees. Awkward was one way to put it when we walked out and everyone was there just staring at us. “That was so good babe. You’re the best I ever had. Especially that new elephant position. That was so amazing,” I told her loudly, causing her to blush and smack me on the arm. “Eww,” Atencio said, getting into the vehicle to avoid hearing anymore. “Shut it, Shep and get in the truck,” Rachel told me. We had played this game many times, and it was never not fun for either of us. I did as I was told though and within a few moments, we were back on our merry way. The clouds had caught up with us and even though the sun should have been rising soon, I knew that the storm would envelope the sky sooner rather than later and we’d be lucky for even one ray of sunshine today. We made our way slowly down the main road of Albuquerque, Central Ave. also known as Route 66 towards our destination.

  Speaking of which. “Where are we going again?” I asked Rachel who had once again been seated to my right. “Are you serious?” she asked me, a bit miffed. “No, not at all, I was just joking,” I said with a short burst of nervous laughter. She put her head in her hands and let out a rather large exasperated sigh. “We are going to Monte Vista Elementary School to hopefully rescue some kids, remember?” she said matter of factly. “Right, Right, of course,” I said, nodding in response. From out of the corner of my eye, I could see her still shaking her head. “Wow,” I heard from behind me as Atencio spoke up. “He’s a real keeper,” she said with a little laugh. “No kidding,” Ashmore said off to her right. “Thanks, peanut gallery,” I said, now a bit flustered, the heat of embarrassment rising up my neck to my cheeks. “You can’t expect me to remember every little thing. I have a whole lot of other things going on in my head,” I said, trying to defend myself. “Nope, we just expect you to remember the one
important thing,” Ashmore said. The two women in the back seats high-fived each other. I took a deep breath and let it roll off of my back, or tried to. Men’s egos are easily bruised but the bruises tend to become easily forgotten, especially with me. It was maybe two minutes tops before my mind began to wander to some really weird places. Would zombies eat people if they were covered in extra hot green chili? Would it confuse the undead at all, or just make the person an even tastier snack? Could zombies become as addicted to chili as us New Mexicans have become? How much I missed it. I’m sure I was drooling as I drove. No one mentioned it though as we slowly moved past burnt husks of cars and buildings, assorted piles of long dead and rotting corpses in the road, and even passed one running infected. I suppose we had attracted her by the sound of our vehicles and she must have been damn near a track star in her previous life. She stayed almost on our rear bumper for three blocks before we began to pull away. She would have overtaken us with no problem had we been on foot. I thanked our lucky stars that we still had two working vehicles. The apocalypse had a way of trimming us all down in a way that only those with limited rations could be. We weren’t starving by any means, but I was not enjoying my weekly two breakfast burritos each Wednesday either. On the plus side, we were all far leaner and fit than any of us had ever been before. Not to toot my own horn, but I looked pretty amazing. Dare I say hot? That thought though quickly went from a jovial one to that of despair as I thought about the wound on my arm that even then was throbbing slightly. I quickly shut down that thought train real quick, and refocused on the road ahead.

  Monte Vista was off of Central Avenue just a block or so up from the University of New Mexico. The area had been heavily populated and we had attempted to clear the area of supplies several times during our previous stay here but never had really succeeded. Not too far away was UNM Hospital and a huge area of residential homes, not including the university’s own dorms. Unfortunately, that meant a near constant trickle of infected during our runs here. This was going to be an exciting trip, I thought to myself. Then again, it had already been, hadn’t it? The bite wound on my arm began to itch, and as I drove, I tried repeatedly to scratch it without actually scratching at it. If you’ve ever had a bug bite or chicken pox, or even poison ivy, you know what I mean. We moved along Central in the west bound lane and oddly enough, only that one single infected had been seen since entering Abq. My best guess was that we had taken a majority of them with us out of the city on our initial escape. As we continued onwards, I kept my speed down, not only for the obvious risks of debris in the road but just looking around the area. This place had been my home, and the home for all of my crew. I had moved from place to place in the city somewhere in the vicinity of over a dozen times since arriving in New Mexico. Each move seemed to be in a different part of the city. Each area had their pros and cons, of that I was certain of. I spotted very familiar restaurants and stores that I had visited repeatedly over my tenure. A case of nostalgia swept over me like a tidal wave. We made it to our destination with no issues at all. Frankly, it was absolutely eerie for things to go right for once.

  Turning off of Route 66, and past a long-abandoned police substation, we spotted the school. In a city saturated with old Spanish and southwestern style architecture, it was clear to see this building was not any of that sort. Built in 1931, it was much more Mediterranean design than any other building in the area. Considering how long it had been standing, it seemed well up kept. Parking spots lined the road along a sidewalk to the east side, and small parking areas behind and in front of the school sat, with dust and dirt piled up like drifts of snow up against several still sitting vehicles. One thing that we did notice, however, was a recently used foot trail leading from the main doors of the school out to the street. “What’s the plan?” Rachel asked me as we pulled up into the parking spots. “Hold on,” I told her, as I backed up the Humvee, corrected my alignment and then parked perfectly within the lines, taking two tries to get it right. “Sorry, what did you say?” I asked her, glancing over. She was, of course, just staring at me. “Did you just fix your parking?” she asked. “Well yeah, it was embarrassing. I have standards,” I told her, looking at her confused. “Wow, you really picked the brightest bulb in the shed, didn’t you?” Ashmore asked as she got out. Rachel visibly sighed and also vacated the vehicle. Kenneth had pulled in next to us on my driver side and had also made sure to correctly align into the spots. We fist bumped each other on exiting and commented about just how well each of us parked, pointing and even moving some of the dust along the parking spot lines away with our feet. “And that’s why I only like women,” Atencio said as she shouldered her rifle and looked up at the school looming before us. “Me too,” said Ashmore as she stood beside her. Kenneth and my conversation died on our lips and we stood and looked at the two women. “You both?” Kenneth asked. Ashmore gave Atencio a quick peck on the cheek and they walked forward up the dead lawn of the school. It was safe to say that we were dumbstruck. Guys are generally oblivious that way. “Come on boys,” Rachel said, with Isabel right behind her. Jaylin elected to stay with the vehicles, keeping them guarded in case we had to make a hasty exit. We did as we were told and followed close behind. The two mean women led the way, and pulled the large wooden doors open. They swung open with a loud screech as the rusted hinges protested the movement. All of our flashlights turned on and the ladies scanned the interior. Nothing jumped out at them. Atencio and Ashmore then went left and cleared the office, the remaining three of us went to the right and moved down the dark corridor. A locked nurses’ room to the immediate right was locked, so we moved on quickly. We cleared a technology room and what looked to be a teachers’ break room. I looked back and saw the other two women continue to the left, and they began to clear a kindergarten room and the adjourning classrooms. We cleared the entirety of the main school building and came across absolutely nothing. There was no sign of infected or anyone living for that matter. As we began to walk back towards the entrance, I happened to pass a door that led outside to what I guessed was the playground. Not far in the distance though, I saw what looked to be a set of mobile classrooms. In one window, what had to have been a flickering light of some kind caught my eye. I wished right then that I could whistle. I was, unfortunately, one of those people that had never grasped the concept of being able to whistle though and instead, shouted as quietly as I could, “Psssst.” It worked though as the crew gathered around me to see what I was seeing. We, unfortunately, did not all fit in the window frame enough to all look at once, so I was pushed to the rear as everyone else looked on. Eventually, everyone spotted our goal. Like a kid chosen to lead the class to the lunch room, I regained my previous position at the front of the line and opened the exit slowly and everyone filed in behind me. I led the way to the mobile classrooms, and they stacked up behind me on the metal lined ramp leading to the door. The day was turning colder quickly and being outside with the storm brewing above did not help my morale much. My neck and arm hairs began to stand on end as I grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. We moved in as a unit and cleared the small room quickly. While it had once been a classroom, it had obviously been made into a small living area. Old mattresses and blankets were all over the place, with hand painted pictures covering most of the windows. Trash bags of food wrappers and other waste was piled up in one corner, as if someone was saving up for trash day. As our flashlights scanned the interior, in the very far corner sat two extremely frightened children. Granted, each of our rifles was pointed squarely at them and so I had no doubt we were a majority of the cause for their alarm. One by one, we lowered our weapons. Rachel rushed forward, not giving one single fuck about the condition of the children. “Are you two okay?” she said, embracing them into a motherly hug. The two kids began to cry heartily as they embraced her back. The rest of us just kind of stood there, taking in the whole room. The desks had been pushed to the perimeter of the interior of the room, allowing for the children to stand on the de
sks to peer out the windows. I supposed that they would also use them to barricade the door to the class if they had to. A sink sat along one wall, and several cans of food were stacked beside it. Toys were everywhere, littered around the floor like almost every kid in America’s room would be before their parents told them it was time to clean it. Only these kids most likely no longer had parents to tell them to clean it up. Like so many other children, these two were almost guaranteed to be orphans, and that more than anything sucked donkey balls. They’d never again play catch with their fathers, get their hair done with their mothers before prom, or even have one more single family dinner together. I looked away, feeling tears begin to form as I thought of all of what was lost for these small children. After several minutes, their sobs quieted down and Ashmore stepped up to check their vitals. Other than being somewhat malnourished, they were doing just fine. Isabel spoke next. “Where's the other two of you?” The two boys glanced at each other. “Cara and Cayden went to get more stuff,” one of them, a small Hispanic boy of maybe 6 years old said. The other boy, slightly older, maybe 8 years old spoke up. “We told them not to, but they did anyway,” he said. “What are your names?” Rachel asked. “I’m Joe, this is Raul,” the older boy said, pointing first to himself and then to the smaller boy. “So the two that are missing are Cara and Cayden? A boy and a girl?” she asked intently. The boy just nodded. I let out a quiet curse, hopefully not in earshot of the little ones. Great, another fun adventure coming right up, I thought as I listened on. “Where did they go?” she asked next. “They went to the Sub,” the younger one said. “What the hell is that?” I asked, far louder than I expected to sound. Rachel immediately gave me the ‘say another word and die’ stare. I, knowing when the fairer sex was right, immediately shut my trap. “Where is the Sub?” she asked, turning her attention back to the boys. “At the university,” the older one said. “UNM?” she inquired. Both boys nodded. “Well, grab my ears,” Atencio said and I looked over at her with a quizzical look on my face. She saw me look over at her and just smiled, shaking her head. I let it drop, but swore then and there that I would get the rest of that out of her someday. “I know where that is,” Kenneth spoke up and all of our attention turned to him. “It’s the student union building. They have a computer lab and some local restaurants that were set up in there. It would probably be a great place to scavenge for food and supplies,” he said. Isabel nodded and soon, we were all on board. That, however, left the issue of the two kids in front of us. “Alright. Can we load up the kiddos here and head over to the Sub? We’ll need to keep these two under guard so nothing happens to them after we leave here. Any volunteers?” I asked. Every hand in the group shot up. “Wow, I’m so glad y’all are willing to back me up in there,” I said. Kenneth’s hand lowered first. “Sorry bro,” he said sheepishly. I shook my head. “Nope, it’s fine, the damage is done,” I said, turning my back to him. “He is just being super dramatic, he’s fine,” Rachel said to Ken, rolling her eyes. Kenneth chuckled. I turned to look at her, trying to look as hurt and upset as possible. “Cut it out, we’ve got work to do.” “Fine fine,” I said, giving up on my ruse.