Survive (Day 4)

by A. R. Wise

  June stayed where she was, too afraid to move.

  Soon, Roy and the girls came downstairs, carrying bags of supplies. “What was that noise?” asked Roy.

  June shushed him, and pointed to the back yard where the victim sat weeping.

  “Dad, we can help her,” said Rose.

  “No,” he said. “We can’t.”

  “Yes we can,” she said, certain. “She got hurt. We can help her.”

  Roy pulled his daughter close. He pressed her to his chest to shield her from seeing the woman in pain. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Allie took Rose’s hand as Roy hoisted the bags of supplies. “Come on, Rosie.” The older girl lifted her sibling and pecked her cheek while forcing a smile. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  Rose buried her head into Allie’s shoulder.

  June followed them into the garage and to the grey Subaru Impreza. Roy loaded the supplies into the back while June searched for anything that could serve as a weapon. She found an aluminum bat, and tested its heft. Allie’s named was scratched into the side.

  “Girls, listen,” said Roy. “I want you both to lay down in the back. If something happens – if we get run off the road, then June and I will get out of the car. I want you two to stay inside. Okay? Stay in the car and stay down. We’re going to cover you with this.” He pulled a painter’s tarp from a nearby shelf.

  “Dad, I don’t…” Allie started to protest, but was cut short.

  “We don’t have time to argue. This is the way it is. Period. You’re going to stay in the back. You’re going to hide unless I say otherwise.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. Get in.” He opened the door to the back seat for them.

  June went to the passenger side, all the while saying to herself, ‘Holy shit. This is happening. This is happening right now.’ Her heart thudded in her chest. Her senses were heightened and on edge. Every sound was an alarm - every sight a warning.

  Rose and Allie got into the back. Roy said he loved them before covering their quivering, weeping forms. “Stay quiet, baby,” he said to Rose, his voice trembling.

  June looked at the bat in her hand, and then set it aside. “I need a knife,” she said, struck with sudden inspiration.

  “Why?” asked Roy.

  “Trust me. Let me get a knife. I’ll be right back.” She rushed back to the kitchen. She pulled a butcher knife and a paring knife from a wooden block on the counter. She glanced outside where the bloody woman had been crying, and saw that she’d vanished.

  June pressed the butcher knife to the back of her arm, cringed, and then sliced herself. Blood swiftly covered the blade. She returned to the garage, shocking Roy as she presented the bloody weapon.

  He pointed his pistol at her.

  “We can fool them. Stop pointing the fucking gun at me. Trust me, we can fool them into thinking we’re already infected. If we smear some blood on ourselves, and we’ve got knives, maybe they’ll let us drive past them.”

  “Did you cut yourself?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He stared at her, uncertain how to react.

  “We’re going to make it out of this, one way or another,” she said. “We’ll keep your girls safe.”

  He nodded, and then got in the car. Roy sat in the driver’s seat with his hand on the keys, frightened to turn them. June reached for the garage door opener that was clipped to her sun visor. They looked at each other, both determined but terrified.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  He turned the keys.

  Day Four – 3:01 pm

  June clicked the button to raise the door. The car had been backed into the garage, which meant they were watching as the door rose in front of them. Roy’s youngest daughter was still crying. Allie tried to hush her.

  “We’re going to be fine,” said Roy. “Don’t worry, girls. Don’t worry.” The quiver in his voice wasn’t convincing.

  June saw the legs of a man come running up the driveway, his upper half revealed slowly as the garage door climbed. She tensed, looked to her driver, and said, “There’s one.”

  Roy said, “I see him.”

  June rolled down her window an inch, and then yelled, “Do you need help?” She held her bloody knife up so that the man in the driveway could see it.

  The helper crouched to peer into the garage before the door was all the way up. He saw June and her knife, but looked more confused than convinced. He was a stubby little man, with fat, drooping cheeks and no eyebrows. His mouth was agape, and his left eye was larger than the right. He cocked his head like a confounded dog, and gazed at Roy and June while the garage door continued to open.

  “I can help,” said June as the chubby man approached.

  “Should I run him down?” asked Roy quietly.

  “Open your door,” said the helper. His hands dripped blood.

  Roy put the car into drive and took his foot off the brake, allowing the vehicle to lurch forward. The helper didn’t move, but instead slapped his hands to the hood as if he could hold the car back. Roy stepped on the brakes, and the helper glared at him before cocking his head to the other side. He squinted, and then his eyes grew wide.

  He snarled, “You need help.”

  June commanded, “Go!”

  Roy hit the gas, and the chubby helper was launched onto the hood as the Impreza rocketed down the drive and into the street. Roy stopped, and their attacker rolled off and onto the unforgiving pavement.

  Their hopes of a stealthy escape were dashed.

  There were helpers carrying makeshift torches patrolling the neighborhood and lighting fires. They saw the attack that left one of their own sprawled on the concrete. Multiple helpers came running their way.

  June yelled at Roy, “Don’t stop! Go.”

  The helper who fell off the car was now on his knees. Others dropped their torches and drew blades. The fires in the neighborhood had already started, and were spreading fast. Flames followed lines of gasoline that edged each home. The flames moved across driveways to the nearest neighbor. One by one, the quaint homes were being immolated, and the sky had turned black with smoke.

  Roy cursed, cringed, and then stepped on the gas. The Impreza struck the fat helper, knocking him back to the ground. The driver’s side tire got momentarily stuck against the helper, but was quickly able to overcome the squishy obstruction, cracking bone as it did.

  A helper slammed into the side of the car, and he reached for one of the rear door handles. Roy swiftly flipped the locks, and hit the gas harder. The back tire surmounted the fat helper, causing the car to bounce and Rose to cry out in fear.

  “Stay quiet, honey,” said Roy. “It’s going to be…” He was interrupted by the sound of another body slamming into the car. A victim pinwheeled off the side and past June’s window as he fell to the pavement.

  She screamed at Roy to keep driving, uncertain what else she could do to help.

  “I am,” he replied.

  There were more helpers ahead, emerging from the neighborhood they’d set ablaze. They surged into the street. A gunshot rattled June, and a second caused the girls in the back to start screaming. A back window shattered. Death felt imminent.

  Roy’s only concern was saving his children, and he ran down multiple helpers in his path. A woman’s body hit the front of the car, sending her up and directly into June’s side of the windshield. The glass caved in slightly in the shape of the woman’s rear, and cracks erupted like roots that stretched across to Roy’s side. The woman fell harmlessly aside, but the damage left June blinded to what was ahead.

  “Give me the gun,” she said.

  Roy glanced at her, his eyes wide and his skin pale, looking as if he’d just woken from a nightmare.

  “Give me your gun. You drive, I’ll shoot.”

  The gun was tucked between his legs, and he hesitated before handing it over.

  “Give me the gun, Roy!”

  H
er command stole his attention for just long enough to prevent him from seeing a car that’d turned a corner ahead. The helper’s car was aimed at them, intent on stopping their escape. Roy saw it in time to jerk the wheel to the right, but not in time to avoid a collision.

  The helper’s car hit the back-right side of the Impreza, causing them to fishtail violently. Their back wheels hopped a curb, and then catastrophically bounced over a brick wall that edged a flowerbed. In seconds they were facing the wrong direction. Rose continued screaming as her father tried to regain control of the car.

  June took the gun from him.

  “Dad!” Allie screamed out. The tarp that’d previously covered her had been thrown aside, and she saw a helper rushing at the them with what looked like a spear.

  The helper wielded a metal pole, the end wet with mud, and he struck Roy’s window with it. The window didn’t break, but the helper struck again as Roy tried to free the car of the flower bed it was stuck in. The wheels struggled to pull away from the decorative rock border.

  June squinted as she aimed, and then fired a thunderous shot that broke Roy’s window and felled their attacker. The helper dropped dead with a hole where an eye had been.

  “Dad, go!” Allie’s desperate plea contended with the sharp ringing in June’s ears from the gunshot.

  Roy turned the wheel left and right, hoping to dig his way free of whatever obstacle had stalled them. Helpers came at them as quick and deliberate as wolves to a kill, eager for their chance at a meal.

  “Sit back,” said June as she put her left hand to Roy’s chest and forced him to stop leaning forward. She aimed at an oncoming helper, lining up a shot. In that split second, she caught sight of a rifle. In the madness of the moment, time slowed to a crawl. June saw a helper with a gun in the crowd. He was taller than the others, with a patch over one eye and a red handkerchief on his head. He leveled a hunting rifle, took aim, and prepared to fire directly at June.

  She fired first.

  Allie and Rose were crying out in terror as June fired shot after fearful shot.

  The Impreza’s 4-wheel drive was finally able to pull free of the brick wall they’d been stuck on. Suddenly they were launched forward, and helpers were tossed aside as the Impreza made it back to the street.

  June looked through the back window in search of the man with the rifle. Had she hit him?

  The rifleman was still standing in the street. He was still aiming at them. She saw a flash, and then the back window shattered.

  Pain.

  Shock.

  Blood.

  June dropped her pistol and grasped the right side of her face. There was warmth on her hands, but the sensation couldn’t contend with the growing, searing, agonizing pain.

  Roy gazed at her, his eyes wide with shock, his face speckled with her blood.

  June looked at her hands.

  Her blood-soaked hands.

  Day Four – 3:32 pm

  April Taylor said coldly, “Kill them.”

  “Wait, no,” said Jeff.

  One of the soldiers callously ended the life of a sleeping helper, and then moved on to the next.

  Porter was the only helper still awake, standing shackled and with a mask that acted like a muzzle. The others were knocked out by whatever drug Jeff had been using to sedate them. The soldiers were preparing to abandon the camp and head south, and the lead scientist had little interest in carting along infected.

  Paulson stood grinning beside Taylor, content to watch the helpers perish. Porter was cuffed and standing beside the sleeping helpers as they lay in the grass of the prison yard. Infected blood pooled beneath the dead helper, and his murderer moved to avoid it.

  The soldier aimed down at the head of the next helper. He fired his M-4 without hesitation. The helper’s head bounced, and a spurt of blood shot a foot in the air, then a second boiled forth.

  “Wait, goddamn it,” said Jeff. “Let me keep one at least.”

  “We can’t risk it,” said Taylor, her expression one of faint disgust. “And we don’t have any spare trailers.”

  “I need to finish the tests,” said Jeff.

  “We’ll get more of them.”

  Another shot, and a third helper was left bleeding and deceased. The air stank of gunpowder. There were only two other helpers between Porter and execution.

  “How do we know?” asked Jeff as he stood twenty feet away, helpless beside his fellow scientists. “What if we don’t find another? What if…”

  Another gunshot. Another dead helper. The soldier moved dutifully down the line. Porter closed his eyes. One more shot, and then it was his turn.

  “Goddamn it,” yelled Jeff. “Would you listen to me? These infected are our best shot at…”

  Bang.

  Porter involuntarily jumped, startled by the nearby, sudden gunshot. He kept his eyes closed, ready for the end.

  “Not him,” said Jeff, and his voice grew louder as he approached.

  “Jeff, stop. What’re you doing?” asked Taylor.

  Porter opened his eyes.

  “Step back, sir,” said the soldier. “Please step back now.”

  “No I will not,” said Jeff as he came up to the scene of the executions. He edged his way around the growing pools of blood. “I will not. Now stop this. We need him. His blood tests came back with heightened immune response. April, you said it yourself. There’s something happening in him, and if we kill him we’ll have to start all over again. No, no. No! I refuse to let this happen. Put your gun down.”

  Paulson began a protest, “Jeff…”

  “No! You’re not going to kill this one. I won’t let you.”

  “We don’t have room for him,” said April.

  “Yes we do,” said Jeff. “Empty one of the trailers of Chinese.”

  Paulson and Taylor looked at one another, and then back at Jeff as if what he’d said was astonishing and deplorable.

  “You said it yourself,” said Jeff, gesticulating at them as if pushing off the blame. “They’re to blame. Maybe not them, but… I mean, why’re they locked up? Why’re they locked up if we don’t think they’re a threat? I’m sorry, but if it comes down to a possible…” he motioned at Porter, flustered and angry. “A possible advance in our understanding of the virus. If it comes to that, well, I’m sorry but that’s the way it is. Empty a trailer. We’ll take him instead.”

  “You’re talking about twenty innocent lives,” said Paulson.

  “Sure, sure,” said Jeff. “Okay. But how many people can we save if what we’ve found out leads to a cure? What then? Would you trade the lives of twenty for the lives of millions? For our very way of life? Are you so sure the right thing to do is bow down to pressure? Are we really going to accept the Red solution? No. No, no, no.” He shook his head emphatically. “I’m not going to stand by and watch my country bow down like that. Not without a fight.” His passion eased, and he whispered a final line, “Not without a fight.”

  “Fine,” said April. “Jordan, empty out one of the prisoner transports. We’ll throw Jeff’s pet in it for now.”

  Paulson looked at Taylor in shock. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am,” said Taylor, and then she walked away, leaving her co-worker to join the soldiers preparing for departure.

  Jeff celebrated by turning to Porter with a wide grin. He laughed, and reached out as if to pat Porter on the shoulder, but then he retreated as if embarrassed. He pinched his lower lip, and then said to the soldier, “You heard her. Get this one to one of the Chinese trailers.” He backed away from a growing pool of blood.

  The soldier shook his head in disgust. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “Do what you’re told,” said Jeff.

  “Screw you,” said Jordan. “You take him.”

  “Don’t walk away from… Stop. Stop right there,” said Jeff as the soldier left. “I’ll have you written up for insubordination!”

  “Go fuck yourself,” said Jordan as he walked out of the yar
d.

  “Fine,” said Jeff as he turned to Porter. He held up two fingers and said, “That’s twice I saved your life, Mr. Law. You owe me. Now don’t make me regret it. Follow me, and be good. Last thing we need is to give one of these trigger-happy murder hogs a reason to kill you. Understand?”

  Porter nodded.

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  He followed his savior through the yard, and out of an opened gate. The military was mobilizing in the large parking lot and cleared field that surrounded the prison. There was an array of vehicles including several green Hummers, troop transports, and what looked like miniature tanks with guns in front instead of a cannon. Porter wondered if they were anti-air guns, although his knowledge of military vehicles was admittedly lacking. There were two other vehicles fitted with what looked like snowplows on the front that were turned at 45 degree angles. He decided they must be designed to knock debris out of their way.

  Jeff led him past several groups of curious soldiers. They were stopped several times and asked why Porter was still alive. Jeff was forced to explain the situation multiple times, and at one point a group of soldiers refused to let them pass until their commander spoke with the scientist. Finally, they made their way to a line of semis with opened rear doors. Each of the trailers were fitted with long benches on either side, and survivors sat on them, nervously waiting for the caravan to get moving.

  Jeff paused behind each one, and looked in at the occupants. They stopped at a trailer filled with Asian men, women, and children.

  “Okay, you need to get out. Do you hear me? All of you need to get down,” said Jeff.

  “Why?” asked one of the men at the rear of the trailer.

  “Because we’ve got to… Because I said so. Okay? Now get out. I’m sorry, but you have to get out.”

  “Are we still being evacuated?” asked an older Chinese man. “I don’t understand. Why are we…”

  “You have to get out,” yelled Jeff. “Now do it before I get some men over here to make you. Get out or there’s not going to be any other trailer for you. Do you understand? If you don’t…”