“There must be something!” Sergei yelled. “Pop the trunk!”
Casper walked around to the driver’s side. When he touched the door handle, the car suddenly exploded. Gunfire erupted from the north bank of the river at the same moment.
“Get back in the van!” Sergei screamed.
The four remaining gangsters herded Jamie, Todd and Casey back into the van. As they did so, two of them were shot.
The driver spun the van around and they sped away from the bridge.
Sergei was furious. “Those treacherous snakes!” he screamed in rage.
Jamie became a little carsick as the van raced back to Midway. Once they arrived back at the airport, the two remaining gangsters led Jamie, Casey and Todd back to the room they had been locked in.
Once they were left alone, Casey spoke up. “That was crazy.”
Todd nodded. “We’re lucky we didn’t get killed.”
Explosions rang out nearby.
“We may get killed yet,” Jamie said.
Gunfire echoed outside for what seemed like hours. Suddenly gunshots rang out in the hallway outside the room. A bullet ricocheted off the outside of the door and suddenly the door came unlatched. The three men ducked behind the table as the door cracked open. The lights went out as a loud explosion boomed down the hall. Ceiling tiles fell on Jamie and Todd. The three men sat there silently as screaming gunmen ran up and down the hall outside the door.
“Did you hear that?” Jamie asked suddenly.
“Hear what?” Todd asked.
“Zombies,” Casey whispered.
A telltale growl came from the hallway. More gunshots rang out just outside the door.
“If the gunfire moves away from here, we should make a break for it,” Todd said quietly.
Jamie nodded. “Yes.”
Gradually the fighting moved down the hall away from the room.
Jamie stood and walked to the door. He opened it a little more and saw Sergei lying on the floor, face down in a pool of blood, just a few feet from the doorway. He appeared to have been shot at least a dozen times. He turned and motioned to the other two as he looked up and down the hallway. They were alone in this part of the terminal.
Jamie walked out into the hallway as Todd and Casey followed him. He reached down and took Sergei’s pistol. He glanced out the window and noticed it was dark and rainy. He ran down to the end of the terminal to the last jetway and kicked the door open. The three men descended an emergency staircase from the jetway and emerged on the tarmac. Wrecked airliners lay all around them.
“This way!” Todd yelled.
Jamie and Casey followed him southwest across the tarmac to the service entrance on the south side of the airport. They finally emerged onto the road as the sounds of battle continued back by the terminal.
“Do you remember where Mahmoud lived?” Todd asked.
“I do,” Casey said. “This way.”
He led them through the night past block after block of abandoned buildings. The three men easily stepped around most of the zombies they encountered. Finally, as the sky was beginning to lighten, they stopped in front of a building Jamie recognized. Mahmoud’s sister’s body still lay on the sidewalk.
Jamie walked up to the door and kicked it open. It stank of decay inside the dark house.
“Mahmoud!” Jamie yelled. “Where are you?”
He heard a moan come from another room. He walked into the room as Casey and Todd searched the front room for their guns.
Two candles burned in the bedroom providing a dim source of light. Mahmoud lay in a bed in the center of the room. He shivered beneath several blankets.
“We’ve come for our weapons Mahmoud,” Jamie said.
“Take them,” the weak man replied. He coughed. “I’m sorry I betrayed you.”
“You threw away your sister’s life,” Jamie replied.
Mahmoud coughed again. “Yes, yes I did. I think I’m dying.”
“What happened?”
“Those goons beat me after they shot my Zia and broke my hand. One of my wounds is infected. I’ve got a fever.”
“Your apartment stinks.”
“I’m dying.”
“Good,” Jamie said.
Casey walked up behind him. “I found our guns Jamie,” he said.
Jamie nodded as he stared at the dying man. “You know Mahmoud, I spent ten years in prison. You know what they do to traitors there?”
He nodded and coughed again. “Please do it. Please kill me. Put me out of my misery.”
“No,” Jamie said.
“Please!” he whined.
“No. Come on Casey, let’s go.”
He heard Casey follow him out of the bedroom as Mahmoud yelled for them.
“Come back! Come back Jamie! Please! Please put me out of my misery!”
“Where’s Todd?” Jamie asked.
“He’s outside waiting. The rain stopped.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
As they walked out to the wet street, the dying man’s cries faded behind them.
Chapter Thirty-One
Randy Eccleston
Day 23
Randy turned the key in the ignition and the Land Rover’s engine roared to life. He looked out the window at Todd, Casey and Jamie. He waved at them and shifted the SUV into gear. Then he pushed down on the accelerator and drove east on West Dakin Street. He turned right onto North Sheffield Avenue and drove south on it.
“You guys want to listen to music?” he asked.
“Sure. What’s in the CD player?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know, let’s see,” Randy said as he steered around several burned out cars. He turned the radio on and the sound of a rhythmically strumming guitar came through the speakers.
“Bones sinking like stones, all that we’ve fought for. Homes, places we’ve grown, all of us are done for,” a British voice crooned. “We live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do. We live in a beautiful world.”
“I like Coldplay,” Jillian said from the backseat.
“Me too,” Adam said.
“I guess we’ll listen to them,” Randy replied as they drove by a mound of hundreds of body bags stacked ten feet high on the sidewalk. Zombies shuffled around everywhere. He carefully steered the Land Rover around greedy claws.
“I can’t believe how much things have changed,” Adam said.
“Me neither,” Randy said. “It’s crazy. Just a few weeks ago, this was all bustling and busy. Heck, just about a month ago, the Cubs were in the playoffs!”
Jillian chuckled. “The Curse lives on.”
“Whatever,” Randy said. “There was no curse. Just bad management. Terrible management for many years.”
Adam laughed. “Yeah.”
Randy turned right onto West North Avenue. They drove past old warehouses converted into retail stores and eventually crossed the Chicago River. The towers of downtown Chicago stood to the south. They drove a little further and eventually came to the onramp for Interstate 90. Randy turned onto it and steered around stopped cars.
“Hey look, the express lanes are empty!” Jillian pointed out.
Randy saw a section where the dividing wall between the normal traffic lanes and the express lanes had been knocked aside. He steered over to the express lane and soon they were speeding south. They weren’t able to go fast for very long, however. After a few minutes, he had to steer onto the left side of the interstate to remain on I-90. Of course this side of the highway was choked with cars too, so he had to steer slowly around stopped and burned out cars.
After several hours of slow going, they reached a section of I-90 that was a toll road. Here, the road was much clearer. They made good time from there, passing into Indiana. Randy exited the highway at IN-49 and drove south. The road here was completely choked with cars, so Randy drove on to the median. Several more hours passed but eventually they drove past the sign welcoming them to Valparaiso, Indiana.
“Huh, I thoug
ht we’d see buildings by now,” Randy said.
“We should have,” Adam replied. “Wait, look!”
Randy looked around and realized the road snaked through a section of town that had been burned completely to the ground.
“Turn right up here,” Adam said.
Randy turned onto the road and drove past burned out ruins for several miles.
“Stop up ahead.”
Randy slowed to a stop and Adam leapt out of the Land Rover.
“Adam! Wait!” he yelled, but it was no use. Adam was already a hundred feet away running into the charred ruins of a house.
Randy and Jillian climbed out of the Land Rover and Randy noticed several dozen zombies just a few hundred feet away.
Adam cried out and Jillian ran to where he had gone. Randy slowly walked to the ruins. He knew what his friend had found. As he came around a blackened column, he saw Adam kneeling in the ashes next to two charred corpses. Jillian was holding him as he wept.
“Adam, I-I-I’m so sorry,” Randy said quietly.
Adam nodded.
Jillian looked back and then whispered something to Adam. Randy looked back and saw that the zombies were approaching.
Adam stood and walked back to the Land Rover without saying a word. Randy watched as he pulled his crowbar out and started walking toward the zombies.
“Adam! What are you doing?” Randy yelled.
Without a word Adam swung the crowbar into the skull of the first zombie he encountered. He let out a primal scream as he hacked at zombies with the curved end of the metal bar.
“Adam!” Randy watched in horror as his best friend was surrounded by zombies. He ran to the Land Rover and grabbed his bat. He then ran to the throng of undead and began swinging the bat. He slowly whacked his way through the horde to Adam. His best friend dropped the crowbar as the last zombie was dispatched. He was covered from head to toe in gore. He was panting.
“Are you okay Adam?” Jillian asked.
He nodded. “I will be.”
“Did you get bitten or scratched?” Randy asked.
He shook his head. “No.” He stepped through the circle of corpses and walked past Randy and Jillian back to the burned out shell of his parents’ house.
Randy and Jillian followed him.
By the time Randy caught up to him, he saw that Adam was sitting in the ashes again staring at his parents’ bodies. Jillian walked back over to him and held him. Randy turned and walked back out to the Land Rover. He looked across the street at the dead zombies. By his estimate there were at least thirty zombies lying in the grass. He stared at the blackened desolate landscape for a few minutes.
“Let’s go,” Adam said behind him.
Randy turned and saw that he and Jillian had walked up quietly.
“You okay?” he asked Adam.
His friend nodded. “I will be. Let’s go.”
They all got into the Land Rover. Randy noticed that Adam smelled terrible.
“You want to try to find some clean clothes?” he asked.
Adam nodded. “I guess I got pretty filthy killing those zombies, huh?”
Randy steered the SUV out of the burned out subdivision and drove back toward I-90.
“You know, I think I hoped they’d be okay,” Adam said quietly. “But I guess I was also thinking it was likely they weren’t. It just, I don’t know, it just hurts.”
Randy nodded.
“I mean, I guess I should be grateful that at least they didn’t turn into zombies. But still. They were burned to death!”
“Yeah man. That’s tough.”
“Yeah,” Adam replied.
Randy saw a hunting supply store up ahead on the right. He steered into the parking lot and saw that the front door had been busted down. “You want to look in here?” he asked.
“This looks as good as any other place,” Adam admitted. “I mean, there probably isn’t any more ammo in there, but maybe they left some clothes.”
The trio exited the Land Rover and walked into the store. Broken glass crunched under Randy’s feet as he walked past several shelves that had been completely looted. He walked back to the ammunition counter and saw that all of the glass display cases had been ransacked. It indeed appeared as though the weapons had been thoroughly looted. He frowned. He turned and saw Adam sizing up a shelf of blue jeans. Jillian was holding a pack of undershirts and a red flannel button up shirt.
Randy walked over to the camping supplies. He saw a few hand warmers had been left on the shelves. He quickly pocketed them. He wondered how cold winter would be. He also wondered how Todd, Casey and Jamie were doing. His thoughts were interrupted as Adam walked up behind him.
“How do I look?”
Randy turned and saw his friend was now wearing a camouflage jacket over a black and red flannel shirt. He was also wearing a new pair of jeans and a pair of work boots.
“Looks better than gore-encrusted clothes,” Randy replied.
“Good.”
“I guess, let’s get back on the road, see how far we can make it before it gets dark.”
They walked out to the Land Rover and Randy steered the SUV back on to the road. A little while later they reached I-90 and Randy merged onto it going east.
“You’re being awfully quiet Jillian,” he said.
“Yeah. I think I’m worried about my parents,” she replied.
Randy nodded. “Yeah.”
The sun was nearing the horizon when he steered the Land Rover off the highway just outside Rolling Prairie, Indiana. He parked at a mechanic’s shop and the three friends spent the night in the shop’s office.
The next morning, they got back on the road. A light snow began to fall as they passed through South Bend and when they entered Ohio, the snowfall began to intensify. They drove slowly through the day and into the night, taking turns driving, and eventually reached Lakewood, Ohio the following morning. The snowfall had abated a few hours earlier.
“Jillian, be prepared,” Adam said to her.
Randy looked in the rearview mirror and saw her nod. “I turn here, right?”
“Yes. It’s at Twenty-One-Ten Wyandotte. Third house on the left.”
Randy eased the Land Rover to a stop in front of a white two-story house with a covered porch. Two red Adirondack chairs sat on the porch. The windows were intact and the door hadn’t been knocked down. He also noticed there were no red sheets hanging in the windows. There was a thin dusting of snow on the lawn.
He and the others got out of the SUV. He looked down the road in both directions and noticed there were no zombies in sight. He turned and followed Jillian and Adam up the walk to the front porch. Jillian knocked on the door.
No answer came from within the house.
She knocked again.
No answer.
She reached down and pulled a key from under the doormat and unlocked the door. She opened the door and the trio walked in.
“Mom? Dad?” she called.
Randy heard a growl come from the kitchen. “Jillian, I think there are zombies in here.”
“Mom? Dad?” she yelled.
Suddenly a zombie staggered out of the kitchen. The skin on its face was stretched tight, but Randy couldn’t help but notice its resemblance to Jillian.
“Mom?” she asked, confused.
Randy shoved the zombie backwards into the arms of another zombie that had staggered out of the kitchen.
“Mom! Dad!” Jillian screamed. She began to cry hysterically as Adam grabbed her. “Let go!” she screamed as Randy shoved the zombies back a second time.
He used his bat to push the zombies back into the kitchen. He ran around and opened the back door and led the two zombies out into the backyard. Once they had stepped on to the grass he swung his bat into their heads and killed them.
Jillian ran out into the backyard and collapsed beside her parents. She was crying. Adam followed her out and tried to hug her. She shoved him away.
“Mom! Dad!” she yelled.
“Jill do you want to remember them this way?” Adam asked plaintively.
“I want to remember them!” she screamed back at him.
Randy walked back into the house to make sure there were no other zombies within. It only took a few moments but he was relieved to find the house was empty. He walked back outside and saw Adam holding Jillian. She was leaning on his shoulder weeping bitterly.
“Hey guys, let’s go inside. It’s cold out here,” Randy suggested.
Adam led her inside and Randy followed. They all sat down in the living room as her cries turned into soft sobbing. Randy handed her a box of tissues.
“Thanks,” she said, as she blew her nose.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“I’m going to go take a nap,” she said.
“Okay.”
She stood and walked upstairs leaving Randy and Adam alone in the living room.
Adam shook his head. “This is terrible.”
Randy nodded. “It is.”
“I guess we should bury them.”
“Yeah, we should.”
Both men walked out to the backyard. Adam walked over to the shed and pulled out two shovels. He tossed one to Randy and they both began to dig graves for Jillian’s parents. It took the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon, but eventually they had both dug graves four feet deep. They laid her parents’ corpses in the graves and buried them. Randy was covered with sweat by the time they finished.
“You guys buried my parents?” Jillian asked suddenly from the back porch.
“Yes,” Adam replied.
“Thank you.”
They all went back inside and sat in the living room quietly for a while. At length Jillian spoke up. “Let’s spend the night here and head back to Chicago tomorrow,” she said quietly.
Randy nodded. “That sounds like a good plan.”
Adam and Jillian went to bed shortly after the sun went down while Randy kept the first watch. At 2:00am he woke Adam up and went to bed himself.
The next morning, he awoke shortly after dawn and walked downstairs. He saw Adam asleep at the bottom of the stairs and chuckled softly. He walked into the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of Cheerios. He then walked back into the living room and sat down. As he munched on some dry cereal, he noticed movement in the front yard. He stood and walked to the front door and opened it.
Darkness and The Grave: A Zombie Novel Page 33
