Dead by Dawn

by Wellman, Bret

  Barry shook his head and leaned back in his chair. “Seriously, quit with the sob story, I’m not dead yet.”

  “I can’t help it you turd.”

  Barry smiled then, a real smile. “That’s more like it.”

  Adam sat down with them. He was far from hungry, if anything he was sick to his stomach. He turned down all offers from people trying to get him food. Any plate he received was destined to go untouched like Barry’s.

  There were times when he could talk and others when he knew that if he opened his mouth, the flood gates would open. It was during the latter when he would have to hold his breath and count the seconds until the feeling of despair passed.

  Nobody moved when the meal was over. It was as if the entire family was trying to freeze time. They didn’t want to experience what was next.

  “Would it be inappropriate,” Adam said. “If I asked what happened?”

  Barry took a breath like he was going to speak, but his mom stopped him. “I have to go to the bathroom. Please, wait until I’m gone to tell it.”

  They did and when she was gone Barry started talking. “The lights went out while I was still awake. I woke my dad, but decided to let my mom sleep. Obviously that didn’t last long when the screaming started.” He took a deep breath. Just telling the story looked exhausting for him. “It felt like forever man, it really did. We were huddled together most of the time, panicking at the back of the room. Eventually I saw the vampire, sort of. It was just a shadow you know?” He shivered. “His body blocked the little bit of moonlight that was coming in from the hall. Everything else was so dark. I was only thinking about my family and what that shadow intended to do to them. I don’t know what came over me, but I knew I couldn’t just sit there and cower.” Barry took another deep breath and sighed. “So I charged, and he met me about halfway across the room. He was so strong Adam. I didn’t stand a chance. He threw me down right away. When he fell on top of me he might as well of been a house. I couldn’t move.” He paused, locking eyes with Adam. “That was when he bit. It felt like liquid fire shooting straight into my neck. He began sucking too, but that was when the lights came on. I tell you what, if there’s a silver lining it’s that that son of a bitch burned. I sat there and watched him as his skin charred over. I may have been dying, but I enjoyed every second.” A weak smile formed on his lips. “He thrashed as he died, I’ll never forget that, he thrashed.”

  Barry’s mom came back, putting an end to the story. She had a tissue that she used to dab at the corner of her eyes.

  “Are you alright?” Adam asked.

  “Hell, what kind of a question is that? No I’m not alright,” she said. She must have seen the look on Adam’s face because she gave him an apologetic pat on the wrist. “I’m sorry honey, I don’t mean to snap at you.”

  “I completely understand,” said Adam.

  “It’s okay Mom, you can hit him,” said Barry. “I totally approve.”

  “You are not helping,” said Barry’s mom, flicking her tissue in his direction.

  About an hour and a half into their never-ending breakfast, A couple of soldiers entered the lunchroom to make an announcement. Their leader was nowhere in sight (Adam took a wild guess and figured he had been bitten as well). One of them climbed up on a lunch table and stood over everyone.

  “Excuse me,” he called. He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not really good at this kind of thing so you’re going to have to bare with me.” He held up his hands as if he were trying to calm a rowdy crowd. The gesture was a little out of place considering the silence of everyone listening. “A horrible thing happened last night and I’m sure most of you are still very frightened. I wish I could calm you, I wish I could tell you everything is going to be alright, but the sad truth is, I can’t.” Adam could tell his words were genuine by the pain on his face. “I’m sorry to say that I haven’t come to you with good news. This is hard for me. I have to tell you that the worst of this is what we have to do from here. For the security of this school…” His voice cracked, he cleared his throat. “For the security of this school we have to do something about those who have been bitten.”

  “Here we go,” Barry whispered.

  “They can’t stay here.” The soldier paused, surveying the crowd. “This is an inevitable truth that we must face now. Again I’m sorry, but there is nothing we can do. I also regret that there is another problem we have to face.” The soldier looked down at his feet for a moment and Adam wondered if his composure was going to break. “We shouldn’t be releasing more vampires out there. It could be dangerous for those of us still… human.” He suddenly stood up straight and set his jaw. He looked determined. “This is why in two hours we will be gathering the bitten and making them stand before a firing squad.”

  For the first time the crowd showed signs of life. A murmur began to rise and the people glanced around at each other.

  “This is not mandatory however, it’s meant to be a mercy to both the bitten and the survivors. This is still the United States of America and anyone is welcome to leave whenever they wish. I hope you don’t though, for the sake of your loved ones. I hope you don’t.” His shoulders sank and his determination dissipated. “The firing squad will take place in two hours, make the right choice.”

  Adam expected a revolt, but mostly everyone stayed quiet. The words seemed to wash over their frozen faces.

  “What’re you going to do?” Adam whispered so only Barry could hear.

  Barry didn’t hesitate. “Firing squad. I can close my eyes and it will all be over like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Besides, if I turned into a vampire I’d probably have your ass before tomorrow morning.”

  Adam found no humor in his statement. His feelings were absent for the time being.

  “Maybe you should walk. You might be a vampire, but at least you won’t be dead.”

  “You’re not thinking straight,” said Barry. “It wouldn’t be me. You saw what happened to your mom. The person dies and then the vampire takes over. Besides, I would bet what’s left of my life that they kill the people who choose to walk anyways. I’d rather not be shot in the back thank you very much. Either way, at least my mind doesn’t get handed completely to the vampires.”

  “Maybe not completely,” Adam whispered. “You don’t really believe that do you?”

  Adam stayed silent, staring down at the lunch table. Near the front of the room the soldier was done with his speech and climbing down from the table.

  “I've only got an hour and a half left Adam. Let’s try and talk about something happy.”

  Sarah showed up a few minutes later, eyeing Barry with the same look Adam assumed he was wearing when he walked up.

  She explained to Adam that Keith and Joe were planning to leave the school soon. They didn’t think it was safe anymore and wanted to move on to a more reliable hideout. Apparently, Matt had pleaded to go with them. In response Keith allowed anyone from their room to come along if they wanted to. Even Lindsay was invited. So far everyone but Sarah and Adam had asked to go. Sarah was planning to follow Adam in whatever decision he was going to make.

  “You should go,” said Barry. “Get as far away from here as you can.” He then tried to convince his family to go as well.

  They refused, saying they would only leave if it was to go back home.

  “We’re done running,” said Barry’s dad. “That’s what this comes down to.”

  Barry’s mom dabbed at the never ending string of tears seeping from her eyes. “There’s nothing left to live for anyways.”

  “Ah Mom, don’t say that. Please?” said Barry.

  “I’m sorry, It’s just so hard.”

  Barry’s dad grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

  “There’s been talk,” said Sarah. “The vampires have permission to come in here now. You still have the lights, but you’ve lost that one important piece of protection.”

  Barry’s family wasn’t swayed by her words. They st
uck to their original stance on the matter. They would be allowed back home or they would die.

  When the time came, four soldiers rounded up everyone in the lunchroom who had been bitten. Five people were gathered into a group and marched out of the cafeteria. Barry was one of them.

  Adam wanted to follow him, to see his friend through to the end, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to watch Barry get shot. Instead he went with Sarah and found their group loading up Joe’s truck.

  Keith tossed a duffle bag in the back. Matt was climbing over the tailgate to find a seat in the bed. Lindsay, Sherry, and Chip were already seated in the bed. The truck was idling.

  “You guys coming too?” Joe asked.

  “I think so,” said Sarah.

  Adam didn’t speak. The ball of pain in his chest was all consuming, threatening to take over.

  “I think we’re going to follow behind you on Adam’s bike though,” Sarah went on. “If that’s okay.”

  Joe nodded and then climbed into the driver’s side of his truck.

  Adam and Sarah went over to Adam’s motorcycle. It was still parked in the same spot he’d left it after their last ride, two days before. It was supposed to be a supply run, but they were really just trying to get away for a bit.

  Barry had gone with them that day, following behind with his car. They’d stopped at a random house on the outskirts of town under Barry’s insistence.

  Barry broke in and soon came out with an armful of plates. He made each of them take one. They were soon seeing who could throw them down the road the farthest. Though Adam didn’t say it out loud, he was having a blast.

  He was hesitant to move the bike now. It was as if moving the bike would erase one of the last good times he had with Barry.

  Adam took a hard breath and gave Sarah the helmet. They both climbed on.

  For a moment he froze. They heard the sound of multiple guns being fired at once. The firing squad was doing their nasty work.

  Adam turned on the bike, and pulled the throttle. The sound of gunfire was lost in the roar as Adam left his friend in the past, riding forward into an uncertain future.

  Chapter 33

  Joe glanced in his rear view mirror, watching the small motorcycle as it trailed behind him. When it came to traveling with speed during the apocalypse, there was no better machine. It weaved in and out of the abandoned cars, navigating the dead traffic with ease. Meanwhile Joe was stuck getting “creative” with his truck. He knew if Adam wanted to he could pass by and be out of sight within a mile or two.

  So far they were seven hours down the road, heading west. It became apparent early on that the vampires had indeed passed the evacuation zone. The entire world was barren, or at least that’s how it seemed. There were no people; they hadn’t seen a single stranger since leaving the school. It was as if everyone had simply disappeared. Smashed windows and open doors could be found in many of the dead cars they passed on the highway, though they were not the only signs of a struggle. Every so often they passed a block of burned houses. Some of them were little more than charred skeletons. Their ashes had long since gone cold.

  So far Joe had only stopped once for gas. He used his method of puncturing a hole in an abandoned vehicle’s gas tank. He was able to fill up both his truck and Adam’s bike.

  As far as their destination, seven hours and they still had no clue.

  They could keep going west and try to reach civilization, but Joe doubted they ever would. There was no telling how far the vampires had gone. They could be in California for all he knew.

  Keith kept a map open in his lap. So far his best plan was for them to drive into the deep wilderness of Canada.

  He kept claiming that if they went far enough they could reach the edge of civilization. Very few people lived that far north so there shouldn’t be any reason for vampires. They wouldn’t be in a place that had no food source for them. There was a reason for the lack of people however, it was hard living that far north. If they went that rout they might die just as fast from the wilderness.

  Joe told him to keep trying. There had to be a better place they could go.

  The fact that it was summer was a gift, having more daylight allowed them more time. They didn’t have to worry about getting enough heat either. Sure it was hotter than hell almost constantly, but at least no one was freezing to death. Even so, the sun was beginning to set and their time was running out. If they didn’t find a place to hide, they would soon be overtaken.

  Joe’s keen eyes were the first to spot the old man on his front porch. Seven hours of driving and this was the first person they saw.

  The man looked like he could have been eighty years old. He sat in a wooden rocking chair that was so weathered, the white paint was peeling off in chunks. A shotgun lay across his lap. He puffed smoke from a cigar that stuck out of his large white beard. His hard eyes never wavered. All around him the porch was draped in garlic. They hung in strands like Christmas lights.

  Joe parked his truck on the curb in front of the man’s house. Adam pulled up behind him on the motorcycle.

  “You know of a safe place we can stay for the night?” asked Keith, leaning out of his window.

  The man eyed them, spitting tobacco on the floor near his feet.

  “We need a place to stay so we can make it through to tomorrow,” Keith continued. “I don’t think we’re going to last very long out here without one.”

  The man’s gaze never faltered though they could sense he was bothered by them pestering him. That or he was preparing to shoot.

  “You ain’t gone make it to morning,” said the man.

  “If you had a place for us to stay.”

  The man spit again. “I ain’t got shit for you.” He cocked the shotgun, but didn’t point it at them.

  Keith held up his hands. “Easy, we’re just looking for a safe place to sleep.”

  “Keep looking,” said the man.

  Joe put the truck in drive, tipped his hat, then drove off. The man kept rocking, watching them until they were out of sight.

  “What a friendly fellow he was,” Keith muttered.

  Joe gave a grunt. “You’d have to be to survive out here on your own.”

  The next half hour, they encountered some of the worst abandoned traffic yet. It was just another back road, about five miles long with open fields on either side.

  The road had recently been host to a slaughter, of that Joe was sure. He was becoming used to the sight of abandoned cars. He had yet to see anything like this however. There were hundreds upon hundreds of cars packing the road tight. Some cars had driven into the field where they had gotten stuck in the mud. There were footprints, thousands of them that told the story of what had happened. They fled the street in a desperate charge for the distant forest. At first the prints were thick and indistinct. The people fled together as a mob. As they ran farther from the road their tracks began to thin. Halfway to the trees there was only one or two sets remaining. They ended in a thick smear, as if the person running were tackled.

  How many lives were taken right here, Joe wondered.

  The field was sunken and swampy. Joe had no doubt that if anyone were to dig it out they would have little trouble creating a lake. It was lacking in tree and plant life, which he found peculiar. The nearest tree was in the woods a quarter mile away. It must have been a popular place for mud bogging. He could think of no other reason why there weren’t any plants.

  The field was drier than it had been on the night of the slaughter, though it still wasn’t friendly to drive on.

  Joe was forced to drive at an excruciating crawl, keeping two wheels on the shoulder and two wheels in the field. He left a trail of ruts behind him as he went.

  The motorcycle was able to stay completely on the shoulder which meant Adam and Sarah spent most of their time with their feet on the ground, waiting.

  Joe worked hard to keep a steady progress, though sometimes it wasn’t easy.

  In front of them the ed
ge of the horizon was turning orange. It was the new international symbol for impending horror. Though no one mentioned it, they new time was running out.

  The peak of their troubles came when they reached a black sedan. It was pulled out from the traffic to make a run for the field. It didn’t make it very far. It’s front wheels had sunken deep almost immediately, blocking the shoulder completely.

  Joe put his truck in park twenty feet before he reached it.

  “How good are you at mud bogging?” asked Keith.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Joe. “We sure as hell can’t make it back the way we came.”

  The leather on the steering wheel thrummed as Joe tightened and twisted his grip. He set his jaw, eyeing the field in front of the sedan. If he failed to make it through, they were all going to die. Maybe Adam and Sarah still had a chance, they could take the bike and continue on. The rest of them would be left to the same fate as the others who tried to get down this road.

  Four wheel drive: there was never another time in his life that he was happier to have it. But would it be enough?

  Joe put the truck in drive and eased down on the gas. He needed to get as much speed as he could without spinning the tires. The mud in the field grabbed at his right tires, trying to yank him off the shoulder.

  When he was ten feet from the car he turned and went full throttle. The truck roared and mud flew. He was pretty sure the people in the back were getting caked, but couldn’t worry about that just then.

  The truck slowed considerably by the time they were out in front of the sedan. What speed they had was cut in half by the time he made the turn back for the shoulder. They were only a foot away when the truck finally stopped.

  The engine roared and the wheels were turning, but the truck no longer moved. Joe stopped and put it back in park. He rolled down his window and looked at his wheels.

  The ruts were deep and came higher than his hubcaps. The truck was painted in thick black gobs of mud, as were the people in the back.