Andy didn’t seem to notice. He was still wincing.
Then Kyle heard it again, slightly louder this time.
Scrape.
Andy gasped.
That thing was coming back.
That enormous thing, the one big enough to throw a car over a house.
“Get inside,” Kyle whispered.
Too late.
That thing came into view just then on the sidewalk. Somehow, it looked bigger than it had before even though this time it was 100 feet away. One of Steele’s men, for sure, with its military camo fatigues. It even had a rifle slung over its chest, though it was too addled, in its infected state, to use it.
It did not need the rifle.
Its eyes first opened wider, then narrowed.
There was no other word for the sound that came out of its mouth than roared.
Kyle picked up the crowbar.
Andy backed up, but he couldn’t go far. The parking lot was configured in a U-shape, with the motel on one side and a concrete wall on two sides. The only way out was the street, and it was blocked by that thing. It was 100 feet away while Kyle and Andy’s rooms were 70. They did not have enough time to run inside and lock the doors, but that would be stupid anyway. That thing could break through a door as if it were made out of paper and trap them inside. Better to face it out in the parking lot.
Most infected rushed forward when they saw prey. This one didn’t. Kyle could clearly see its injury now. Someone had shot its left leg. The bullet seemed to go clear through just above the kneecap. And it was missing its right boot. The left boot on the injured leg scraped as it limped toward Andy and Kyle and growled like a junkyard dog.
The crowbar was slick in Kyle’s hand. He felt dizzy. His lips trembled. He wanted to run, but he could only run toward that thing, not away.
He smelled urine and glanced behind him. Andy had backed all the way up to the wall, his face ghostly white, and he’d wet himself.
That thing shambled forward. Lunge. Scrape. Lunge. Scrape. It closed half the distance.
The wall, and Andy, was only ten feet behind Kyle. He had to take a few steps toward that murderous hulk or he’d have no room to maneuver.
Lunge. Scrape.
Andy whimpered. He did not have a weapon and couldn’t possibly beat that thing in any kind of hand-to-hand combat, but he’d be eaten alive for sure if he didn’t move.
That thing’s arms were easily fifty percent longer than Kyle’s and at least three times as strong. Kyle might as well be facing a grizzly bear. An infected grizzly bear. If it got a hold of him even once, he was finished.
Kyle could move more quickly, though, since he was uninjured.
He held the crowbar off to the side and tipped it gently up and down, half preparing to strike and half preparing to swat away an attack.
That thing was twenty feet away now and it lunged at Kyle like a juggernaut. Kyle leapt to the side without even trying to swing the crowbar. The infected was big enough and powerful enough to kill him even if Kyle connected first.
Blood roared in his ears. He felt strangely calm and in control despite the adrenaline in his system. He’d faced the infected before and survived. He’d faced hordes of infected before and survived. He had this.
He cocked the crowbar behind him as if to strike, but then took a step back. If he got close enough to land a blow, that thing could grab him and break him in half.
He needed Andy, but Andy was useless.
The infected growled at Kyle and the muscles between its eyes bunched together. It was about to lunge again. And it did. It tucked its chin into its chest and charged toward Kyle like a battering ram.
Kyle swung the crowbar in a wild flailing arc. He connected with its left shoulder a fraction of a second before it barreled into him.
He went down as hard as if he’d been hit by a car. The crowbar clattered to the pavement. That thing was half on top of him. Kyle wanted to cry out to Andy, but he couldn’t breathe.
Kyle rolled onto his side and managed to crawl out from underneath the infected before it could pin him or bite him.
The creature—at this point, it was impossible for Kyle to think of that thing as having ever been human—got up on one foot and one knee. Kyle gasped for air and hurt all over, but this thing was in even more pain. It had already been shot and it seemed a bit dazed.
Kyle’s hands were empty. The parking lot seemed to spin. He didn’t see the crowbar anywhere. Maybe the infected had landed on top of it. He ran into Andy’s room and grabbed the claw hammer and, still trying to catch his breath, ran back outside.
“Andy!” Find the crowbar, man, Kyle thought, and come at that thing from behind.
Andy had slid down the wall onto his ass and buried his face in his arms. He just sat there and waited to die.
Kyle could not go to Nebraska with Andy.
“Andy!”
The monster limped toward Kyle. This time, though, Kyle’s back was to the street instead of the wall. He could get away. That thing would turn around and kill Andy, almost surely, but Kyle would get away.
He might run into more of infected on the street, but he’d get away from this one at least.
It was 30 feet from Andy, but a good 70 feet from Kyle.
Which gave him an idea.
“Andy!” he shouted one more time, then took off toward Main and rounded the corner, putting himself outside the infected’s sight line.
No one and nothing else was on Main.
He stopped to catch his breath. That thing would either follow him or it wouldn’t, and Kyle didn’t even have to peek his head around the corner to find out. He’d hear it coming. And he could outrun it.
It had stopped. Its predator instinct seemed to be pulling it in two directions at once. It knew Kyle was on the street, but Andy was closer and Andy was not going anywhere.
It made some kind of a grunt, like a gorilla, and Kyle heard it dragging itself across the parking lot.
Scrape. Scrape.
Toward Andy.
Andy must have seen it coming, too, because he moaned.
Good, you useless sonofabitch, Kyle thought. Keep on moaning and you just might survive this.
He peeked around the corner. The hulk was hulking toward Andy.
Kyle ran as fast and hard as he could, the claw hammer cocked behind his back like he was preparing to throw it. He and the infected reached Andy at the same moment, and Kyle swung the head of the hammer into the back of its head.
It collapsed onto Andy, exhaled explosively, and did not move again.
Andy gasped.
Kyle just stood there, astonished. He expected it to get up, to lash out, or at least twitch, but it was as motionless as a huge pile of laundry.
Andy gasped. “Get it off me!”
“Shut up,” Kyle said. The dumb shit was going to attract more of them.
Blood everywhere.
“Get it off me!”
“It’s dead,” Kyle said, and spent the last of his energy grabbing that thing by its hand and pulling it off his friend.
Andy’s eyes bulged and his nostrils flared.
“Get up,” Kyle said.
Andy got up, harried-looking and wild, still gasping for air. He backed away in jerking steps.
“Get in the room,” Kyle said.
Not the van.
Andy shuddered as he walked across the parking lot toward his room.
The sun was down now, the sky somewhere between twilight and dusk. It would be full dark soon, and if Kyle and Andy were quiet enough, nothing and no one would find them.
Kyle followed Andy inside. When he turned the deadbolt home he realized he’d rather leave Lander with just about anyone else.
35
Nash brought Annie more peanut butter and crackers in bed. The curtains were pulled tight, the cold room lit with a single candle, a bottle of water and a carving knife next to her on the nightstand.
The poor girl hadn’t spent even an hour out o
f bed since Nash had brought her to Juliette’s house, and she needed balanced nutrition to recover from blood loss, but peanut butter and crackers was the best Nash could do.
“Thanks, doc,” Anne said. “What are we going to do?”
“Wait for the cold,” he said.
Outside was quieter now that darkness had fallen. The infected could see nothing, and they’d freeze to death as soon as the next blast from the Canadian Arctic blew away the Chinook winds, but there was no telling when that would happen.
“It’s freezing,” Annie said.
“Not cold enough,” Nash said.
Annie hugged herself and shivered. “We’ll freeze too.”
“We have blankets. We can build fires.”
Annie nodded. Juliette’s house had a fireplace in the living room, but Nash didn’t have to tell her why they could not build a fire tonight. It would attract the infected. She knew them better than he did. She’d seen more destruction than Nash could imagine on her trek across the wasteland from Seattle to Lander.
She glanced at the window. The curtains were pulled tight.
“I had a creeper when I was a kid,” she said.
“A creeper?” Nash said.
“A kid in the neighborhood. He liked to peek in my bedroom window at night.”
She nibbled a cracker and took a sip from the water bottle. Annie was a tough young woman, but in her weakened state she looked like a wounded princess.
Nash wanted to climb into bed with her. She knew it too. He could tell by the look on her face that she could tell by the look on his face.
He hoped she didn’t think of him as her new creeper. He needed to leave her alone and wished he could take a cold shower.
“I’m going to lie down on the couch and try to sleep,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Don’t get up if you don’t have to.”
“I know.”
He wanted to kiss her and felt like an awkward teenager who didn’t know what to do with his hands or his feet.
“Call me if you need anything,” he said.
“Okay.” She looked uncomfortable.
He went to the door and stopped. “Do you want the door open or closed?”
“Just leave it open a little,” she said.
“Okay, Annie,” he said. His shoulder hit the door jamb on his way out.
He felt lightheaded and embarrassed as he made his way to the dark living room.
He used the tiny LED flashlight on his key ring to find his way. It produced almost no light at all.
He’d turned the couch into a bed with two large pillows on one end, a third that he placed under his knees to take the pressure off his lower back, and three heavy blankets from the hall closet. He’d also pulled the coffee table close to the couch so he could reach it from a sleeping position. That’s where he kept a bottle of water, his keyring with the tiny flashlight on it and a butcher knife from the kitchen.
He crawled under the covers. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could faintly see the glow from the candle in Annie’s room seeping into the front of the house. He considered telling her to put it out, but the light was barely detectable, and in any case, there was almost no chance anyone or anything would see it from behind the house. Juliette’s backyard was tiny and surrounded by a solid six-foot wooden fence that functioned effectively like a wall.
Nash took a deep breath and settled in, though he knew a long time would pass before he could sleep. His senses were heightened. Even the tiniest house creaks made him jump.
The cold could not return soon enough. It would return, though—spring was still three months away—and everyone still alive would wake up in a new Lander.
Nash had no idea what that would look like. He didn’t even know what was happening in Lander right now aside from a terrifying spike in new cases. He felt a sense of resolve, though. If Steele held onto power, Nash would no longer serve him. He refused to serve any despotic ruler. And he’d fight to protect Annie, not just against the infected but against people. If he had to leave Lander and take her to Atlanta himself, he would. He had to. He’d already violated his professional oath. First do no harm.
He’d harmed her terribly, first with complicity in her imprisonment and again by taking a dangerous amount of her blood. Yes, he was just following orders, but he couldn’t afford to kid himself any more. He’d had a choice. And he’d made it. He hadn’t even bothered to protest.
Annie blew out her candle. The house was now in full darkness.
The prison was the most dangerous place in Lander, Wyoming.
Hundreds of people crammed into a cramped space. Rotting corpses in the common area. No clean water. No food. No weapons.
No way out.
Parker tried and failed to sleep on the floor of his cell. Diaz and Wyatt had the bunks. Parker could have tried to sleep out in the hallway where there was more room, but he wanted walls on three sides of him.
He wished he could close the cell door. Well, he could, but there was no way to open it again without the key. And since the guards were apparently gone for good, the door would not open again while he was alive. It might never open again. His bones might not even be found by future archeologists.
That door had to stay open no matter what happened.
And what was happening was not good. He couldn’t see anything but he heard everything. A handful of people moaned in discomfort from severe dehydration while dozens more thrashed about on the floor and in their bunks trying to sleep. Most had gone two full days without any water at all. Some had gone two and a half days, depending on the last time they drank. Nobody knew to top themselves off at the last minute.
One more day and they would be dead.
Parker felt fine physically. He’d drank his fill earlier in the day. He could drink all the water he wanted. Dehydration wouldn’t kill him. He was on track to starve to death.
Which was preferable, he supposed, since it meant his odds were better.
A person couldn’t last much longer than three days without water, tops, but they could go three weeks or even four without food. Rescuers might show up in two weeks and find hundreds of dead bodies plus an emaciated but still breathing Parker.
Actually, no, now that he thought about it, he couldn’t possibly survive several weeks. He wouldn’t starve to death.
He’d freeze.
The prison wasn’t an ice box only because it had hundreds of warm bodies keeping the ambient temperature up. If everyone around him were rotting and desiccated corpses, Parker would spend his final days in the world’s worst-smelling meat freezer. His stomach churned just at the thought of it.
He’d rather die of thirst tomorrow.
How cosmically unfair that would be. He hadn’t fully recovered from the trauma of the infection and its panic-riven aftermath, but something was shifting inside him.
He could remember the person he used to be.
For the first time since he’d left the San Juan Islands, he could remember what it felt like to be normal. Remembering what normal felt like wasn’t the same thing as being normal, but it was something. It was a step. If he could remember what it felt like not to be consumed with anxiety and despair and self-loathing, he might be able to actually feel like that again.
He discovered a source of strength inside him that he did not know he had. He wasn’t even sure where it came from. Partly from Betty the therapist, sure, but it wasn’t just her. There was something else too, some inner reservoir, some constant part of himself that transcended whatever was happening in his life at any given moment, a core self that didn’t act or even think. It’s just there, like the trunk of an ancient oak. He sensed that if he could fully recover, not only would he be himself again, he’d be a better version of himself, the best version of himself who ever lived.
But first he had to get out of that prison.
Kyle spent the night on the floor in Andy’s room, not because he needed or wanted the company but because,
at least theoretically, there was safety in numbers.
He wasn’t sure that was actually true, though, if “numbers” included just Andy. Andy was useless in a fight. A liability even.
Kyle didn’t mind the floor. It beat sleeping on the floor of the grocery store back in Washington, and it beat sleeping in the Suburban on the way to Wyoming.
Andy didn’t snore, but he thrashed around anxiously in his bed. “I give up,” he finally said.
Kyle said nothing. He was wide awake too, but talking would just make it worse.
“I can’t possibly get any sleep tonight,” Andy said.
“Count sheep,” Kyle said.
“I tried that already.”
“No you didn’t.”
Andy was quiet for a couple of minutes, but it didn’t last. “When do you want to go to Nebraska?”
“Not yet,” Kyle said.
“That’s not an answer.”
“We need more people.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know anybody. Why don’t you go talk to your work buddies tomorrow?”
“How?” Andy said.
“What do you mean, how?” Kyle said. “This morning you said you were going to work tomorrow.”
“I’m not going to work tomorrow. Nobody’s going to work tomorrow. Are you kidding?”
“So we’re all just waiting to die?”
Andy said nothing.
Andy would not be alive if he was anywhere but Lander, Wyoming.
“Your crew goes on fuel runs, right?” Kyle said.
“We did,” Andy said.
“You drive trucks out of Lander to bring gas back. Wouldn’t you be safer out there instead of hiding in bed? Seems to me like your entire crew would be itching to get out of town right about now.”
Andy said nothing.
“Why don’t you ask your work buddies if they want to come with us?” Kyle said.
“They’re all from here. They won’t want to leave. Except maybe Doug. He moved here by himself from Denver. Maybe he’d want to go.”
“Great,” Kyle said.
“But I don’t know where to find him.”
Kyle reached for his flashlight, stood up and shined the light in Andy’s face. “Listen, motherfucker.”
Resurrection (Book 2): Into the Wasteland Page 34
