by TW Brown
“…repeat, stay away from downtown Portland. The fires along the waterfront in the industrial district are burning out of control.” There was a pause, and the man’s voice continued. “We will be abandoning our position here now. We’ve heard gunshots in the area, and they seem to be drawing nearer. Danny says that there is a convoy consisting of civilian and military vehicles rolling through the streets of Mill Plain and opening fire on anything and everything that moves. They are not attempting to save survivors, and it is our belief that this group is nothing more than an organized group of raiders out for themselves.”
There was another pause, and I was almost convinced that the person had indeed abandoned his place. I couldn’t blame him, if what he was saying had any lick of truth to it, and I had no reason to think otherwise after what I’d seen for myself, then getting out of Dodge was probably for the best.
“If you are listening, then I want to urge you to just hunker down for a bit. I know we have all seen terrible things these past several days. But I believe that these wicked elements that remain will come undone. Just stay hidden a while longer. We will get through this…we must. Stay safe out there. This is Rick Taylor, signing off.”
There was a hiss, and then nothing but static. I hit the button to scan for any other possible stations that might be live, but the numbers simply scrolled through over and over again. I turned down the volume and concentrated on where I was going.
My route took me back over to Mt. Scott Road where I would follow it until it made a bit of a dogleg bend and turned into Southeast King. Fortunately for me, most of the way to the veterinary center allowed me to just follow the bends on what looked on the map to be the main road. The only two streets that I needed to remember were Southeast Misty Drive where I would turn left, and Southeast Blackstone Avenue marking the location that I would hang a right into the complex where the vet’s office should be.
I was moving down King Road at a good clip. It almost felt strange moving so fast after being on foot so much the past several days. I passed by many of the walking dead that were roaming through yards and some of the open fields on either side of the road. It just seemed so overwhelming to see this so widespread in such a short amount of time.
All of our advances in science and technology had made the world smaller. I believe it is what led to our undoing. Couple that with people refusing to believe what was happening until it was too late, and all the ingredients were right there.
I’d become so engrossed in looking all around that I wasn’t paying attention to what was right in front of me. I looked ahead just in the nick of time and slammed on the brakes, causing the tires to squeal their protest.
Directly ahead of me was another large mob of the walking dead. They were just spilling out onto the road. My eyes drifted to the left where they were coming from and I felt my blood chill just a few degrees.
“Happy Valley Middle School,” I said out loud.
I heard the metal clang to my right and looked over to see a series of houses—none of them looking all that remarkable. My eyes were scanning the area when I heard the sound again.
CLANG.
This helped me focus on the source and I felt my jaw drop as my eyes tried to make sense of what they were seeing. He was standing on the hood of a car that had hopped the curb and come to a stop with its nose buried in the hedges that acted as a fence between two homes.
As I watched, the boy lifted the garbage can lid and brought it down on the car’s roof with a loud clang. Looking back to my left, I saw even more of the undead that were roaming the parking lot of the school as they turned towards the sound and began to move.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I gasped. “That sonuvabitch is trying to clog the road and block my way.”
The zombie child banged the garbage can lid down again. The entire time, his eyes were locked on me. Occasionally, his head would tilt to one side or the other.
This would be something that certainly deserved some intense study and consideration; unfortunately, I had time for neither. It was going to be close, and there was no way that I could make it through this without clipping at least one or two of the zombies now flooding down onto the road, but I was not about to try and backtrack and figure out another way to reach my goal. There was no telling what would be waiting down each road I took.
I gripped the wheel tight with both hands and stomped on the gas for all I was worth. The Jeep Cherokee didn’t so much as launch forward as just make a steady and constant speed increase. I did my best to be sure not to hit any zombie head-on. The ones I did hit made a loud meaty bang or slam as their bodies crumpled and spun.
At first, I didn’t think it possible. It had to be an illusion brought on by the odd spectacle that I’d seen with the boy and the trash can lid. I blinked as I shot an anxious glance to both the left and right. It was no trick of the mind.
Children by the dozens peered at me from windows of several of the houses on my right, and even more lined the top of the ridge where the school sat to my left. All of them were between the ages of maybe five at the youngest and perhaps twelve being the oldest. Their filmed-over gazes were locked on me as I drove past. A shiver rippled through me as I emerged on the other side of the expansive school parking lot. The second entrance to the school had been blocked by a nasty crash between a school bus and a pair of cars that looked like they’d tried to force their way out to no avail.
Right next to the school was a continuation of the horror. The modern looking building announced itself as a Baptist Church. The words “God is DEAD” were smeared on the once white siding of the church in what I had to assume to be blood. A man was dangling from a crossbeam that had been wedged in the open archway of the entrance.
I had to figure the man had been alive when the hanging took place. He was struggling and squirming at the end of the rope like a fish on a line. He was gone from the waist down, and strands of what was left of his insides dangled from the gaping hole that was the bottom of his torso.
The actual doors to the church had been ripped from their hinges and I could see inside the church. That struck me as odd until I realized that I could actually see through the church. It looked like the place had been gutted on the inside by a fire. I was curious how the exterior still appeared okay, but as I passed by, I saw that the other side of the building was blistered and smudged. There were also two more makeshift scaffoldings erected with another five bodies hanging from each.
I sped past and reached the sharp corner that was the first of the markers I’d made myself remember. The hard right on Southeast 145th Avenue made the Jeep fishtail just a bit and I backed off the gas. I wouldn’t be that idiot that lost control of his vehicle and crashed on an empty, open road.
On my right was a fence that ran along the backsides of a line of houses. On my left were older but more luxurious homes with long driveways that ran up to them. The funny thing about the zombie apocalypse was that it didn’t discriminate. I saw the undead on both sides. The road I was on made a long but gradual climb uphill which began to put me closer to eye-level with the upper floors on the homes behind that long, wooden fence.
I was just about to a series of trees that would totally obscure the houses from view when I saw a window open on the last house before those trees. A person’s upper torso jutted from the open window and began to wave wildly.
I forced myself to look away as the person obviously tried to get my attention. Just as the person vanished behind the curtain of trees, I could hear the shouts and pleas for me to help.
It probably didn’t get me any points in the cosmos that I would’ve kept driving if the voice hadn’t been obviously feminine. Even when I heard what was undoubtedly a woman screaming and begging for help, I continued driving for about another ten seconds. By the time I stopped, the house was out of sight and well behind me.
Could I do it? Could I drive away and just leave that person to whatever fate was waiting?
Carl and I had spoken at length and on more than one occasion about how the apocalypse was going to show us who we really were down deep. So…who was I at my core?
“Dammit,” I hissed as I did a big U-turn and shot back down the road.
I pulled up just after I passed the trees that blocked my view. I opened the door to the Jeep Cherokee and could hear the low moans of the undead coming from the other side of the wooden fence.
“Thank God!” a voice cried.
I looked up and saw her. She had climbed out on the overhang that I guessed covered the back patio to the home. She was certainly in a bad situation. I climbed up on the fence and saw that the entire backyard was shoulder-to-shoulder zombies. Adding to her troubles, a pair of them were reaching out the open window that she’d climbed from which meant that they were obviously in the house as well. One of them reached too far and tumbled out, sliding down the eave and landing on the sea of undead gathered below with minimal effect.
I studied the scene and could not figure out for the life of me how I could be of any assistance. I scratched my head and tried to find a way that I could extricate this woman safely.
When the thought came, I almost shoved it away as being ridiculous. I’d once been to a seminar on brainstorming. One of the rules they had insisted upon was that no idea, no matter how crazy it might seem, should be dismissed during that phase of problem solving. The idea was that sometimes it is the most far-fetched ideas that offer the solution, and they are never tried because of people dismissing them as ludicrous.
“I want you to stay put. Try to duck behind that outcropping,” I called out, pointing to where the house had a bit of a natural wall around the corner of the window she’d used to escape. “I’m not leaving, just coming from a different angle. You will know if or when this works…and you need to be ready.”
Before she had a chance to say anything or ask questions that I probably didn’t have the answers to, I took off. I made the left that took me back towards the church and the school. I was so set on getting to the woman that it took me a moment to realize that the road was clear again. Just as I turned into the neighborhood where the house and the woman in distress waited, I spotted two clusters of regular zombies. One was up in the school parking lot just milling about. The other group was gathered around the house where I’d seen the child zombie on the car with the trash can lid.
“They’ve reset the trap,” I gasped. The thought of that gave me a chill that went to the core of my soul. That indicated at least some sort of rudimentary ability to…think?
No, that was impossible, I thought. Just like the dead rising and a zombie apocalypse wiping out humanity. That second thought came right on the heels of the first.
I shoved it away and hoped that I would remain cognizant long enough to include this all in my notes. For now, I had to focus on the task at hand. I turned up onto what the sign declared to be Southeast 144th Loop.
I pulled up a house short of my destination, and it was very apparent which house was my target. The front of the house was a mess. There were smears of vile fluids all over the façade, and the front door had been destroyed. I imagine the force of so many undead smashing against it had simply been too much for the frame to handle.
I took a look around and saw that the road ahead was basically clear. Apparently, all of the zombies in this little area had converged solely on this one residence. That seemed strange, but then, so had most of what I’d seen today.
I rolled just past the house and then laid on the horn of the Jeep Cherokee. It wasn’t an impressive sound for such a supposedly rugged vehicle, but in the relative silence where the moans of the undead provided the greatest part of the ambient soundtrack, it was enough.
Some of the undead that were milling about along the sides of the house and just inside the front door turned my direction. It was an agonizingly slow process, and I was doubting that it would work, but pretty soon, more and more of the undead turned in my direction and began to come after the new stimulus.
I pulled a few houses ahead of the pack and opened the door. “As soon as it is clear, make a run for the street you saw me on, I will come around and pick you up.” It seemed almost like it didn’t need saying, but I hastily shouted, “And keep quiet or they will come back for you.”
I hopped back in and rolled up the street, laying on the horn like I was in the worst traffic jam in the world and stuck behind an idiot who was too busy texting to notice the line had moved forward. Once they all made their way out onto the street—there were obviously still a lot of them—they didn’t look as imposing now that they were all strung out in a stream versus clumped together in an enclosed area.
I guessed that I’d created a window of opportunity for the woman and then sped away, making the turns like I was a NASCAR driver on the final lap. I reached the exit of the neighborhood, putting me at the tee-intersection where the church sat directly across from me.
A small pack of the child zombies had gathered under the body of the half-man hanging in the entry way. They all just stood there watching me. As I eased into the street and made my right turn, they just continued to observe me as I rolled away.
Removing the fact that I was infected and not long for this world, I really wished that I could stick around a bit longer and try to figure out why the child version of a zombie acted so differently. Sadly, that would not be. I glanced up in the rearview mirror and still saw nothing more than my regular eyes staring back at me.
Still no sign of the tracers.
I turned right again, putting me back on Southeast 145th Avenue. I rolled up the long, gentle incline, my eyes scanning everywhere for a sign of the woman. I breathed a sigh of relief when I confirmed that she had at least made it off the roof.
I was almost even with the house I’d spotted her on when a figure burst from the trees on the side of the road. It was her and she was waving her arms wildly.
I slowed to a stop and opened the passenger side door. She hopped in, filling the cab of the vehicle with the stink of sweat and fear. I hadn’t known that fear had an actual smell until just this minute.
“Thank you so much,” she gushed as she locked the door and reflexively strapped the seatbelt across her body and clicked it in place. I started away as she gave a long exhale and then turned to face me. I glanced over to see a pistol pointed at my head.
“Seriously?” I barked.
5
Stranger Danger
“Just get us out of here,” the woman demanded. I could hear her voice tremble slightly. Also, the arm holding the gun was bobbing around like we were driving over a bumpy road. The thing was…we hadn’t moved an inch yet.
She was scared.
I didn’t know if she was afraid of me, or if she might be part of some nasty scheme. I also knew that I didn’t like having a gun pointed at me by somebody who was just as likely to pull the trigger by accident as she was on purpose.
I was gonna hate myself for what I felt I had to do. And at the same time, I had serious doubts that it would work. Again…this was some sort of action-hero crap. I think I’d already made it clear that I was not one of those.
I pictured what I had to do in my head, and then took a deep breath. What the hell, I thought, I’m dying anyway. If she puts a bullet in my head, it will save me the trouble.
I turned back to face front and put the truck in drive. I gave it just enough gas to start us moving, then I slammed on the brakes as my right arm lashed out and smacked the woman in the wrist. The pain that went all the way to my gut was a reminder that my arm was injured and that I needed to stop being an idiot if I didn’t want to lose the use of it completely. Her arm flew away and I heard a metallic click-click-click.
Huh, I thought as I spun in my seat and smashed the woman in the face as hard as I could with my balled up left fist, an empty weapon. I felt her nose crumble under the force of the blow and her head snapped back, smashing into the window on the passenger’s side.
As f
ast as I could, I threw the truck into park and then lunged over and caught the dazed woman by the throat with my left hand as my right caught her wrist before she could recover. I gave her arm a good shake and heard the gun land on the floor of the truck.
“Please,” she begged through a bloody nose. “Do what you’re gonna do to me and just get it over with.”
The woman was crying now, and her hitching sobs were causing her entire body to shake. I loosened my grip just enough so that I wasn’t actually choking her.
“Why would I pick you up only to hurt you?” It seemed like a logical question.
“Because…umm…well…” her garbled response came between hitching sobs.
“How long have you been on your own?” I asked.
“Th-th-three weeks,” she managed as her sobbing ebbed.
“And has anybody tried to…” I found that I struggled to even say the word that hung in the air like an evil spirit.
“I’ve managed to stay hidden.” She sat up straighter in her seat as I let go and moved back into my own. “But I’ve heard terrible things happen. I’ve heard people begging and crying and screaming. At first I thought that it was all just more zombie attacks, but there is a difference.” She shuddered violently. “That one scream.” Her gaze got far away, and I could tell she was reliving a bad moment.
“I call it the scream,” I said, emphasizing the word ‘the’ when I spoke.
“It’s so terrible. Like nothing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah.”
I eased the truck into drive and started away as I saw a group of zombies heading for us from around the corner in the direction of the church and the school. After a moment of driving in silence, I came up with an idea.
“Listen, I’m headed to a vet for some supplies for my dog. I can bring you with me if you don’t have any place else to go. After I get what I need, I am taking supplies back to where this nice little group is holed up.” I sensed her tense and heard her breath catch. “One of the people there is this nice lady named Betty.” Yeah, that was a big fat lie, but maybe knowing there were women present would ease her mind. “Also, there is this other girl who we just rescued. I think her name is Amanda. There are two kids, Selina and Michael. Then there is Carl. He’s a good guy, and pretty smart about this whole zombie thing.”
