Eves of the Outbreak

by Lilith Assisi

  Running to the front of the houses would definitely set team zombie on us, but turning back towards the backyards meant exposing us to the larger group of zombies heading our way through the cornfields. And there were definitely some fenced back yards ahead, so it might be easier to try to book it out the front and take my chances with the varsity squad.

  Making up my mind, I opened my eyes and was planning to run across the front street tout suite when some movement caught my attention.

  Two houses down there were a pair of men tucked behind some furniture on a front porch, but the one at the front of the porch was sticking his arm through the posts on the porch, waving my way in an attempt to get my attention.

  I blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  Nope, there was definitely a pair of guys waving my way. Well, at least the red head with the beard was waving my way. The man behind him looked Asian and was concentrating down the street, probably watching the varsity squad stumble our way.

  The red head smiled as he realized I saw him. He moved his hand in to a flat palm position like he would have high fived me, but I understood. He was motioning for me to stay put.

  Was I supposed to just stand there and let the football players wander by, hoping they didn’t notice me? Not likely dude. And he might not have any idea what was eventually going to stumble around the corner from the back of the house. I’d try my best not to let the zombies see me in my mad dash, but I couldn’t just sit here waiting to get found.

  I braced my muscles, ready to take off, but what came next made me stop before I even started.

  The sounds of music suddenly pierced the air. Loud music. An authoritative electric guitar started up, and I suddenly realized I was listening to ACDC. Whoever was blasting the song had the volume projected over a loud speaker, as a choir of moaning now accompanied the music. The song was easily loud enough to be heard over the increasingly vocal zombies.

  I poked my head around the corner of the house again to see the zombie horde. Only this time it was the backs of football jerseys moving away from me. It was music to my ears, no pun intended.

  Gazing beyond the zombies in to the distance I saw the source of the music. A large pick-up truck with the sides rigged with poles caging two young men in the back sat at the end of the road. The men were wearing light jackets, gloves, and ski masks. Air horns were mounted on the top of the cab. The ACDC song continued on and I recognized the chorus to the song “Dirty Deeds”.

  “Yee-haw!!!! Come on you jocks! Want a second lunch? Come and fucking get it!” One of the two men in the back of the truck bed screamed delightfully as he wielded a shotgun and let off a blast, dropping one of the zombies at the head of the pack.

  I just stared. There was nothing else I could do. It was so bizarre. I watched as some nearby zombies stumbled on to the street from in between houses further up, and figured the dozens from the cornfield were heading that way too.

  The truck seemed to be luring the zombies to follow them as it headed in the opposite direction of River and I. I watched in shock for what must have been a couple minutes until the song was fading in the distance, though I could still hear an occasional blast from the shotgun followed by enthusiastic whoops from the men on the truck.

  “Hey.”

  “Yihh!” Boy did I jump. I stifled my shout of alarm, and realized that while I had been watching what could have been the most epic nerd revenge on jocks ever, the Asian and the red head had sneaked up to me.

  Each of them was carrying a weapon of their own: one a handgun, the other a baseball bat like mine. Another pang of helplessness hit me as I realized all my supplies and weapons were back at the rest area. Along with Tracy and Percy. I felt more vulnerable than I had in a while, but I wasn’t going to let these men figure that out if I could help it. I’d have to size them up pretty quickly before they tried anything. River’s wagging stub seemed a good first sign.

  Both men appeared to be somewhere in their late twenties. The one carrying the handgun was Asian, his face pale and sallow. His eyes were darting about as he seemed to be covering the man that was closer to me.

  The other man that had startled me was red-haired with a full beard and piercing blue eyes. He was smiling at me, and I couldn’t tell if there were freckles or flecks of dirt peppering his face.

  The red head extended his hand forward for a handshake. “Not that we have time for introductions, but I’m Travis.”

  I begrudgingly shook his hand. “And this here is Daniel,” he said as he jerked his head backward. I nodded, trying to take it all in.

  “We’ve got a hideout at a high school nearby, and a car hidden way back down this road to get us there. Those guys in the trucks are our buds, creating a diversion for us to help you escape.”

  I just nodded again, swallowing hard and not knowing what to say.

  “Come on, we need to go slowly just in case there are any lurkers being woken to follow the music,” Travis said and waved for me to follow him.

  I fell quickly in to line, ducking behind porches and trying to be discreet even though any zombie within a mile seemed to only care about the distant beat of classic rock. River was wagging her tail, trotting along behind Travis like this was an adventure. It sure is I thought.

  I noticed several tracks and footprints in the snow. You could easily tell which of them had been zombies. The more neat, and organized ones had probably been the ones that Travis and Daniel had made on their way over to me. I had a sudden urge to follow in the steps directly in front of me, hiding our numbers as if we were sand people from Star Wars.

  After another couple houses and expanses of lawns, we arrived at a beat up Subaru tucked behind a large tractor. Daniel rushed ahead and jumped in to the driver’s seat.

  Travis, like a true gentleman, held open the door to the backseat and gestured forward. “Your getaway chariot awaits,” he said while beaming at me.

  What a weirdo I thought.

  I just shook my head, thinking that all of this was too surreal. Once I was in the back seat Travis hopped into the front.

  He turned around to continue talking to me as Daniel started the car and we started to pull out towards the road.

  “I never got your name back there,” he said.

  “Diana,” I said.

  “Ah, like the princess!” he joked.

  “Like the goddess,” I replied. I always hated it when people thought that I was named after Princess Diana, a woman from the United Kingdom that meant little more than a pretty smile to most Americans. Not that Princess Diana wasn’t an incredible woman, but the name Diana came originally from the Greek Goddess of the hunt and the moon. If anyone asked me what I was named after, I would tell them that.

  Travis chuckled.

  “Very sorry your worship. And who might the little one be?” he asked, tilting his head towards River.

  “River.”

  River cocked her head to one side.

  “So nice to meet both of you!” he said. “I hope you don’t mind, it’ll be at least a forty minute drive until we get back to our hideout at the school.”

  I felt guilty for thinking it, but this man’s cheery attitude filled me with mixed emotion. Part of me wanted to smack that happy-go-lucky attitude off his face, the other part of me wanted to thank him for being so optimistic and kind. Then again, I’d had a rough day, and he and his friends did just save my life. My body didn’t really know how to process all these emotions at once.

  A distant gunshot behind them caught all our attention, and I turned around to look through the back window and see what was happening. All I could see were a couple straggling zombies turning the bend towards the road the truck had fled down.

  “Don’t worry, we do this all the time. They’ll be perfectly safe, and they’ll be home in time for dinner with us tonight,” Travis said reassuringly.

  I nodded.

  “Also, did you have supplies back at your truck?” he asked.

  Well
that question startled me. How long had these guys been stalking me? Did they see what happened to Tracy? Could I trust them? I had an overwhelming urge to jump out of the moving car as I started thinking about my tendency to be too trusting, and how that might have gotten Tracy killed.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you. We knew about the hoard heading down the highway and saw you fleeing through the field. Just followed the line of your exit and ended up seeing that abandoned truck by the rest area. Also saw what looked like some victims of the walkers. Sorry if they were your friends,” he explained quickly, sensing my fear.

  “No, they weren’t my friends,” I answered, assuming he had been talking about the remains of those traitorous children. There was no need to talk about Tracy. She was gone after all. They didn’t need to know.

  “And yes, there were supplies. Weapons, food, clothing, and water.”

  “Excellent. Daniel and I can probably get us there after the highway group clears out,” he said, turning back around.

  “Do you have scouts around here? How do you know where the group ends?” I asked, curious

  Travis seemed glad to continue talking.

  “We have a network of schools throughout the area communicating by walkie talkie,” he explained as he patted what looked like a professional radio used by first responders on his hip.

  “We’ve been seeing waves of the dead coming out of Chicago since the outbreak. We’re able to keep tabs from our home bases and have a decent idea of where the hot spots are from here to Oak Lawn,” he seemed pretty proud of himself as he explained this.

  “Where is here?” I asked.

  “Monticello.” It was the first time I had heard the Asian speak. I noticed his grip on the steering wheel had relaxed the further away we got from the zombies.

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “Basically the middle of nowhere,” replied Daniel.

  “So what’s your story?” asked Travis, trying to keep the conversation going.

  “A long one,” I replied.

  “Another time then,” he said as he turned back up front.

  Thank you for taking the hint buddy.

  I hadn’t even realized how aggressively I was petting River until she stood up and went to look out the opposite window. I slunk back in to my seat and tried to take a deep breath.

  Chapter 41

  Just as the men had anticipated, the loop back around to collect my valuables from the truck went uneventfully. I was starting to doubt that it would be possible to do something so simple without getting attacked. But I was so exhausted I don’t think I would have cared that much either way.

  We took the keys to the truck and left it behind. Travis told me they would probably make a run for it on another outing. The supplies were all they needed this time around.

  I was a little worried when they wouldn’t let me follow them in the truck, or leave to go my own way. But I felt better when they allowed me to hold on to whatever weapons of mine I wanted.

  A little while later I found myself gripping my baseball bat in the back seat of their Subaru, feeling more secure with it between my legs. I was watching the scenery fly by, trying to get an idea of where we were. Unexpectedly one of the abandoned cars we were passing on the side of the road caught my attention.

  “Stop,” I said. I don’t think either of them heard me.

  “STOP! Stop the car!” I shouted.

  Daniel slammed on the breaks.

  “What? What is it?” exclaimed Daniel.

  I didn’t answer, just crept gripping the handle to the door and opened it the moment the car slid to a hault.

  I ran back the thirty or so feet to the car that had caught my attention.

  There it was. That same BMW.

  I confirmed by looking at the license plates.

  Yup, this had been Peter’s car.

  There were scratch marks around all the doors.

  And what looked like a festering pile of vomit in the back seat. Luckily the cold and frost had dulled the smell.

  The passenger seat stood ajar, a light dusting of snow over the side of the vehicle and on to the seat. I pulled the door further open and more snow fell in to the car, but there was no missing the large bloodstain dried in the middle of the driver’s seat.

  It was funny how that one last loss of the day was the final straw that broke this camel’s back. My poor adrenal glands had done nothing but squeeze themselves maximally all day, but loss after loss, shock after shock, and this was just the last one that my shriveled glands couldn’t deal with anymore. Out of all the losses I had dealt with in such a short time it’s funny how this one opened the floodgates. This loss of an ex-boyfriend who had abandoned me. A loss that I might have hoped for with the way I had been treated in the months before it happened. The combination of exhaustion, over exertion, and the multitude of losses I had encountered in the last twenty-four hours finally became too much.

  I found myself collapsed on my knees and sobbing uncontrollably before I knew it. It didn’t make sense that this was the loss that sent me over the edge, but something had to. I think my tears were more for Percy and Tracy. And the world. The world had become such a dark and dismal place in such a short period of time.

  During my dazed and confused cathartic release I felt arms helping me up to my feet.

  They gently guided me back to the awaiting car. They eased me in to the seat of the car. River hopped up and climbed in to my lap. There was even a reassuring but foreign hand placed on my knee in comfort. I think there might have been some words of reassurance but I didn’t hear them. My mind and heart had broken. It would mend again, but for now I just needed to get it all out. I curled up on the seat and wrapped myself around River and let the deep sadness overtake me.

  Part 9: Surrounded

  “There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.”

  –Madeleine K. Albright

  Chapter 42

  For the first time in two days Judy felt warm. Warm both physically and emotionally. She might not have been as hearty a laugher as Jason, but all four of them had been faring this storm pretty well. They had spent the last hour playing charades.

  The chili they had eaten had been delicious. As promised, Linda had found and made some hot chocolate, and they were all enjoying getting to know each other as well as goofing around playing charades. Judy hadn’t had this much fun since undergrad. She looked around at her new friends and could almost make herself believe that they were just good friends getting snowed in at a slumber party, instead of a band of survivors racing across the country during a world altering outbreak.

  Even Greg had a grin on his face, which Judy noted had been more and more rare in the last couple days as the uncertainty of his son’s survival loomed over his head.

  She gazed at him, happy to see such a beatific look to her brother’s face when he noticed her. It was like her acknowledging his smile wiped it off his face, and he suddenly became much more solemn.

  “Alright everyone. I think it’s best we get some shut-eye. I don’t mind getting up in two hours for shovel duty if someone else wants to check out the path now,” Greg announced.

  And just like that the atmosphere was gone. The joy they had experienced had been fleeting, constantly being shoved back under cover by the oppressive nature of the reality outside.

  “Before we hit the hay, I was wondering if Judy could give us an update on where her research has gotten her,” Linda asked.

  Judy looked at her brother for approval. It was almost an instinct. He nodded.

  “Well, as you all know it’s a chimera,” she started.

  “Yeah, of toxo, herpes, the extreme bug, and something else,” Jason interrupted. He almost sounded like a scientist, but they had all gone through this several times now.

  “Extremophile,” she corrected.

  Judy had been able to isolate the parts of the hybrid that were from toxoplasmosis, and the parts that were from h
erpes. She could also tell some of the parts from the extremophile, but that was such an archaic organism it was hard differentiating it from the background. But there were still parts that she could not identify, including a stretch of DNA that spanned over a quarter of the genome. The literature she could access from the rare times they had internet access those first couple days had not allowed her to identify it. And now whenever they had spotty Wi fi, the time was spent reading news articles or other media with updates on how the world was faring. The last news they had read was two days prior.

  And that sad news was that the world was not faring well at all. Most of the large cities had dealt with massive scale outbreaks due to the airways. It had trickled out from there.

  From what they had read, the largest areas of resistance and survivors in the United States were in DC, Austin, Charleston, Santa Fe, and Portland. All of California, and certain bigger cities like Boston, New York City, and Chicago, had taken it the worst. It had been a good thing they had gotten out of California when they did. It was now the state with the highest rate of infection, and due to its sprawling nature any attempt at containment seemed to be failing. But it didn’t bode well that they were on their way to stop in two of the more heavily infected cities: Chicago and Boston.

  There were fewer international reports, but even though all flights had been cancelled by a couple days in to the outbreak it looked like the damage had already been done. The most accurate reports were the ones coming in from first world countries, but due to the distribution of population density many rural third world countries were starting to deal with an influx of refugees from neighboring countries. Places like Syria that previously had a constant efflux of citizens was now dealing with the opposite since their stock piling of weapons had allowed for them to destroy infected without impunity.