Vince was still standing there, though more leisurely this time. Travis took in his surroundings and realized that his mouth was closed with duct tape and his hands were in front of him, also bound with duct tape.
Vince was smiling. “Nice of you to wake up. It’s time for a walk. Get up,” he said, kicking Travis’ shoe.
Travis tried to get up but was still dizzy from the blow to his head, and stumbled a couple times while trying to stand.
He finally stood and he could see some of the others from the school coming back out. Lance approached them calmly, like seeing Travis this way was no surprise.
Raquel and Ricky looked shaken, but averted their eyes when they saw Travis. They hopped in to the truck.
Travis felt rage ripple through him. These people that he thought were his friends, calmly ignoring him gagged and bound, recognizably in on this plan from the start. He also realized that Anthony and his goons, as well as Daniel and Diana, had not come out of the high school, and the rage turned in to a fire. A fire he could do nothing about in his current state.
“So you going to come along for the walk Lance? We’ll have to show you the graveyard so you know where to bring people in the future,” Vince said to Lance, who looked a little disgusted but shook that away and changed his face to one of determination.
He nodded at Vince.
“Ok, let’s walk ginger,” said Vince, pointing his gun back at Travis. He used the gun to direct which way he wanted him to go, and Travis started trekking in front of them.
They marched across the parking lot and then through the field in front of the high school.
After crossing the field they entered the forest, and not too far in a faint smell of sour rot hit Travis’ nose.
Looking ahead through the trees he was trying to think of what he could do. Right now he had two men with guns behind him, so turning and tackling them seemed unlikely to be successful. He could also try and run. The trees were getting bigger. And maybe if he ran and started hiding behind trees he could split the two up and tackle them separately.
Travis pulled harder on the tape holding his hands together. He would not be able to get the tape off, but at least he could stretch his hands apart enough that he could probably hold a gun.
Scanning the area ahead for the perfect spot to duck and run he spotted a hill coming up. They were about twenty feet away and he could see the ground at the foot of the hill to the right. His stomach dropped when he saw what lay there: bodies. Not the zombie bodies that Anthony and his friends had said they were discarding in the woods, but human bodies. Ones that had no signs of being infected when they died. He saw Bob lying there on the end, his lifeless face with a bullet hole through it and frost around the corners.
“Get ready to join your buddies Travis,” Vince chuckled from behind.
And without a moment’s hesitation, Travis took off to the left and started ducking behind the larger trees, hearing shouts and shots from behind.
Chapter 68
Travis was suddenly grateful for his mouth being duct taped. He was panting heavily and the tape muffled the sound. Currently he was hiding behind a large tree trunk, but his enemies would soon be on top of him.
Vince and Lance had taken a few shots at him after they realized he was trying to escape, but now they were more systematically sweeping the woods for him.
“We’re going to catch you Travis! Come out now and we’ll make it a quick death! Keep us hunting and we might change our minds and bring you back inside to watch the party Anthony’s having with your blonde bombshell!” Vince shouted.
He could tell from the voice that Vince was far off to his right. But the more terrifying noise was what he thought was the soft footfalls immediately behind him to the left. It was probably Lance, and he was almost on top of him. The question is did he know that? If he didn’t, then Travis might be able to ambush him and take his gun. Abnegating was not an option, since that just meant death.
Bracing himself for the coming moment, unexpectedly a shot rang out through the trees, and Travis heard the bullet whiz past his tree trunk.
Travis turned to the soft thud next to him and saw Lance’s body lying there, a large splotch of red blood starting to extend through his clothes on his back.
“What the hell?” shouted Vince, and another shot rang out.
Travis had turned just in time to see Vince get shot in the chest once, then a second time. His body was thrown from side to side with the impact of the bullets, blood squirting out from behind him. He fell to the ground and didn’t move anymore.
Travis tentatively peered around his tree trunk.
“Travis! Travis it’s ok, you can come out!” shouted a vaguely familiar voice from the field by the school.
Travis tentatively headed back towards the clearing, still a little nervous that this might be part of a trap. He could see some figures heading his way from the field.
He peered through the trees and realized with shock that the man with the sniper rifle was Daniel’s father! There was a smaller Asian woman holding a handgun to his left, and a forty something brunette holding another handgun to his right.
Even though he didn’t recognize the women, he knew he could trust these people and began rushing forward to them.
Reaching them, Greg let his rifle fall to his side but the women kept their guns up on either side of him, scanning the forest for any more enemies, alive or dead.
Greg reached down for Travis’ hands to untie them but Travis started mumbling and pushing his face toward him. Greg took the hint and ripped the duct tape from his face.
“Ahh!” shouted Travis reflexively. “Sorry. I mean thanks.”
“Where’s Daniel?” asked Greg before Travis could tell him.
“Daniel and Diana are in the basement of the school with Anthony and his gang. We need to go save them!” Travis explained.
“Yes we do. But we need to have a plan. How about you tell us all you can about what we are up against while we grab some extra weapons from the car,” suggested the woman with the brown hair. She had placed a calming hand on Greg’s shoulder while she spoke, and a knowing look told Travis that Mr. Gau was just as eager to run in guns blazing as he was.
Travis looked at her and did not recognize her.
“My name’s Linda,” she said when she saw Travis looking at her.
“We need to hurry,” said Travis. Greg got the duct tape off his wrists and motioned for Travis to follow them.
“Tell us everything you can,” said Greg.
Chapter 69
Judy found the school to be one of the scariest places they had ever been. It was like a massacre had happened there, and a school was not a place you wanted to think about that happening. Before the outbreak that had been a not uncommon occurrence, school shootings and massacres.
Even though many of the bodies they had passed were those of adults, there was too much feeling in the air, like the souls of many lost people and children were still hanging around in the shadows.
They pulled the heavy door open and walked in to the stairwell.
It reminded Judy of some artwork she had seen once at a modern art museum. She vaguely remembered the name of an artist called Alexander Calder that often made mobiles with long metal sticks and balls. The chaotic arrangement of chair and desk legs was a close facsimile.
“Think you can fit?” Greg asked Judy. They approached the metal and peered down the stairwell.
She nodded and put the gun back in the holster on her hip. Tentaively, she pushed gently on the nearest chair to see how much it would all wiggle.
“Ok, you sneak down this way and get in position. We’ll give you fifteen minutes before using the elevator. Then you know the signal,” Greg said, placing a hand on Judy’s shoulder.
She immediately started weaving her way through the mess of metal, hearing the door open and close behind her.
Judy was the most petite of the group, so the plan was for her to crawl through the sp
aces in the metal down the one flight to the basement at the far end of the building, which was the opposite end of the L-shape from the elevator. She would probably be far enough away from Anthony and his group that she would go unnoticed when she came in through the door there. Then she could sneak up on them from one angle, whereas the others would approach from the front via the elevator.
She had reached the bend in the flight of stairs and tried to turn herself to angle back towards the bottom, barely squeezing through the space between chair legs at one point.
It was a pretty effective barrier. It took some smarts in maneuvering for her to make it down here, and there was no way that the infected could pull it off with that sort of stealth. Looking back up towards her target her heart stopped for a brief moment. She stared down in to the face of one of the infected that she had just been thinking about.
Judy took a deep breath, realizing it was already dead. There were several that had been stuck down here at the bottom of the stairs when they dropped all the chairs and desks this way. She could see large head wounds in the three infected that lay on the ground below and figured someone early on must have come and ended their lives.
She continued to traverse the metal in the path of least resistance and realized that path was leading her right by the face of one of the dead infected.
Judy reached the face-to-face level when her tiger pendant fell out from her shirt and dangled in front of the lifeless face. She mustered her courage and moved on.
The worst part was she had to squeeze past the monster’s face, feeling the nose and mouth rub up against her side as she tunneled through the space towards the door. She tried to push the images of the infected waking up and biting down on her out of her mind, feeling overwhelmed by this closeness. But she kept thinking of the tiger and her inner warrior, soldiering on.
Her hands touched the bottom floor and she wiggled through to the space below the door handle. She was able to squat just below it in the space below a desk there.
Judy reached up and turned the knob. It moved easily, but she suddenly realized that the door would swing outwards and probably take a lot of the desks and chairs with it as it opened up. This might make a lot of noise, and blow her cover.
She held the door firmly in place and positioned herself towards the crack that would open. Pushing the door open a tiny bit, she felt all the chairs and desks immediately above her buckle and start to give way like she expected. She opened the door slowly, straining against the weight of all that wanted to push its way through. Once it was open a couple inches the chairs and desks settled on the ground and seemed to relax their pressure on the door. She thanked whoever had cleared this area before. Not only had they killed the infected, but the chairs and desks had resettled in a way that were not at risk for pouring through the doors when she opened it the full foot she needed to squeeze through.
Judy peeked around the other side of the door before completely walking through, and saw the hallway ahead of her was clear. There were voices and laughter coming from the other side of the bend. A sick twisted laughter that sent chills down her spine.
Gently pushing the door closed behind her, Judy started moving towards the voices, ducking down when the wall changed from a full brick wall to a lower half of brick and upper half of chain link.
Judy checked her watch and saw that thirteen minutes had passed since she had left the others. She pulled her gun out of its holster and readied it.
There was laughter and a slapping noise around the corner.
“Nice try blondie, but there’s no passing out allowed,” said an obnoxious, slightly high-pitched male voice.
Judy took one brief glance around the corner and quickly turned back, pressing her eyes shut while she processed the scene before her.
She had seen a blonde woman tied up against the chain link. She was nearly naked, stripped down to her underwear, and blood trickled down from her face, torso and legs. From Travis’ description this was likely Diana.
There was a man with black hair in front of her, the one tormenting her, and another two men at either side of him.
She felt a huge sensation of relief since she had also seen Daniel. He was tied up and gagged as well, but alive. A fourth man with a rifle was standing against the wall next to Daniel.
“We’re not even close to done. We haven’t even reached the main course!” continued the man.
The sound of ripping fabric filled the air.
“Uh-uh sweetheart. Now is the fun part, and I want you and your Danny boy to watch. Marcus! Why don’t you be on eye duty and make sure she stays awake for this,” he said.
Judy felt a ripple of anger run through her. They were torturing this poor woman and making Daniel watch. For the first time since the start of the outbreak Judy was commoved to do something she never thought she would want to: murder.
“You’re not going to get any sympathy from Marcus. Marcus might not enjoy blondes as much as I do, but he loves his women young. Real young. Probably why he became a teacher, gets him easy access to his type. With you and your crew out of the way people will turn a blind eye to Marcus getting some young t-and-a here and there,” the man who Judy was assuming was Anthony said.
She felt so much anger in that moment that she knew she couldn’t wait for her brother and the others. Focusing all her strength she jumped out from behind the wall and held her gun straight at Anthony.
“Put your guns down or Anthony gets shot,” she shouted.
A moment of shock and panic ran through the group in the middle of the hallway. Then they did exactly what she had said not to and aimed their guns towards her. Except for Anthony, who was nowhere near a weapon of his own so he just turned and stared down the line of her gun.
“Who the hell are you? How did you get here? And how do you know my name?” Anthony asked her.
“I said put your guns DOWN!” Judy repeated.
“In case you didn’t notice, it’s four against one,” Anthony said, holding his hands up. He did have a point, but not for long.
Behind them the elevator dinged.
Relief washed through Judy and she smiled, realizing the justice these men deserved was about to be served.
The man closest to Daniel turned and looked down the hall.
“Why’s the elevator moving?” he asked.
“Probably Vince and Lance back from taking care of Travis. They arrived just in time. Soon it will be six against one miss. Looks like you should be putting your gun down,” Anthony said with complete confidence, never breaking eye contact with Judy.
Judy could hear the door to the elevator open, a faint rustle from down the hall. Then a sudden scurry of movement flashed from the doors and the hallway filled with barking.
A white, wirehaired terrier was bounding down the hall at the men who were shouting in surprise. The man furthest from her shot at the dog and missed, just in time to lift his head from the ground and stare down an infected man the moment he landed atop his face.
Screams now echoed through the hall, and muffled moans.
Judy knew her brother, Travis and Linda were coming out of the elevator behind the two infected they let lose after River so she focused on Anthony, who had taken in the scene behind him and turned to run towards the end of the hall, directly towards Judy.
She let off a warning shot towards his feet then shouter “Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head!”
He reluctantly obeyed, flinching at the shots behind him.
Judy kept her gun aimed at Anthony’s head, maintaining a safe distance from him while she looked past him to see how the others were faring.
Marcus must have tried to attack her friends and now lay on the ground in a quickly expanding pool of blood.
The man by Daniel had dropped his weapon and had his hands above his head.
Both of the infected were feasting on the now twitching body of the first man.
Greg walked up to the man and with a couple shots p
ut all three of them out of their misery.
Walter was with them as well, standing behind Travis. His eyes were blood shot, but he had a furious look on his face.
“Travis, restrain them,” instructed Greg.
Travis put his gun down and ran over to Daniel, grabbing the duct tape next to him as he placed a quick hand on his friend’s shoulder and glanced up at Diana, who now had tears streaming down her face, mixing with the blood there. The dog Judy had just met before traveling down the staircase known as River was jumping up on the woman’s legs and whining.
As soon as the men were restrained Judy holstered her gun and ran to help Travis get the woman down off the wall. Meanwhile Greg freed Daniel and embraced his son.
Linda was on guard duty, standing in front of the restrained men to make sure none of them tried anything.
Judy figured she should be with Daniel and Greg, but this poor woman in front of her was so badly hurt she had to help her.
After her legs and arms were freed from the fencing the woman slumped forward on to Travis and he helped lie her down. River was already nuzzling up to the woman’s face, licking off the tears before they hit the floor. Judy took her coat off. She would be happy to deal with the cold if it meant giving this woman some of her pride back.
Judy noticed the pile of torn clothes to the side of her and was about to help dress the woman when she saw that the clothes were all ripped open. She could feel the anger towards these men bubble up again, wanting nothing more to take them out back to their pile of bodies and let them join the mix.
Travis got the duct tape off of Diana’s mouth.
“Are you ok?” he asked. Judy thought it was a pretty stupid question and thought she knew the answer, but it was probably the only thing he could think to ask.
“Better now. Thank you,” she said.
Then she feebly tried to lift her left arm and only got it about a foot off the ground.
“I can’t move my arm.”
Greg came over and gently manipulated her left arm.
Eves of the Outbreak Page 31
