The Apocalyptic Nurse (Book 1): Plagued Road Home

by Bell, A. E.

  Creed grabbed Evie’s hand, “We are going to be okay. It’s all going to work out.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand, “I keep trying to tell myself that. I love you. Now drive please.”

  He put the Humvee in gear and proceeded down the street. They drove past a road, and Evie looked down at it, there was a horde of infected walking down the street towards a building engulfed in flames. She slapped Creed’s arm, “Stop and look.”

  He slammed on the brakes. It was the largest horde they had seen so far, “I would hate to be in their path. That is massive. It looks like there are thousands of those things. I wonder if they will go into the fire or stand around it like a ginormous bonfire.”

  Evie answered, “Surely, they will walk into it. Maybe that’s why there are so many buildings with smoke billowing out of them. Maybe people are trying to get rid of those things by lighting huge buildings on fire and letting them walk into fiery destruction.”

  Creed put the Humvee back in gear, “One thing is for sure, I’m not going up there to check it out for you.” He kept driving. There were areas in the street, he could barely squeeze through. It looked as if people just started fleeing their vehicles to escape the horror that had arrived.

  Evie pointed up ahead to yet another barricade, only this time it wasn’t one set up by the military. She instructed Creed, “Turn right, we aren’t going through that shit again.”

  He questioned her, “Evie, you do realize we will be going in the general direction of that horde, right? It doesn’t make sense to chance it.”

  She argued her point, “We are far enough away that we will not hit the horde. They are obsessed with that fire. We will be fine.”

  He conceded, “Fine, but I want it to be known, I think you’re wrong. So, when this goes bad, I’m going to remind you of this moment.”

  She rolled her eyes, “Whatever. Just let me check out this 50-Cal to see if it’s operational or not.” She climbed on the back and started messing with it. She was surprised to find that there was still plenty of rounds left. She told Creed, “Everything checks out. I have always wanted to shoot one of these bad boys. Granted, I didn’t want to do it under these circumstances.”

  They started driving down the road. Evie stayed in position with the 50 cal. They were weaving in and out of the parked cars. There was a few infected gimping down the road. One had his leg partially torn off, and the other two had shackles on their leg that connected them. Creed ran over them. It felt like large speed bumps. Evie fell backward on her ass, “Hey, you jackass, watch what the fuck are you doing up there? I’m not exactly in a comfortable position back here.”

  Creed laughed, “Sorry, honey. I’ll do better next time.”

  Creed could hear the annoyed tone in Evie’s voice when she replied, “Next time, there better not be a next time.”

  As they turned onto the road that the fire was on, Creed saw a bunch of infected headed in the direction of the fire. He yelled, “Everybody, hold on. It’s getting ready to get a little hairy. Heads up back there, babe.”

  Before they knew it, they were surrounded on three sides by the infected. Cassie put her hands over her ears and bent over. Cinnamon started licking her face. Jade grew frustrated at her helplessness, “Evie, hand me a gun and I will start shooting them out my window.

  Evie handed her the 9mm from her holster, “Just be careful with that thing.”

  Jade fumbled with it for a minute but couldn’t make it shoot. Sylvie grabbed it away from her, “This is the safety, and this is the trigger. It’s already got one in the chamber. Just aim and pull the trigger.”

  Evie continued shooting her 50 cal, she loved the power she felt when she was shooting it. She felt completely indestructible. One by one she shot them in the head. Jade, however, was not having much luck. By the time she had finished the magazine, she had only taken down five infected. Evie yelled down to her, “When we get somewhere safer, I think we need to do some target practice.”

  Evie was an annoyance to Jade. She wanted to show Evie that she can take care of herself. She continued to shoot at those things, occasionally making a kill shot.

  Creed pointed to the front, “Evie, I need you to concentrate on the ones in front of us.” She tried, but the infected along the sides were still trying to climb onto the Humvee.

  Sylvie saw one that was almost all the way up the side. She pleaded with her father, “Give me your gun. Let me help mom.”

  Creed nodded, “You better be careful. Your mom will kill me if anything happens to you.”

  Because of her size she was able to squeeze up next to her mother. An infected was behind her mother. She yelled, “Mom, get down.” Evie had no idea why, but she fell to her knees. She saw her daughter pull up her Creed’s gun and a loud pop. She turned just in time to see the infected fall on top of Sylvie. She crumbled under the weight of it.

  Evie climbed back up to Sylvie, “Are you okay? Sylvie, are you okay?”

  Sylvie was trying to push it off, “I’m fine, mom. Can you give me a hand getting him off though?” Sylvie began pulling him off her. They were finally able to push him over the side of the Humvee.

  Evie told Sylvie, “You shoot the ones on the side and I will try to clear a path for daddy.” Sylvie was scared to death, but she was so proud of the fact that her parents were finally allowing her to help them. She hated sitting back and watching them take care of everything. It made her feel weak and helpless.

  Evie made quick work of the infected in front of them. Creed drove the Humvee over top of them. It was quite a bumpy ride, but they were finally making their way through them.

  An infected reached inside and grabbed a clump of Jade’s hair. It was making a snarling noise as he was trying to bite at her face. Creed attempted to pull her away, but couldn’t manage it. Sylvie heard her screaming, so she took the buck knife off her mother’s belt and slid back inside the Humvee. She plunged the buck knife into the infected’s ear. It’s grasp loosened, and Jade was once again rescued by another.

  She hugged Sylvie, “Thank you so much. I owe you my life.”

  Sylvie told her, “You don’t owe me anything. We are all in this together.”

  Sylvie carefully made her way back up next to her mother. She looked in front of the Humvee and saw that Creed had made his way through the horde. Evie reached over and pulled her daughter into her arms and squeezed her as tight as she could. She whispered into her ear, “I love you so much. I don’t know what I would have done if something would have happened to you, but you have made me very proud.”

  Sylvie felt like she was finally more than just a kid that required someone to care for her. She had proven herself to both her parents. She was no longer a burden, and that gave her such a sense of pride.

  Evie said, “Sit back down. I can handle it from here.” Sylvie reluctantly returned to her seat. Evie took down any of the stragglers that posed a threat. She tried to avoid shooting as much as possible because she didn’t want to attract more of them or waste their precious ammunition.

  She turned and looked behind them. The fire was still raging on, and it seemed that the majority of the infected were still heading towards the fire, but there was a small group of about twenty infected following the Humvee. They were not very close, but she took notice of them and hollered to Creed, “We need to pick up speed if possible, we got a pack following us.”

  Creed replied, “Of course we do. I will do the best I can, but I want to pay attention, so we don’t drive right into trouble.”

  They finally made it to the edge of St. Louis at sunset. Evie poked her head inside, “We need to start looking for a place to stay for the night.”

  Creed agreed, “I know we do, but we need to find a less populated area. We’ll drive a little further out from St. Louis and find an abandoned house or somewhere to stay. Hopefully, it won’t take long, we are about out of fuel.”

  Chapter 15

  There seemed to be less danger the further out the
y drove. They saw less of the infected and the living. It had become eerily quiet. Creed found a small subdivision, he pulled into a driveway that had no vehicles. He told Sylvie, “You keep an eye on Jade and Cassie, me and mom are going to check out the house.”

  Sylvie smiled at her dad, “No problem, dad. I will make sure everything is okay out here.” She was secretly scared to death but wasn’t going to let him see that.

  Creed and Evie went inside the home, searching room to room. There was evidence that someone had been in the home very recently. Evie picked up a coffee mug and smelled it. It was half full of tea that was still warm. There was a half-eaten plate of fresh food. She snapped her fingers to get Creed’s attention. He turned his head towards her, and she pointed down to the food. He nodded his head. He knew that there was a good chance the people were still inside the house. The cleared the house room by room. There was no sign of where these people may have gone.

  They walked outside confused by what they saw and more importantly what they didn’t see. They got back inside the Humvee. Evie announced, “We need to get out of this neighborhood, something’s not right.”

  Creed backed out of the driveway. He turned to leave the cul-de-sac and then they spotted it. There was a roadblock at the end of the road. Armed men and women were standing behind the roadblock. Creed stopped the Humvee.

  Evie looked over at him, “What the hell are you doing?”

  He asked, “What do you want me to do? Try to drive through them and get us all killed?”

  She snapped, “We have a fuckin Humvee with a 50 cal on it. We won’t be taken hostage.” She calmly climbed up to the rifle.

  Creed turned and told her, “I’m just going to step out and see what they want. If they so much as breath funny, just mow them down.”

  He climbed out and yelled to the group, “We don’t want any trouble. We want to leave.”

  A deep raspy voice came out of the group, “Well, you want to leave, and we want a Humvee.”

  Creed sarcastically replied, “There are still several downtown, why don’t y’all go get you one?”

  The man with the raspy voice stepped forward, “Why would we do that when we had one drive right into our neighborhood?”

  Creed looked up at Evie, “This is your last chance to let us out of this neighborhood. We don’t want to hurt anyone, but we will if we have to.”

  The man yelled, “Sorry, but that’s not going to happen.”

  Evie fired a shot about a foot away from the man’s foot. He jumped back behind the vehicles. One of the people behind the cars fired a shot that whizzed right past Creed’s head. He ducked behind the door. Evie began firing the 50 cal towards the group. She yelled to Creed, “Drive us up through that yard over there, and we can get around.”

  He smiled, “Anything you say, babe. Y’all need to duck down into the floor. Don’t raise up until the gunfire stops.” He turned the steering wheel towards the left and went up over the curb to go around the roadblock.

  Evie yelled out, “Fuck you, motherfuckers” as she continued firing at them. She picked them off one by one as they poked their heads up to fire at them. By the time Creed made it around the vehicles, there was no one else firing. There were a few people left alive, laying on the ground with their hands on their heads.

  Evie yelled to the people on the ground, “Do not so much as raise your hand up or I will put a bullet right in your head.”

  Creed pulled away from the cul-de-sac. Evie made her way up front and breathed a sigh of relief. Creed looked over at her, “We aren’t out of the woods yet. We still need to find a place to stay for the night. We need to eat. We need rest.”

  She knew he was right, “I know. It’s too cold to sleep outside. We need to find a house of some sort. We need to look out in the middle of nowhere. We don’t have any maps. We are low on food. If we don’t figure something out fast, we are in serious trouble.”

  Creed said, “Fine. First order of business is to find a house to stay overnight. Once we are rested, we will come up with a plan for the remainder of the trip. We should have less than a day’s drive to get us home.”

  They drove on backroads for about thirty minutes when the finally found a small home on a small country road. There were no other houses within miles. They went to the front door and knocked, but there was no answer. They entered the home with caution. There was not any sign of any infected or human beings. They found a little bit of food in the cabinets. It would have to be enough to get them through until they got home. Jade lit some candles that she found in the kitchen drawers. Evie found an old propane camp stove sitting on the counter. They used it to heat the non-perishable canned foods that they had found.

  Creed, Jade, and Evie decided that they would take shifts during the night. The night went by without incident.

  Creed and Evie searched the premises to see if there was anything useful that they could take with them. Creed reminded Evie, “Honey, don’t forget that we are almost out of fuel. We will only make it another twenty or so miles if we are lucky.”

  She was irritated, “Why didn’t you remind me of this last night? Did you not think it was fuckin’ important enough?”

  He tried to explain, “It was the last thing on my mind last night. Everybody needed to rest, not to worry about if he had fuel or not.”

  She replied, “Alright, then we need to come up with another plan. We can’t leave this house unless we come up with a plan b. At least we seem to be relatively safe here.”

  As they were wandering around the property, they came across a small door that looked like it led to a storm shelter or a root cellar. Creed put his finger in front of his mouth as to tell Evie to be quiet. He came over to Evie and whispered in her ear, “You open the door and stand back, I will cover you.”

  Evie walked over to the door and took a deep breath. She was scared to death to see what was on the other side. She opened the door and stumbled backward while she was trying to get out of the way.

  Creed stood in front of the door with his gun raised. Then, it hit him, a smell he had never smelled before. It was indescribable to him. He started to gag because of the noxious odor.

  Evie knew the smell all to well, “Sorry, honey that’s the smell of rotting flesh. Jesus that’s fucking disgusting. It almost smells like gangrene.” She placed her sleeved arm in front of her face.

  The two of them started down the stairs into the unknown. The only thing that Evie was certain of was that something was dead down there. They got to the bottom of the stairs, and there was a black heavy metal door. Creed tapped on the door and heard a rustling noise coming from inside. He told Evie, “When I pull this door open, you be prepared to shoot. There is no way that a living person could survive with that smell.”

  She readied her gun. Creed pried the door open and was charged by an infected. It pushed him down on the steps. Evie couldn’t chance shooting the infected because the bullet might go through and ricochet off the walls. She took her hunting knife out and plunged it deep into its brain stem. Creed slithered out from underneath it. He stood up and started vomiting violently.

  Evie walked inside the room and found a dead body that the infected had been feeding on for what was probably days considering the smell. As she investigated the shelter, she found emergency supplies. She yelled for Creed, “If you are done puking, I could use your help carrying this box of MRE’s and their emergency water supply. He’s not going to need it anymore."

  Creed smugly replied, “Sorry, we aren’t all built like you. I don’t know how this shit isn’t bothering you.”

  She laughed, “I’ve spent the last 15 years smelling terrible odors. Just tell yourself to think about something else.”

  He climbed over the body of the infected and entered the room that his wife was inside. He grabbed the box of MRE’s and packed them upstairs. Evie followed him with some containers of water. The two of them made a couple of trips inside the shelter.

  As they went back up the
steps, they heard gunfire that seemed to be close. They both took off running towards the house to check on Jade and the kids. As they ran across the yard, they realized that the bullets were now coming towards them. They ran behind the Humvee to try and figure out what the hell was going on.

  Evie peaked around the side of the vehicle and saw that the gunshots weren’t meant for them, but towards a small horde of infected. The horde was coming towards the house, but Evie still couldn’t see where the gunshots were coming from.

  Evie yelled to Creed, “I’m going to get rid of this horde with the 50 cal. You go inside and check on the kids and make sure they are safe.”

  Evie climbed up to the 50 cal and started shooting into the horde of infected. She heard some people screaming and yelling over top of the gunfire. She stopped shooting and tried to find where the yelling was coming from. Then, she spotted them, they were shooting from the far side of the horde. She was shooting right in their direction. She shouted, “Hey move towards your 3 o’clock, and I will shoot towards your 9 o’clock.” She wasn’t sure if they heard her at first. Eventually, they made their way over to the side, and she started taking the infected out in quick order.

  Creed came running out the door because he heard his wife yelling at people. He huffed at her, “Are you crazy? How do we know they are decent people?”

  She stopped shooting and shrugged her shoulders, “I guess we don’t know, but we can’t keep letting them press that horde towards us or they will overrun us.”