“Hi, I'm Sarah,” she said. “I'm not going to hurt you okay? Promise not to scream?”
He nodded, and she removed her hand, slowly. He kept his promise, and his mouth shut.
“Why are you in my room? Are you going to steal my stuff?” he asked. He had no idea what was about to happen.
“I'm actually more interested in your bite,” Sarah said with a smile. The boy's eyes widened; it was like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
“Here's the thing, kid,” she said, though she was addressing someone very similar in age. “you're not immune. You haven't changed yet because the virus progresses slower in children than adults. I'd say you have tonight, maybe a little bit of tomorrow, and do you know what happens then? You'll turn into one of those things. You won't want to, but it'll happen. Your eyes will turn black; your flesh will start to rot, and you'll kill everyone you love. Your mommy, your daddy, and anyone else stupid enough to get in your way. Now tell me, do you want that?”
The boy was in tears, nearly sobbing, but he managed to shake his head no.
Sarah reached beside him, picking up the serrated bread knife.
“Will...will it hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “Yes, it will.”
***
“This way!” Frank shouted, leading his family into a clearing. They had escaped the freeway with their lives, but ran alongside it until they came to a gap, which actually proved to be a bridge. They had turned into the forest and pushed through to a clearing. The first thing they noticed, aside from the wide open plain, was the series of homes in the distance.
“Houses!” Carl shouted. “We can hole up in there!”
“That's right,” Frank shouted in an utterly sarcastic agreement. “Because, I really want to be stuck in a house with a bunch of zombies clawing at the door! I think we've already been over this once!”
Nevertheless, they were actually running toward the houses rather than away. At some point, they realized that they were running for absolutely no reason. There were no zombies behind them, nor were there any in sight. There was also no reason to believe there would be any near the houses. After all, they tended to shy away from locations that did not feature a solid food source. The problem is that none of them seemed to be taking logic into account lately. They had, after all, run into a walled section of the freeway.
They slowed to a walk and traversed the massive hill standing between themselves and the houses, quickly finding themselves standing in someone's front yard. It was probably a well-manicured lawn before the event, but now it was a bit overgrown, and a number of children's toys could be seen littering the edges of what was once a flawless white picket fence.
The front door of the house was large, wooden, and red. It was guarded only by a glass exterior door, which was amazingly clean considering the circumstances. A quick inspection by Carl showed that the door was unlocked, and it led into a small foyer, just large enough for the four of them to stand inside.
If they hadn't known better, they might have assumed absolutely nothing was wrong with the world given the state of this house. Everything was perfectly placed, and the floors were clean. The only problem was the almost unbearable silence, which would have once been filled with the sounds of children or perhaps a television. On the left side of the foyer, a series of coat hooks were visible, but only one was filled, and it appeared to be a pink windbreaker. When the event occurred, it had been after ten o'clock in the morning, meaning all children would most certainly be at school. The house would likely be empty, but that pink windbreaker bothered both Frank and Carl. Was the wearer still in the house? If so, had they been turned?
“Do you think we can stay here for a bit?” Frank wondered aloud.
“I don't know,” Carl admitted. “This foyer has parquet flooring. That doesn't bode well in any situation.”
He wasn't wrong, but Amber didn't think that the state of the floor should have any sway on their decisions. It was ugly, though. Amber shrugged and pushed past her little sister toward the interior of the house. The foyer opened into a wide open hallway, and to the right stood a staircase, presumably leading to a second floor. Then again, if the last few days were any indication then the staircase might have actually led to an alternate reality. No one felt like determining that, so they simply began to check the first floor rooms, and found virtually nothing, save for the trappings of a modern day existence. These things, however, were of no consequence to the Hosiers.
Frank walked through what he assumed to be a living room. The wall was lined with a sectional couch which was preceded by a wooden coffee table. A Kindle Fire could be seen sitting on the shiny surface. Frank tried to turn it on, hoping for printed news, but the device appeared to be drained of power. He tried to activate the television, which too seemed to be powerless. He sighed and moved on.
Carl had been a bit more adventurous and decided to move upstairs. In the master bedroom, he located what he thought was an upright gun safe, but naturally, it was locked. A key lock, but this particular safe manufacturer was well known and difficult to pick.
“Well, I'll be damned,” he said, looking at the gun safe. If he could manage to get it open, there might be extra ammunition for all of their weapons and God knows what else.
“What?” Amber asked, standing in the doorway.
“You can't sneak up on a person like that,” Carl said. “I nearly pissed myself.”
“I didn't see you jump.”
“I was jumping on the inside.
Amber moved into the bedroom slowly, walking around the queen sized bed, and toward the closet where Carl was standing. She peered in and saw the large metallic case.
“A gun safe?” she asked. Carl nodded.
“Do you know where the key is?”
“If I knew where it was, I wouldn't be standing here like a dumbass,” he pointed out. It was a fair point.
Amber reached into the closet and felt the cabinet. It was solid, and there was no exterior handle. It seemed that the thing had to be opened with the key, and only the key. There wasn't even enough space to shove a crowbar into the crack between the door and the frame.
“Hinges are on the inside, too,” Carl observed. “The only way we're getting in there is with a key.”
“Could be anywhere in the house,” Amber said, “and this is a big house.”
“They had kids, too, so I imagine they'd be kept up high. Then again, it might be on someone's key ring. People are just so damn inconsiderate during an apocalypse, aren't they?” Though the comment should have been funny, Carl clearly meant every word of it as he turned around and stomped away from the closet and the gun cabinet.
“Hey guys!” Kelly's voice rang out through the house. Amber had forgotten all about Kelly. “The water still works!”
“That's helpful,” Amber muttered as she took the shotgun from her back. She gripped the wooden stock, gave it a pump, and fired directly at the gun safe's lock. From what she knew of gun safes, manufacturers guaranteed these cabinets against a number of things, but unless you were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, gunshots really were not among them. She was correct. The safe door swung open to reveal the contents. The moment it did, Carl ran back into the room, nearly rewarding himself with a concussion as he bounced against the heavy wooden door frame. He stumbled, regained his balance, and fell flat against the bed, sending ripples through the comforter. He immediately sprang to his feet.
“Amber, what the hell did you do?” he demanded.
“Opened the safe.”
“Are you crazy? There could've been live ammo in there!”
“Doesn't seem like there was,” she replied.
Carl peered past her into the safe. There were no guns, nor was there ammunition. In fact, the entire thing seemed to be empty save for a mason jar sitting in the bottom. Amber placed the shotgun on her back and bent down to pick the object up. It was a basic canning jar, but this one contained four k
eys. Amber furiously unscrewed the lid and poured the contents into her palm. They were definitely keys, and they appeared to be car keys.
“Four car keys?” Her uncle echoed her thoughts. “Are there four cars here?”
“Uh...”
“Guys, the water is great!” Kelly shouted. “It's cold, but it works!”
“So I heard the water is on,” Frank said, popping his head inside the bedroom door. “Amber, why did you shoot that safe?”
“Apparently, I needed car keys?”
“I've heard worse reasons,” Frank shrugged and walked down the hallways, presumably toward the upstairs bathroom.
“Okay,” Amber said, “so four car keys. Does this place have a garage?”
Does it matter?” Carl asked. “Even if there are four cars in the garage, we can't drive them on the freeway. What are you planning to do?”
“I don't know,” Amber admitted. “Sell them maybe?”
“You're right, I'll fire up Craigslist and we'll get right on it.” Carl said, exiting the room and leaving Amber to stare at her collection of car keys. She finally poured them back into the jar, leaving it at the center of the bed as she went to check out the showers.
As promised, the showers did in fact work, though they certainly weren't warm. Amber took her turn in the shower while Frank and Carl searched for supplies downstairs. They apparently discovered that the gas too was still on, and they managed to scrounge up a makeshift meal. For the first time in what seemed like years, they were able to sit at a table and have a family dinner, even if they were short a few family members. So much had happened since they left their farm, and whether or not it had brought them closer together as a family was a matter of debate.
To Amber, it felt as if she was no longer a daughter, but an equal with her father. Such was the cost of war, even a war on the undead. Kelly had yet to grasp the seriousness of the situation, but one day it would hit her, and Amber wasn't certain she wanted to be around when it did.
Carl was still the screw-up, but like most screw-ups he seemed to have proven himself in a time of crisis, and they certainly couldn't live without him. They were on a collision course with death, and Amber silently came to realize that each and every one of them would be forced to meet their own fate at some point. It might be by the bite of a zombie, it might be fire, or even worse, it could be at the hands of another human being.
Either way, things had changed significantly, or they were going to have to accept the world as it was. This opened up an entirely new line of questions, of course. Would they be forced to leave their humanity behind? Would they need to kill others to further their own cause? How far would they be forced to go in order to preserve the Hosier name? It was anyone's guess, but guesses could soon turn into a nasty reality.
Just weeks ago, Amber had been sitting in a high school English class across from her brother Mark. Their biggest concern was passing a huge quiz that the teacher claimed would count for forty percent of their grade. She remembered hoping there would be some way to get out of it. Well, at least her wish came true. She though on all these things as the remnants of her family sat around the table eating silently.
Eventually, she excused herself and returned to the upstairs bedroom. Opening the other side of the closet, she found a vast array of women's clothing, mostly in her size. After weeks on the road she could definitely use a change. As she browsed through the clothing selection she thought she heard a noise. She stopped for a moment, shrugged, and pulled a blue cotton t-shirt from a hangar before hearing the sound again.
“What the hell?” she said, looking toward the bottom of the closet. There was a wooden chest situated beneath the clothes, and from within it, there was a thumping. A regular thumping sound, indicating that something was inside, trying to get attention.
Amber searched both sides of the thing, finding the handles, and trying to pull it out of the closet. It wouldn't budge. That was when she heard it.
“Help!” The chest had an occupant, and it was human.
***
Jonah looked at his PDA, frowning and manipulating the controls furiously. Something wasn't right.
“Something isn't right,” he said aloud.
“What? What is it? Can you fix these people or not?” Aimee was genuinely concerned.
“Well, it seems that the virus is not only infecting cells, it's completely replacing them. I didn't expect that. I can fix it, but I need to build an entirely different algorithm.”
“Algorithm? What is this algorithm?”
“I'm programming a series of nanobots to enter the body and correct the issue, but they need something to kick start the process, what I really need is...” Jonah glanced over at Aimee, who was no longer standing at his side. Instead, she was crumpled over on the floor of the makeshift shelter. “Aimee?”
Jonah knelt of the floor and activated a small flashlight on his PDA. Her eyes were dilated and responsive, but the rest of her body was trembling. These were the exact same symptoms as the other victims. The virus was airborne. Jonah sighed. He couldn't catch it, obviously, but anyone in the immediate area might be able to.
“Jack!” Jonah shouted. “Jack Frost!”
Jack dropped something, apparently and came running through the door of the shack.
“Yeah, what's up?”
“I need you to do something for me. Take these,” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed Jack Frost what appeared to be a pair of very small, very thin glasses. “These are ISHR illumination units. If you put them on, you'll be able to find a specific component in the forest, or maybe on the ground, that will help me to fight this disease.”
“ISHR?” Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It would take more time to explain than we currently have.”
Jack was suspicious, but took the glasses anyway and placed them over his eyes.
“I don't see anything different,” he reported.
“You will when you need to,” Jonah said, trying to lay Aimee out flat on the ground.
“What happened to her?” Jack Frost demanded, pointing to Aimee's unconscious body.
Jonah suddenly stood up, taking Jack Frost by the shoulders.
“Jack!” he said urgently. “I need you to get your head in the game. If she's infected, may be too. You need to find the ISHR and get back to me, unless survival isn't one of your top priorities.
Jack shook free of Jonah's grip and raised his hand in a sort of dismissal.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “I'll find your...thing, and then you have some explaining to do.
“Fine,” Jonah said. “Then I have some explaining to do.”
Chapter 11
“My name is General Dunfield,” Dunfield told the bound man. He'd given himself a promotion after the incident at the Oklahoma base, and no one seemed to harbor any serious objections. “I am charged, by my duty, to find a traitor. He is a coward that has knowingly deserted his post in our nation's darkest hour. That being the case, it is of the utmost importance that we capture him, and bring him to justice. Why? It has a bit to do with principle, and everything to do with duty. Do you know this man?”
The bound captive looked at the photo and shook his head.
“Never seen him in my life. Are we done here?”
“Hardly. I see you're wearing dog tags there. You've served your time in our beloved military, so how do you think traitors should best be dealt with?”
The captive spit a bit of blood on the dirt floor; the product of a number of different beatings over the past twelve hours.
“You know, it would help if you were a real soldier, Dunfield.” He looked up form the chair, in pain, but still defiant. “I know all about you. Your dishonorably discharge, that stupid little camp you set up outside. Sill...do you have fun playin' army out there?”
Dunfield reared back his hand and slapped the captive, hard.
“One more like that, and I'll make sure you never speak again.”
“We both know you intend to kill me, asshole.”
Dunfield thought for a moment and then nodded.
“That was always the plan, yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to go slow and painful. I can make it quick if you give me what I need.”
“What you need,” the soldier said. “is something I don't have. Now, if you want some other trivia, like the location of the Eiffel Tower, or the name of the third President of the United States, you go ahead and ask, because those answers, I have.”
Dunfield turned to a table standing directly behind him and opened an old metal toolbox. Inside were his various and preferred tools of torture from screwdrivers, to knives, and even rusty nails for when the mood struck him. Today, however, he settled on a pair of dull gardening shears. They had once, undoubtedly been used in someone's garden, but today they would be doing a much different type of pruning. He took the shears and walked behind the soldier, leading down and grabbing one of his bound hands.
“Last chance, soldier,” Dunfield said.
“Go to hell,” the soldier spat.
Dunfield moved the clipper into place over the soldier's pinkie finger. Without warning, he squeezed the handles together to hear a satisfying crack, followed shortly by a scream from the soldier. It was an involuntary reaction; he'd seen even the most battle hardened soldiers scream at the loss of limb – even something as small as a pinkie finger. The soldier in front of him would be no different, no matter how many times Dunfield was forced to make the exact same example.
“Maybe, we should start over,” Dunfield said pleasantly. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, I really do.”
“I think you dodged a hangar somewhere along the line!” The soldier shouted, his teeth clenched, wrists squirming in the handcuffs.
“That's original,” Dunfield smirked. “But, since you brought it up.”
Dunfield turned to the counter where the toolbox was sitting, and reached behind it. There just happened to be a wire coat hanger sitting on the table, covered in dust from months of inactivity. The soldier watched Dunfield with wide eyes as he unraveled the hanger and stretched it out into a single piece.
Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Family & Friends (Book 3) Page 2
