CHAPTER SEVEN
Evansville, Indiana
“Come on, sweetie, we can make it,” the woman said, using her strength to urge the man forward.
His gait was awkward, thanks to the injuries he’d suffered when their car rolled onto its side and slid nearly fifty yards. The airbags had protected their heads, necks, and upper bodies, but impact with the burnt husk of an ambulance had crumpled the passenger side door inward, catching his thigh and holding it against the seat as the car flipped onto the opposite side. As they slid, the man’s weight pulled against the pinned leg, tearing muscles and ligaments as he was thrown towards her side of the car and jostled repeatedly throughout the slide.
Celia Gomez stepped forward, dragging her boyfriend with her. Out of instinct, he stepped forward with his left foot, following as he leaned his weight on her. He dragged his right leg as he moved with her, his body subconsciously telling him to spare it from further stress.
‘Thank God,’ Celia thought as she continued to move away from their wrecked vehicle. Looking ahead, she saw the massive domed bell tower of the Old Courthouse Building. Steps led towards the entrance of the building, and one of the doors hung open.
‘If we can just get there…’ she thought, pressing onward.
“Come on, sweetie, we can make it.”
The man stumbled next to her, almost dragging her to the ground with him. Gritting her teeth under the stress, she pleaded with him. “Ben, please, just a little farther!”
He groaned in pain, lunging forward as he dragged his useless leg behind him. He was losing blood fast, and if she didn’t get him to safety quickly so that she could apply a tourniquet, he didn’t stand much chance of surviving.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, checking to see how close the infected were.
Her heart nearly leaped through her chest when her eyes met those of an infected man barely fifteen feet behind them. The man’s face was covered in soot, but blood and spittle had washed it away in several places. Long, flowing hair whipped around as he snarled and spat at them while running with reckless abandon towards them. Faster than the rest of the pack, he was a full ten yards ahead of the others, but closing on the two of them fast.
“Shit!” She screamed, trying to increase their speed. She looked ahead, measuring the distance to the steps. They were still twenty yards away.
They wouldn’t make it.
Suddenly, she thought of the gun Ben was carrying. Looking down at his leg, she saw the gun bouncing around wildly in the cargo pocket of his pants as he shuffled forward, trying to keep up with the pace she set. She reached for it as they moved, her fingers trying to navigate through the small opening at the top of the pocket while his leg moved back and forth. The tips of her fingers touched the molded plastic and metal of the gun’s grip and she pulled it towards her as she heard the creature’s growl practically on her back.
The gun slipped from her hands and fell to the ground, bouncing away from them.
She heard the thing behind them roar even louder before a scraping sound told her it had leapt towards them, trying to tackle them to the ground. She shoved Ben to the right as she dodged to the left. The infected man flew past them, catching nothing but air before crashing to the ground and tumbling.
Celia hit the ground and rolled twice before coming to a stop on her stomach. Her eyes scanned the ground until they found the gun she’d dropped. She lunged forward as she heard the creature roar. The man rushed towards her as her hand found the pistol. Rolling over, she curled her upper body up off the ground as she aimed the gun and squeezed the trigger just as the man threw himself at her.
The gun’s safety kept the trigger in place.
Panicked, Celia threw herself to the side as the man’s body slammed into the pavement where she’d been a second before. She thumbed the safety, disengaging it, then turned back towards the man and squeezed the trigger again.
With less than three feet between them, the effects were devastating. The top half of the man’s head was disintegrated in a red explosion that knocked him onto his back.
Breathing heavily, Celia looked towards the remaining infected, who were still making their way towards them. They were barely fifteen yards from where she and Ben lay. Rolling over, she rushed to him and lifted him again, hearing him groan in pain as he struggled with consciousness. She pushed the two of them forward, reaching the steps and bypassing them for the wheelchair-accessible ramp that ran alongside them.
She was halfway up the ramp when she realized they’d be caught before they reached the top. Turning to look back as she still pushed them forward, she raised the gun and fired it at the chest of a thick-bodied Mexican woman in a red dress who was at the front of the pack. Mostly through luck, but aided by the short distance between them, the bullet landed dead center in the woman, carving a big hole between her breasts. The woman stumbled and fell forward, crashing to the ground. With the guide rails for the wheelchair ramp on either side of the rushing group of infected, they had been corralled into a near straight line, and the first two tripped and fell as they tried to rush past the woman. Their bodies became obstacles for the others, who went to the ground as well. Screams of rage sounded as the infected began lashing out at one another, taking out their frustrations.
Breathless and exhausted, Celia reached the door to the Courthouse. She pulled Ben inside and pressed him against the wall while she used her leg to kick the door shut. Lowering him to the ground, she propped him against the wall, then returned to the door and locked the deadbolt. She rushed away, looking for things to place against the door. The first thing her eyes settled on was the body of the security guard, what had once been a young black man.
‘Forgive me,’ she thought before grabbing the man by his boots and dragging him in front of the door. She moved away, continuing her efforts. She added chairs, small tables and even a glass display case to provide sufficient weight against the set of double doors to make them impossible to move.
Shortly after placing the last piece of furniture in place, the door rattled in its frame from a tremendous impact. A second impact followed, then a third. The massive, solid wood doors shook, but showed no signs of weakening. Her efforts to brace the doors might not even have been necessary.
Returning to Ben’s side, she pulled off her top, uncaring of the fact that she wore only a sports bra underneath. Tearing it into strips, she set them across the man’s lap before sitting down. She lifted his injured leg and gently set it across hers, elevating it slightly. Examining the fabric of the jeans, she found multiple tears in the area surrounding his knee. Reaching down, she grabbed either side of the opening and pulled, tearing it further so that she could see his wounds.
A deep gash lined the outside of his right knee, exposing tendon and bone. Directly below his kneecap, the broken bone of his shin protruded from the skin.
No wonder he’d been so weak from the pain.
The majority of the blood was flowing from the gash, so she decided to deal with that first. Taking one strip of fabric, she folded it into a thick square, then pressed it against the wound. Holding it tightly in place, she took another strip of fabric and wrapped it around his leg and the cloth, then tied it. She shook her head, wishing she could clean the wound before wrapping it, but he’d already lost so much blood.
With that wound dealt with, at least for now, she looked at the broken bone that stuck out of his lower leg. It needed to be set, then braced with a splint. She gently set his leg on the floor, then slid backwards on her butt before leaning to one side and placing a foot under her so she could rise to her feet.
As she did, she felt waves of weariness run through her. Every muscle in her body felt sore, overused, and in some cases, overextended. She needed rest, food, and water.
Determined, Celia moved her feet, working her way across the large lobby area of the building, looking for something that could be used as a splint. She settled on a wooden chair. Grabbing it, she held the top of
it, lifted it high over her head, and slammed it onto the marble floor. It broke apart with a large crack, falling to pieces on the polished surface. Grabbing two that would serve her purpose, she returned to Ben, knelt beside him, and looked at the broken bone.
‘Okay,’ she thought, ‘it needs to be set. That’s what doctors say, right?’ She nodded, extending her hands towards the damaged bone.
‘How the hell do I do that?’
Staring at her boyfriend’s leg, she figured she couldn’t simply push the bone back in place. That would likely do more damage. She decided that if she could pull the leg downward, elongating it slightly, maybe the bone would return to its natural position. Having no better idea, she decided to try it. She lifted her legs, scooted her butt closer to him, and lowered her legs onto the upper part of his right leg, pinning it in place. Leaning over she grabbed hold of his foot and pushed it away from his body, extending his lower leg.
“Unnhhhhh…..”
“It’s okay, baby, just hang in there,” she said softly, trying to comfort him through what she knew had to be immense pain. She pushed harder on his foot, watching as the exposed end of the bone aligned with the opening of the wound then began disappearing as it slid back down into the leg.
“UNNHHHHHH!”” Ben’s head thrashed back and forth against the wall.
“Almost, baby, almost! Just a bit more, I promise!”
She felt a strange vibration inside his leg as the bone fell into place, almost like a clunk.
‘I can’t believe that worked.’
Ever so slowly, she released pressure on his foot, afraid that any sudden movement would push the bone back out through the opening. When her hands finally let go and the bone remained in place, she breathed a huge sigh of relief.
‘Okay, now splint.’ She quickly grabbed the two pieces of wood, set them on either side of his leg, then used three strips of cloth to tie them in place at the top, middle, and bottom of the lengths of wood.
She sat up and examined her work. The knots were sloppy, but would hold. The wood was longer on the inside than the outside, but the two pieces would keep the bone immobile. For someone who had no idea what she was doing, she’d done a pretty damn good job, she decided.
Suddenly finished with caring for Ben, she exhaled loudly, feeling a sense of accomplishment. She’d done her best. She’d gotten him to safety, killed one (probably two) of the infected on the way, then tended to his wounds.
And now she felt exhaustion taking over her.
Sliding up to where her boyfriend leaned against the wall, she propped herself up next to him, then used her hands to guide his head to her shoulder so that he could rest.
“Just rest, baby,” she said softly, closing her eyes. Her bones felt a deep weariness that three days on the road had driven into them long before their escape from the car.
Only a week and a half ago, things had seemed so normal.
Borderline perfect.
Though she’d been worried that Ben’s family would have an issue with her race, she’d been relieved and, well, ecstatic to find out that not only did they not care about her Mexican ethnicity, they thought the world of her.
A family dinner in the late summer.
Holidays together after that.
An engagement party in the spring.
Her graduation from the University of Memphis.
Then, the outbreak.
Like everywhere else, things went bad in a hurry. After spending four days holed up in their shared apartment (which Ben’s parents had surprisingly also been okay with), Ben convinced her they’d be better off getting out of the city while they still could. They’d make their way to his family’s home in Clarksville, Tennessee, which was northwest of Nashville. Though he’d been unable to get through to them by phone, he was sure their remote location and the property’s barriers and security system would have ensured his family’s safety.
Reports of a damaged bridge on State Route 79 forced them to take the I-40 towards Nashville instead of the direct route to Clarksville, but they remained determined. They drove nearly ten hours that day, making it halfway to Nashville before stopping for the night under a large tree several miles from the highway. The drive had been slow and tough, and the things they’d seen tested both their faith in God and their intestinal fortitude, but they’d made it.
The next day had seen them make it to Nashville, where, because of the city’s larger size and much more extensive fire and police services, they expected things to be better.
They were not.
They were far, far worse.
Which led to Ben being bitten by one of the infected, then to discovering he was immune.
And then, the message on the radio.
“This is the Emergency Broadcast System with an urgent announcement. If you or someone you know is immune to the Rage Virus, please make your way to one of the protective zones immediately. Your help is needed as soon as possible. Protective zones had been set up in San Francisco, Oklahoma City, Indianapolis, and Boston. Citizens are advised to proceed to the protective zones immediately. The government will not be working to secure other cities until a much later date. All entrants will be subject to a four day quarantine in the outer tent city, during which time they will be provided protection, food, water, and temporary shelter. After required quarantine, entrants will be allowed into the city and provided with more permanent accommodations.”
Celia’s mouth fell open as she listened to the message, then looked over at her fiance. After all they’d been through, they hadn’t stopped to consider the true implications of the fact that he’d survived the attack by the infected man. What they considered to be incredible luck had a deeper meaning.
He was immune.
If he was immune, he could hold the cure. The government needed his help. Well, actually, they needed his blood. Regardless, he was needed. He was needed to help save mankind.
When she looked over at him, he’d simply nodded before rising from his chair and saying, simply, “Well, I guess we’d better get going.”
Within the hour they were on the road, heading north on the I-69 towards Indianapolis via Evansville. They traveled through the night, slowly working their way north as they had to deal with multiple broken down, wrecked, burned, or abandoned cars. When he’d been too tired to drive any further, he’d reluctantly agreed to let Celia drive.
She’d guided them the rest of the way to Evansville before running into trouble in the form of a cluster of infected people who’d been violently attacking a family in the middle of the road. Their presence forced her to swerve wildly to avoid them, which led to their wreck and his gruesome injury.
The sound of glass breaking woke Celia from her exhausted slumber. Sitting up, she looked around, trying to locate the origin of the sound. Glancing towards the door, she saw that the doors were still secure, the items she’d stacked against them unmoved.
A scream came from somewhere on the first floor of the building, the unmistakable sound of one of the infected. Danger was coming, and coming fast.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to Ben, shaking him to wake him as she rose to her feet.
“Honey, we have to go.”
Looking towards the back part of the building, her eyes settled on a partially open door that led to some of the offices. Through the opening, she saw motion inside the room.
Realizing Ben still hadn’t stirred from his position, she leaned down and shook him again. “Baby, come on!”
Nothing.
His body remained slumped against the wall, unmoving.
“Ben?” She leaned down and grabbed his hand. “Baby?” His hand was cold.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she felt panic setting in.
“BEN! WAKE UP!”
She shook him harder, trying desperately to wake him. When she stopped, his body slid over and flopped on the ground, lifeless.
Sitting there, filled with disbelief, Celia heard but didn’t acknowledge the
sound of the infected burst through the door of the room.
The man she loved more than any man before was gone. His immunity to the virus hadn’t saved him from the fatal injury he suffered in the crash.
A crash that had been her fault.
Tears flowed from her eyes as she reached down and shook him half-heartedly, knowing it was too late.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry….”
The infected charged across the room, flinging chairs aside as they closed in on her.
Celia laid down next to her fiance and wrapped her arms around him.
At least they’d be together.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Outside of Lindsay, Oklahoma
The raccoon climbed through the broken window of the dark two-story home and stopped. Raising its head, it sniffed the air curiously, deciphering the scents that permeated the hot, humid, nighttime air. There were humans in the house for sure, but there was also food.
Hopping down from the counter the raccoon scurried across the tiled floor of the kitchen and into the living room, where several citronella candles burned, keeping the mosquitos at bay. Sniffing the air as it walked, the raccoon determined that the humans were on the second floor of the home, far enough away to allow him the opportunity to enjoy his feast uninterrupted.
Moving back to the kitchen, the raccoon hopped up onto a wooden chair, then onto the dining table, where boxes of dried foods sat. Using his sharp claws, the raccoon tore into a box of cereal, spilling its contents onto the table.
Sitting back on its haunches, the raccoon happily shoved pawfuls of cereal into its mouth, all the while listening for the sounds of humans moving about on the floor above him.
Upstairs, resting on a twin-sized mattress on the floor of the master bedroom, seven year old Tamara Elliott clutched her teddy bear to her chest. Her eyes were open, moving about furtively as she listened. Near her feet, her sixteen year old brother Jordan slept soundly on another twin sized mattress, which he had strategically placed between her and the door in order to protect her. On the master bed in the center of the room, her parents Michael and Shondra were deep asleep, her father’s snores dominating the space of the room. His snoring had woken her several minutes ago, and as she lay there trying to go back to sleep, she was nearly certain she heard a rustling sound downstairs. Her ears strained as she waited for a second sound that would give her enough certainty that she could wake her father and ask him to investigate.
Surviving Rage | Book 3 Page 5
