Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1)

by Falter, Laury

  COPYRIGHT

  HAVEN

  Laury Falter

  Text copyright ©2013 by Laury Falter

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted by the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author or the publisher.

  First Edition: February 2013

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-9890362-1-4

  HAVEN

  by

  LAURY FALTER

  “We live in evolutionary competition with microbes – bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee that we will be the survivors.”

  JOSHUA LEDERBERG, “EMERGING VIRUSES, EMERGING THREAT,” IN SCIENCE, JAN. 19, 1990

  NOBEL PRIZE WINNER

  Personal Note

  MY NAME IS KENNEDY SHAW. I am eighteen years old. I live in Hazelbrook, IL, just outside of Chicago. I was a senior at Woodrow Wilson High School. This is my personal account of what happened. I don’t ever plan to share it with anyone, so if you are reading it, do not come looking for me. I’m probably dead, or one of them.

  Preface

  ITS PANTING WAS HOT ON THE back of my neck and reeked like metal, that sharp tangy scent of blood that lingers in your memory from the first time your nose gets a good whiff of it. This odor was a strong one, and I knew the Infected behind me had fed recently. It wasn’t satiated, though. That’s why the damn thing had been following me for the last twenty minutes, keeping me at a good clip until I could barely catch my breath.

  Think, Kennedy, think.

  I needed an escape route, fast, or at least an obstacle to separate the two of us until I could find a way out of this mess.

  As if in answer to my desperation, a gaping hole appeared in the floor ahead, one I missed earlier being too concerned with what was behind me to pay attention to what was in front of me. If I can hurdle it, make it across…

  In a testament to the human mind, one not infected with the T1L2 virus, I managed to believe the rutted floor made of loose wooden beams below my feet had disappeared and that a rubberized runway had taken its place, one that would spring me to the other side. What I’m about to do is nothing more than another long jump, I told myself, like I’ve done hundreds of times; and on the other end will be the sand pit, like it always is.

  The Infected growled behind me and the hair shifted on my scalp, moving against the wind. Vaguely, I registered that It took a swipe at me.

  You missed.

  I had an urge to laugh at it, to taunt it, to make it feel some amount of desperation. But it wouldn’t care what I yelled. It no longer understood words. Just blood, meat…food.

  We’ll see if you understand what it means to splatter into pieces on the first floor. Just a few more feet now.

  I paced myself perfectly, my toes curling around the rough edge of the hole as I launched into the air, straight up, just as my coach had drilled into me. But the landing was anything but a soft pit of sand. The concrete on the opposite side seemed to have risen to stop me, full force. That interim moment which makes the world pause every time I leap and until I land, came again and for a split second I felt safe, secure, in control. This time, however, when it subsided, I felt the uncompromising impact of my body against an immoveable surface. This time, my wrists screamed at me, pain shot up both forearms and into each shoulder. But it was my right ankle that made me stiffen, because there was no mistaking its splintering. And if it was broken, there would be no more running for me today.

  A crash sounded from below, loud enough to be a falling body. I snapped my head around to find no sign of the Infected.

  “Finally,” I sighed through heavy breathing.

  My chest was still rising and falling rapidly as I assessed my ankle. It was pulsating heat as if someone had stuck a molten rock beneath my skin. But the most telling sign of its internal destruction was the odd angle in which it lay twisted.

  A few months ago, back during a normal way of life, it would have been a moderate inconvenience that kept me out of competitions until it healed. Now, it subjected me to the strong potential of becoming a meal for the Infected.

  Gently, I picked up my knee and prepared to move it. Sudden, excruciating pain seized my body.

  I groaned, a sound that merged with a grunt from somewhere else in the building. My breathing stopped altogether then.

  It couldn’t have survived the fall. The Infected aren’t impermeable. Fast, sure. Hungry, definitely. Obsessed with human flesh, that was without question. But the psychosis that made them what they are is still housed in a human body. If blood can no longer reach the brain, they die.

  I tilted my chin up for a better vantage point through the open floor; just enough to see a pool of blood had begun to collect in cracks crisscrossing the concrete.

  The grunting came again. Louder.

  It approached from my right, from the metal stairs a few feet away. I watched the handrail jostle slightly, just enough to reignite my alarm. The grunting was now accompanied by slithering and the rattle of loose bolts.

  I glanced back across the gaping hole, the one I had no chance of traversing with an injured ankle, and noticed the body of the Infected had rolled into my view. Its joints lay at odd angles. My focus returned to the stairs where the heads of the first few Infected were coming into view. And I sighed.

  Intentional or not, that damn thing corralled me right to the rest of them.

  ~ 1 ~

  I WOKE UP WITH MY SHEETS soaked. My heart was pounding. My breath came in short, hoarse intakes, rattling down my windpipe. My eyes snapped open and swept the room for any sign of movement or anyone nearby; my hands ready and forming small, but powerful, arcs in front of me.

  I made another slow evaluation of the room and finding no indication of an intruder, I released the tension in my limbs and slumped back against the headboard.

  The sheets were wet, adhering to me like a film, so I peeled them off. They made a strange slapping sound as they flopped onto my lap.

  A knock on the door told me that my nightmare hadn’t been a quiet one.

  “You all right, Kennedy?” a thick, rumbling voice asked from the other side.

  “They’re…,” I began and paused. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  It really wouldn’t help anyone to mention the nightmares were becoming more frequent. He could notice that on his own.

  “Hmmm,” he grumbled in a way that confirmed he didn’t believe me. “I’m heading for school. Are you coming?”

  “No, not today.” I paused and realized how my answer might have come across. “I mean…I’ll take the Mustang.”

  He muttered something, an affirmation maybe, which didn’t make its way clearly through the door and then continued down the hall.

  I lived in Mr. Packard’s office, one that had been donned with a bed just under a year ago when I moved in. Being the kind man he was, he had suggested I make the room my own. Hang posters, he recommended. Paint it pink, put up drapes, lay out a rug. I had done none of these things. The walls remained pale blue and my personal possessions were still stacked in a corner near the closet, taking up a tenth of the space available to me. If you peeked inside fast enough you might even miss that I existed here at all. And I suppose, some small part of me knew, even though I hadn’t acknowledged it yet, that was actually the case. I hadn’t felt alive for a year now, to the very day to be exact.

  Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I knelt at my
compacted belongings and rifled through them, past the flowery dresses and lacy tops, to pull out a black, short-sleeved tee-shirt, cargo pants, and combat boots. I didn’t bother with my hair. My strands of auburn red could hang where they found themselves when I woke up, like they had done for the last twelve months.

  I found Mr. Packard in his 1970’s kitchen quickly downing black coffee and dry toast while leaning against the green metallic stove. He evaluated me keenly as I strolled across the muted brown linoleum to drop my backpack on the plastic cushion of the nearest dining chair. I wanted to tell him “Don’t worry, I didn’t scratch my eyes out during my nightmare.” Again, he could figure this out for himself.

  When he was sufficiently at ease, he remarked, “I’m gonna hit the head and then I’m out the door.”

  Mr. Packard was an ex-Navy SEAL turned high school principal. Even though he’d traded his military fatigues for a suit and tie, old habits die hard. So when he mentioned hitting the head in reference to using the bathroom, I knew what he meant. My dad had used the same phrase. The two of them were cut from the same cloth, which was probably why my dad had made Mr. Packard my legal guardian.

  He popped his head around the corner of the kitchen door a few minutes later, and I noted that his tightly trimmed, albeit graying, mustache and closely cropped ashen hair were freshly cut, as if he had a sense that today was important.

  The small TV in the corner of the sparse countertop was set to a news channel, so he spoke over it as the morning anchor launched into her top-of-the-hour stories.

  “I’ll see you there,” he said, though we both knew he wouldn’t, not unless I was called to his office.

  “And in local news…”

  “See you there.”

  He nodded and seconds later, the front door slammed shut and I heard his car engine roar to life. It faded away as the broadcaster’s voice picked up.

  And this was where I heard it first. It was a blip, a passing segment on the morning news, an anomaly that was ignored in favor of rising gas prices and government partisan squabbling. “…ate through the neck of his victim. No suspects have been apprehended. Reports of the occurrence have been-”

  I, like so many others, didn’t give it much attention. In our media-driven society, we’d become complacent, numbly digesting what news journalists determined was important, or would bring in higher ratings. If they spent less than five seconds of airtime on the subject, why should we break from our daily routine for it? Those who did hear it were probably inhaling cherry Pop Tarts and downing their coffee or running for their car before rush hour started. They had no idea that traffic would soon be the least of their problems.

  Even I hit the power button, choosing serenity over headless fatalities. I picked up my backpack, checked the clock on the wall, and headed out, locking the door behind me. My dad’s blue Ford Mustang, which now could be legally considered mine even if my heart wouldn’t accept it, was parked on the other side of the driveway.

  “Good morning, Old Boy. You’re looking shiny today.”

  As an ode to my dad’s immaculate ways, I kept him waxed to a pristine sheen, so my image reflected back impeccably as I opened the door and slid inside. When I turned the key, he rumbled without hesitation, telling me that he was ready, and I took him down the driveway and out into the neighborhood.

  I drove across the main part of town and stopped at the border to the poverty-stricken area beyond it. Here, businesses were marked in neon with bars mounted over their store windows. New graffiti had been added since I’d visited last, which I passed while noting the artist had misspelled the word ‘kunt.’

  To be less visible, I parked in the back, next to the heavily dented and rusting dumpster and the homeless man who was sleeping next to it. He didn’t move, but the wrinkled cardboard sign he had propped against his hip shifted slightly. I read it as I put Old Boy into park.

  The end is near. Redeam yourself. Give to the needee.

  I scrounged some change from Old Boy’s console and dropped it in the empty paper cup next to the sign just as the squeak of a screen door made me turn around. There, Mr. Chow stood in the shadows, his short frame in competition for notoriety with the white moustache that stretched clear down to his hips. His weathered hand held the door open for me as I entered.

  “You have good sleep?” he asked, and I knew he’d noticed the bags under my eyes.

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “Today…not a good one,” he muttered, stopping beside me, his eyes downcast, contemplating something.

  He remembers what today is, I thought, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. My dad had been Mr. Chow’s regular customer for years. His vanishing wouldn’t have gone unnoticed, and neither would the fact that I now come in alone. Then, of course, there were the news reports that pretty much anyone in our small town over the age of five and with a pulse had heard.

  He took my hands and lifted his eyes to me. His skin was tough, warm, and dry, like the surface of a crumpled paper bag, but there was something dire in his expression that made me forget about his touch. No, he wasn’t thinking about my father. He wouldn’t have that fear in his eyes if he were.

  “Today no good,” he said, and then shook my hands roughly, almost in a spasm. “You take refuge. You understand? You take refuge.”

  I nodded slowly, certain my face was telling him what I was thinking: What in the hell…?

  Obviously, I didn’t verbalize that thought. Instead, I placated him. “I’ll take it wherever I can find it, Mr. Chow.”

  “You good girl, Kennedy,” he said, more as an opinion than a compliment. “You take refuge.”

  “I will.”

  He waited until he was certain I was being truthful and released my hand. He then scuffled down the hallway as if our conversation hadn’t taken place, his body angling to skirt the boxes stacked unsteadily to the ceiling. I followed him, doing the same, until I’d cleared the obstacle course and made it to the front of the store.

  Mr. Chow runs an army surplus, where you can find the usual fatigues, duffel bags, camouflaged bivouac equipment, and other genuine military items. But for those few customers who knew that he offered more than what was visible, he sourced other deliveries. Mine was waiting for me at the counter, unboxed, lined side by side. The flat, steel stars had been sharpened until their edges glinted back at us. They were beautiful, perfect. My dad would have loved them.

  “Thank you,” I said, unable to pull my eyes away until Mr. Chow delicately placed them into their box.

  “This…,” he said, sliding the box across the counter toward me, “you no pay for.” He tapped the lid softly in a way that meant he’d made up his mind.

  “Thank you,” I replied, unable to get my words above a whisper.

  He nodded, once, and said, “You know how to use?”

  “Yes, my….” I paused, the name unable to come out for a second, “dad taught me, but-” I began to shake my head in rejection. I was preparing to mention that I wouldn’t ever use them, that they weren’t for me, they were for a man six feet under, when Mr. Chow cut me off.

  “No!” he snapped. “No ‘but’! You use if need to.”

  Again, with the dire warning. Mr. Chow was ordinarily a reserved guy and I wasn’t sure what was with him today, but I didn’t ask…which is something that I’ll always regret. It might have shed some light on what he foresaw, might have told us our future, how civilization ends up. But at the time, I wasn’t thinking about life or death, or the future, at least not beyond dusk when I’d leave the throwing stars at my father’s grave in place of the traditional flowers. No, I had what I came for. Besides I was going to be late for school.

  “Yes, I’ll use them if I need to,” I agreed, never considering it would ever happen.

  Only then did he remove his hands from the box and I was able to take it.

  Silence settled over the store as I left, which told me that he was watching me go. I wish I had turned around and said goodb
ye, thanked him, said something to show how much I appreciated knowing him. And if I knew what was about to happen, I would have. In fact, I wouldn’t have left, because I knew something few others didn’t…that a cache of weapons was kept behind the wall in his back office.

  Hindsight is never an easy thing to swallow.

  I drove to school, and parked Old Boy in his usual spot – in the back corner of the lot – where he’d be protected from dings and scratches. Mr. Chow’s warning was lingering in the back of my mind the entire time, but it began to fade as I noticed the thin but steady flow of students funneling through the security gates and up the steps to our school’s main entrance. It was early, so only a handful of the students had arrived. Most of them wouldn’t be coming through the gates until five minutes before homeroom started.

  I was at the beginning of my senior year, just one week into the semester. My pace should have been quicker and my eyes should have been sweeping the crowd for familiar faces to talk about college acceptances and where everyone would be meeting up on Friday night. But a lot had changed over the last year, and the faces staring back were more distant and indifferent. They said…there’s the girl who went from Homecoming Queen and track star to the school’s most dejected outcast in under twelve months. I didn’t think they gave me due credit. That’s a feat, unsurpassed by any other high school student. Guaranteed.

  The few who did actually give me credit were my true friends. They had tried to help, organizing sleepovers, working to bring me into their conversations. But when you face death, subjects like who is dating who and the latest fashion don’t seem all that appealing. I wanted something real, true, honest. I craved an awakening. And because they couldn’t deliver it, or didn’t even know I needed it, they slowly faded away. I didn’t blame them. Anyone who went from talkative and sweet to sullen and serious must have a few screws loose, right?