Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1)

by Falter, Laury

  Harrison looked pointedly at her but his tone was sympathetically prompting. “You sure about that?”

  Her eyes flickered to the clock hanging on the wall, which showed that she’d been waiting for over an hour now, and in this kind of emergency that was a very long time. Her smug expression fell as she briefly questioned her own statement. She quickly regained her usual frown, but remained quiet.

  “What about you?” Mei prompted. “What’s your name?”

  “Harrison.”

  “Do you want to check on your family, Harrison?”

  It was immediately clear to me why she was urging him. Mei was petite, no bigger than five feet and couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds. She was also smart, and having read the news reports, she knew she wouldn’t last five minutes outside without Doc and Harrison.

  A lengthy pause followed and I knew then why Harrison hadn’t made any phone calls earlier. He was in the same situation as me. There was no one to call.

  His eyes were downcast. “I live with my aunt, but…” He shook his head and was about to say something more, something revealing when Mei cut him off.

  Apparently, his partial response was good enough for her because she launched into preparations. Eventually, she concluded that the most efficient route would be to check Doc’s house, then Mei’s, and finally Harrison’s aunt’s apartment before circling back to the school, if needed. I, of course, was left out of the equation.

  Leaving Beverly to stare after us, we started for the main entrance, when Harrison came to a stop and turned toward me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. “You’re not coming with us.”

  I couldn’t tell if the last part was a command or a question. “Yes, I am.”

  His voice lowered and he looked directly at me. “Kennedy, there’s no reason for you-”

  “There is,” I said, taking the few steps to my locker and reaching in for the gun.

  He paused before asking, “How would you feel about-”

  “No,” I replied. “I’m not giving you my gun.”

  “I thought it was the guard’s?” he countered, although we both saw through that frayed argument.

  “You can stop worrying about me, Harrison. I can take care of myself.”

  He stared back, and it was clear he didn’t want me along. But, slowly, unwillingly, he nodded and I could see his thoughts cross his face. He was wondering if he could handle whatever was out there while defending me. I was flattered, but it was completely unnecessary.

  After Harrison conceded, we didn’t say another word until reaching the doors, though I noticed that he fell back to keep a better eye on me.

  If only he knew…

  As we stared out across the parking lot, processing what we were seeing, Mei muttered, “It looks…”

  “Like a war zone,” Doc finished her sentence.

  And it did. The personal possessions remained in place, but all of the attackers, about a hundred of them, were moving, ambling around aimlessly or knocking themselves repeatedly into the fences in a futile effort to get through them. They wouldn’t have been so disconcerting, if it weren’t for the blood stains smeared on their faces, across their shirts, and down their pants. The victims’ bodies looked like they’d somehow widened, but that wasn’t the case. It was that their insides were piled up alongside the edges of their waists, as if someone had been digging inside them.

  Mei made a gurgling sound and, from the corner of my eye, I saw her clutch her stomach as she spun around and vomited her breakfast. The rest of us stepped back, while Beverly groaned in disgust from down the hall.

  “Some of the cars are still running,” Doc said optimistically, trying to divert his attention from Mei.

  “But they’re clogging the exit,” Harrison pointed out. “We’ll need something to get through the parking lot fence, and my motorcycle won’t do it.”

  Doc exhaled, disappointed, and we glanced at him. “My dad dropped me off today. Truck would have made it, but it’s in the shop.” He gently placed a hand on Mei’s shoulder. “How about you? Do you have a car?”

  She was still bent over, recovering, so she only managed a weak shake of her head.

  I cringed. Everything in me wanted to keep my mouth shut, but there was no other way. We needed a vehicle that could tear through the chain link fence and I was the only one who had it.

  Taking a deep breath and fighting back my resistance to the idea, I said, “We can use Old Boy.”

  “Old Boy?” Harrison asked, curiously.

  I dug the keys out of my pocket and held them up. “My dad’s car. The blue Mustang in the back corner.”

  Harrison surveyed the parking lot and I knew he’d located it when he whistled in admiration. When Doc found it, he did the same, muttering, “Nice…”

  “How…?” Mei’s weak voice interrupted the festivities. She had finally improved, standing upright again and keeping her sharply acidic breath to the side. “How are we going to get to it?”

  There was really only one way I could foresee, which I knew Harrison realized too as both our heads fell to the gun in my hand. Intuitively, I dropped the magazine, checked the number of rounds, and reinserted it before lifting my head again.

  “Wow, you know how to use that thing?” Doc asked.

  Before I could say anything in response, Harrison interjected, “She’s an expert marksman.”

  While his comment could have come across as mocking, it didn’t. He was making a sincere point, which prompted Doc to stare at me in awe. And I had the feeling that I was about to impress him further. Unfortunately. I’d really prefer to stroll out the door, across the parking lot, and slip into Old Boy without fear of someone biting me. In fact, it was surreal to realize that I’d done that very same thing yesterday, and that it felt so long ago. Now, we’d be running for our lives.

  “We ready?” Doc asked, although it seemed like he was directing his question to Mei.

  We all nodded, and as Doc’s hand came down on the door handle, Harrison turned to look at me. He knew that once we stepped through the steel gate, there would be no turning back, and he wanted to give me one last chance to back out.

  Slowly, I shook my head, he frowned, and we followed Doc and Mei out the door.

  “I’ll clear the way,” I said, going ahead of Doc and holding my gun at the ready.

  Harrison grimaced and kept his eyes on me the entire way to the front.

  I stopped at the guard, whose gun I held, and looked down at him. His insides, which were now outside, were hardening across the warm pavement. Doing my best to ignore it, I stooped down, picked up the second magazine of ammunition, and dropped it in my pocket. I had the uneasy feeling we’d need it.

  Opening the steel gate wasn’t complicated. The issue was redirecting the attention of the ones who’d be trying to get at us once we did, one of whom was standing directly where the gate slid to the side and opened into the parking lot. He was an older man with silver hair and a gut, not a faculty member. Maybe a parent…maybe someone with no affiliation and who’d just happened to wander here. Half his leg was chewed off, but he was still standing, clinging to the bars that separated us. His eyes were locked on us and his mouth quivered like he felt some sort of rush at seeing us.

  “How do we get him out of there?” Doc whispered.

  Mei shrugged as I took a second to evaluate our options. But Harrison knew exactly what to do.

  Stepping up beside me, he kept his voice low and instructed, “When I open the gate…run.”

  Carefully, watching for any sign the man might catch on to what he was doing, Harrison inserted the key into the gate and turned it, sliding aside the automatic locking mechanism that was keeping us safe.

  Then two things happened at once. First, the gate squeaked and the heads of all those standing in the parking lot snapped up in search of the source. Second, the man lunged for Harrison.

  It felt like my stomach jumped up into my throat as I watched it happen. Shoo
t, my instinct screamed, but Harrison was blocking any access to him. As he grabbed the man, Doc and Mei did as commanded, sprinting for Old Boy. I waited, unable to leave Harrison alone in the struggle. He was working on gripping the man’s erratic arms, when he had to shift to the side as the man’s teeth came dangerously close and grazed his ear. I took aim, but Harrison’s head came into sight. I had to step aside to look for a better angle. Then Harrison completely surprised me by picking up the man and shoving him into the air, through the curved spear at the top of the steel gate. The man’s arms and legs flailed until his snarl softened and he became entirely motionless.

  Harrison stood there, registering what had just happened, and I opened my mouth to tell him that he didn’t have that option when he seemed to come to that conclusion on his own. Spinning around, he grabbed me by the arm and sent me into a run.

  By that point, everyone with blood on them was either charging in our direction or toward Doc and Mei, who were now only a few feet from Old Boy. Suddenly, I wished that I’d given them the keys.

  “Kennedy?” Harrison called out, and I followed his line of sight, knowing instantly what his intentions were. Staring back at the mass of bodies running for us, he was telling me to shoot.

  I raised the gun, settled the front sight on the closest one, just as my dad had taught me, and pulled the trigger twice. Two shots landed in the chest. Yet, the man kept running at us.

  “The head!” Harrison urged. “Aim for the head!”

  I did, and the man’s head snapped back just before the rest of his body followed. Without waiting for his legs to collapse entirely, I moved on to the next closest one. And as they fell, we made our way to the car. I unloaded the weapon until I saw the slide back and, mid-pace, I dropped the magazine and loaded the other one. It was the last of the ammo, so it needed to get us to the car, at the least. It did, thankfully, and when we reached Old Boy, I tossed the keys to Harrison so I could continue shooting in a ring around us.

  Once we were all safely inside, Harrison inserted and turned the key. Without pausing, he chuckled to himself and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “All right,” he said. “I agree. You can handle yourself.”

  I might have smiled if we were simply on a run for Slurpees, and I wish we had been. The bodies bearing down on us were sobering reminders that we weren’t. Their groans and grunts were muffled now, but that didn’t make them any less terrifying.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Doc shouted as Harrison stepped on the gas and peeled straight ahead.

  I actually didn’t cringe when Old Boy’s hood hit the fence and sent it churning over the roof. My mind was too busy screaming the same word as Doc, mentally propelling Old Boy faster.

  We careened through the grassy strip on the opposite side and into the street, still being chased but gaining ground as Harrison pressed the gas pedal. The first block was as eerily quiet and untouched as the inside of our school and then we came face to face with everything we’d read in the news. Houses were in flames. A car was rammed into the front of someone’s house. Trees were down and bushes were strewn about. In the middle of it all, people who looked like the kind that had just tried to run us down, roamed the sidewalks and yards. A few were scattered across the street, which Harrison steered around. All of them, on hearing Old Boys rumbling engine, made an attempt to get at us but never quite succeeded. Harrison ignored all traffic laws, driving straight through stop signs and red lights, over people’s lawns, and across sidewalks, but he got us there.

  Doc’s house was on a cul-de-sac, which hid us from the hordes moving through the city, but also corralled us in if they chose to come down his street. So, we didn’t waste time getting out of the car and into his house.

  “Kennedy,” Harrison said, keeping his voice to a whisper.

  I looked at him.

  “Just…” He paused and I could see that he wanted me to stay in the car. Apparently he knew that wouldn’t be an option and instead settled for, “Be alert.”

  “I am.”

  We made it to the front door in record time. Doc pushed it open, shouting, “Mom! Dad!”

  And then he came to a stop just inside.

  There was a reason why his street didn’t have anyone on it waiting to attack us. They’d already been here. Chairs were overturned, glass had been shattered across the carpet, there were blood streaks along the walls. We kept up with Doc’s panicked rush through the house and then found ourselves back at the front door.

  We could see it on his face and all of us knew without anyone needing to say a word. There were only certain people that would be able to survive whatever was happening. Unfortunately, Doc’s parents didn’t fall into this category.

  Nonetheless, Harrison left Doc with a little hope. “Leave a note,” he advised. “If they come back then they’ll know where to find you.”

  Doc nodded, pulled out a pad and pen set from the entryway table, and scribbled his location on it. It seemed to reinvigorate him a little. “I’m gonna get some stuff from my room,” he said, putting down the pen.

  A visible tension ran through the rest of us when he said it, which he noticed after he looked up. Realizing what he’d said, he swallowed nervously making the Adam’s apple slip up and down along his throat. It seemed to be nodding at us, saying “Yes, you know he’s correct. You’ll be staying at school for a little longer than expected.”

  He raced up the stairs and returned a few minutes later with a backpack slung over his shoulder. “Mei’s house next,” he said, not bothering to stop or look back at his home as he headed out the door. And I understood why. He refused to believe it would be his last chance to do it.

  Harrison didn’t offer me the keys to Old Boy and I didn’t ask for them. He was doing a good job. No reason to switch drivers now. That was what I told myself, anyways. The truth, which I eventually admitted to myself, was that he was comforting to watch. He handled the gears with precision, knowing just when to shift, bending with the ebb of the car as it skirted corners. In the midst of the chaos, he seemed so calm, self-assured, like he knew what to expect every time he turned onto a new street. It was encouraging. He was encouraging. Even when we pulled down Mei’s street and found it choked with the bloody roamers.

  Their heads were aimlessly swiveling in search of Old Boy’s motor when he pressed the brake and their attention zeroed in on us.

  “Go! Go! Go!” Doc yelled. Harrison threw Old Boy into reverse.

  Our bodies were flung forward as he slammed the gas and then sharply turned the wheel to the right as he breached the corner. He was forced to stop and shift into drive, giving Mei just enough time to protest.

  “Wrong way! You’re going the wrong way!”

  “I saw a back alley,” Harrison said under his breath, focused more on punching his foot into the gas and the mob coming at us than on Mei’s complaint.

  “Let him drive,” I said, and Mei shot me a glare.

  She listened though, and he got us safely down the alley before turning off the motor. We sat in the quiet, the ticking of Old Boy’s engine barely audible, as the mob ran past the alley’s opening and continued on down the street.

  “Huh,” Harrison remarked, “I have better hearing than them…”

  Doc, Mei, and I had been staring out the rear window but I turned to face Harrison after realizing that was a strange thing to say. Doc and Mei, however, didn’t pick up on it.

  As the two of them shimmied out the door, Doc declared, “Of course you do. You’re human.”

  Neither of them noticed Harrison’s reaction to Doc’s assumption, but I did. It was a twitch just below his eyes, a nervous snap that told me, very clearly, that he didn’t necessarily agree with Doc’s assessment of him. Harrison and I were preparing to follow them when Harrison noticed I was watching him, swinging his gaze from Doc to my face just in time to see me tilt my head while trying to figure him out. His jaw tightened and I saw that his nervousness shifted for another reason, disappointment. Now, I knew he was kee
ping a secret, too. This realization seemed to immobilize both of us.

  In the quiet of the car, with Doc and Mei inside, we stared at each other, neither of us willing to move until one of us addressed what we’d seen. He didn’t implore me to just give it up or get angry with me. He remained reserved, waiting on my reaction, as if nothing else mattered to him. He seemed to have forgotten the psychotic people roaming around outside or the fact that Doc and Mei were inside the house now. I got a sense that my presence, right there in front of him, and my perception of him, was all that was important at the moment.

  “You don’t need to worry about me judging you,” I said.

  “Because you’ve already formed an opinion?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll change it.”

  I was a little taken aback. “What makes you think so?”

  “Because you don’t know me, Kennedy, when you do-”

  A sequence of thuds reverberated from inside the house and Harrison’s head turned sharply in that direction, his face finally stirring into apprehension. He had opened the car door and was ready to bolt for the back door when Mei flew down the small concrete rear steps, through the small vegetable garden, and across the toy-strewn yard. Doc was right behind her.

  Their faces told us that nothing good was coming out behind them.

  Using his now-infamous phrase, Doc shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”

  Harrison already had the engine started and his foot on the gas by the time they were in their seats and the stream of blood-stained people began flowing out the back door. Our heads snapped back as Harrison let Old Boy loose and we flew down the back alley and out onto the main road.

  I glanced at Mei, who was gazing out the window in contemplation, her forehead creased with uncertainty. It was evident that she hadn’t found who she’d come for, and my heart softened for her. I put my hand on her shoulder and she pivoted to face me, offering a shaky smile before turning back to the window. She and Doc were in the same situation now, and sadly, my intuition told me that they weren’t alone.

  A few minutes and several hordes later, we were at Harrison’s. He lived in a high-rise down on the lakefront. The parking gate was up but there was no guard at the booth. What greeted us was a dark, deserted underground parking structure. Harrison pulled directly up to a door painted with blue letters designating “stairs” and turned off the engine.