Haven (Apocalypse Chronicles Part 1)

by Falter, Laury

The next thing I knew, it was daylight and Doc, Mei, and Harrison were in a discussion near the gymnasium’s foyer doors. Surprised by their change of heart and the fact they’d be standing so close to Harrison, I left the pad and joined them because whatever they were discussing had them excited. As Doc held the little AM/FM radio we’d found in our locker pillage, he was using words like “shortwave radio broadcast” and “survivors”, which immediately attracted my interest. I was still working through the haze but those words helped jumpstart my pulse by the time I reached Harrison’s side.

  By then, Mei was saying, “Beverly thought it was just a recording.”

  “A recording?” I asked, fresh to the conversation.

  “She said you guys watched some recording on Mr. Packard’s TV.”

  “We did,” Harrison said with a nod.”It was the President’s last speech.”

  “Well there’s no way this is the President,” Doc said. “This broadcast was made by a chick.”

  Mei tilted her head at him, her expression disgruntled.

  “A girl,” Doc corrected hastily. “A woman. Anyways, Beverly said she thought it was a recording.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In some office building downtown.”

  “No, Beverly…”

  Doc shrugged. “She was mumbling something about needing a facial while rolling the trash bins outside.” As Doc continued to elucidate the fine details of Beverly’s location, a deep, dark fear settled in the pit of my stomach. I looked at Harrison, whose face confirmed he was catching on to the same disturbing realization as me.

  “She wouldn’t touch the trash bags,” said Doc, “so she’s carting the whole damn trash can out-… Hey, where are you going?”

  Harrison and I didn’t need to hear any more. We were circling around them by the time they caught on, and as we flew through the doors and into the foyer, they trailed right behind us. The four of us ran through the next set of foyer doors and into the hallway where we began a full force sprint toward the kitchen. Our panicked footsteps echoed off the walls, making the loudest sound we’d heard inside the school since the day of the outbreak months ago. Their very existence and the reverberation they created were disturbing, but Beverly’s reaction once she got to the dumpster and saw what was left there would be infinitely more destructive.

  We didn’t stop when entering the cafeteria or even after shoving open the kitchen door. It wasn’t until after we noticed the disruption of light in the room that we come to a sharp halt. It should have been dimmer, fed by sunlight from the windows lining the walls along the ceiling. It was just too bright. We turned the corner leading to a narrow hallway which ended at a large, heavy metal door, the one that led to the maintenance area and out to the dumpsters. Beverly had somehow managed to obstruct the doorway with one of the large grey trash cans and was using both her body weight and curse words to force it through.

  “Come on, piece of sh-”

  “Beverly,” Harrison called out, slowing his pace to a brisk walk. “I can take care of that for you.”

  She swiveled around at the sound of his voice. “What are you doing out of your jail cell?”

  As the remaining three of us funneled down the hallway, she gave us a quirky look. “What’s up with the party posse?” she asked, snidely. “Does everyone want to play Carry-The-Can?”

  “Sure, let us handle it,” Harrison suggested stopping on the opposite side and placing his hands on it.

  She gave him, and then the rest of us, a sincere look of distrust. “Doc hates taking out the garbage. Mei and Kennedy couldn’t care less if they live in filth. And you, Harrison, shouldn’t even be here. What’s going on?”

  “Just go back and…do your nails.”

  “I don’t have any more polish.”

  “Then go suntan.”

  “It’s November, Harrison.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?” she asked. “Why don’t you want me out there?” Her head turned to peer outside.

  From my position, I could see a small brick outbuilding that I knew from my rounds was a maintenance storage shed. Thankfully, it blocked Mr. Packard’s fence, the Infected beyond it, and her dad’s demolished Mercedes Benz.

  “Just…,” Harrison said, “let me handle it.”

  Beverly didn’t like taking orders. She preferred to give them. So when Harrison persisted with his request, she took this as pushy, which translated in her mind to a command. I could see this taking place as her expression morphed from irritated curiosity to full-blown determination.

  Suddenly, she heaved the can aside and stumbled out the door. The weight of it pushed the can back into us, but Harrison caught it and, using his incredible strength, sent it flying back outside. This time, it easily cleared the doorway, and we were outside in seconds. Beverly had disappeared by then, having a good head start, but we caught up to her just after we rounded the corner of the maintenance shed. There she stood, as if she’d been frozen in mid-step, one leg in front, her body tilted forward. But she was no longer moving, because she’d spotted what we had been trying to keep her from seeing.

  “Who is that?” Doc asked in a hushed voice from behind me.

  Mei apparently recognized the Mercedes Benz embedded in the fence. Once she saw that and the dead body, she pieced it together easily. “It’s her…her dad.”

  I heard a scuff behind me, and didn’t notice Mei until she had passed me. She walked up to Beverly and stood beside her, head tilted down in an almost prayerful stance. Of course they weren’t praying. Beverly was processing the fact that he did come for her, and he’d made it, he just hadn’t survived. Mei was trying to figure a way to help her through it. The rest of us were waiting to see what would happen.

  I knew Beverly better than anyone here. I’d seen her fly into a rage when her hair got a few raindrops on it and when she’d lost a lipstick tube in the toilet. This was her dad. Any reaction she was going to have would not be good.

  We stood this way for several minutes, none of us speaking or moving. Then she shifted, and I thought she had proven me wrong. Maybe she did have more fortitude then I gave her credit for.

  But Mei’s arm rose up her back to settle across Beverly’s shoulders. It was meant to be comforting, to reminder her that she wasn’t alone, to tell her that there were people here who cared for her, to convey “We got you. We got your back.”

  Instead, it was a trigger.

  The moment that Mei’s skin came in contact with hers, Beverly showed us all exactly what she was capable of. Brushing Mei aside, she ran for a thin metal pipe stowed away beside the maintenance shed for a repair project that never did come to fruition. Now it would serve a different purpose. She picked it up and charged toward the fence, roaring in a way that shook me inside. Using all her weight, she sent the pipe stabbing through the bars and into the head of the first Infected on the opposite side. The impact sent blood splattering, spraying droplets across the other Infected behind her victim and out to the side. It was a solid hit. The Infected went down. But Beverly wasn’t done. After yanking the pole out with a heaving grunt, she stabbed it again, this time with a shout that seemed to come from the depths of her soul and carried out across the hushed school grounds.

  “YOU…SON OF A…BIT-” The pipe nicked the fence on its slide through, breaking off the last part of her curse. It didn’t deter her though, and the hit was good. As the bodies fell she moved down the fence picking them off one by one like they were set up on a conveyor belt.

  “YOU…SON OF A…BIT-” She caught the fence again, pulled back the pipe, and sent it back through again. “YOU…SON OF A…BIT-” And again, the pipe made contact with the metal bars but landed in the head of her next target.

  What we didn’t realize, what none of us saw until it was too late, was that she was making her way toward the gate. Her incensed display of grotesque revenge had us mesmerized. Harrison was the only one to break free from it, just at the last second. He had already taken one step toward her when she launc
hed the pipe that one last time.

  She was getting tired now. The rage that fueled her was still there, propelling her on to the next Infected, but the toll of years spent refusing to build muscles, in fear they’d make her look too thick, had left her frail. Her aim was growing sloppier by the tenth victim and it was for this reason that when she reached the gate, and the lever that opened it, that she hit it…dead-on…and the gate unlatched.

  The truth was, none of us had ever checked the lock. But thinking back, there had to have been a way for Beverly’s dad to get in. My assumption was that he’d made it through another gate, before those were locked, and wandered around to the back of the school grounds. I mean it was the maintenance gate. It wasn’t a main entrance. Who would have thought it would be unlocked in the first place? But it was, and as Beverly raised the pipe again, the Infected managed to slide it open.

  The entire mob had become somewhat immobilized by the weight of their group bearing down on the car. Their feet were firmly planted, only allowing them to lean slightly. Beverly’s tirade had gotten them riled and they steadily grew into a single undulating wave of anarchy. Now, their mouths frothed, their heads whipped back and forth, their bodies shook with need. And their feet moved with the flow of those around them so that when the gate opened, the first one through was literally thrown forward.

  It was Jeff Temple. He had a distinct white stripe down the center of his dark hair. His friends called him ‘Skunk,’ which he welcomed. He’d been in and out of juvi several times and had picked up the deft ability to maneuver his muscular frame quickly. Making good use of this skill, he hunched and ran for Beverly.

  The one who approached from the side I never saw coming. He hadn’t entered through the now opened gate, but he was inside nonetheless. I didn’t have time to contemplate how. I only knew he was a few feet away and still charging.

  ~ 9 ~

  WHEN I WOKE UP THIS TIME, I was fighting.

  “Kennedy!” Harrison shouted, his voice hollow and echoing in the back of my ears. “Wake up, Kennedy! Wake up!”

  My hands were bound, which meant I couldn’t fight, but I was still trying.

  “You’re safe,” he insisted. I slightly understood he was within inches of me and that it might be his hands keeping me restrained.

  “You’re all right,” he reiterated. “You’re safe. Take a breath.”

  I did as he commanded, feeling my lungs expand and the cool air rush into them.

  “That’s right,” he encouraged. “Breathe…slow and deep.”

  “Right,” I said, in a daze. “Right…”

  Even while saying the word, my eyes darted around the room in search of danger. It was dark, but I could distinguish the beige bleachers, the faded lines of the basketball court and the windows overhead letting in the moonlight. All of these things were harmless and definitely not interested in eating us.

  When my shoulders relaxed and my breathing steadied, I focused on Harrison again. He released my wrists and fell back on the pad. Observing me, he brought his fingers up to brush aside his hair.

  “That was a bad one,” I said, after I recovered.

  “Yes, it was,” he agreed, watching me closely.

  “I’ll be okay,” I reassured him.

  He nodded but didn’t look convinced.

  Shifting the focus to him, I said, “I’ve…I’ve never seen you out of breath.”

  He paused, looking stumped. “I’m not, normally. I…I think it was because I couldn’t wake you up. It…made me nervous.”

  “Well…thanks for trying.”

  “You bet.” He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his bent knees, closing the distance between us. “That was…” He shook his head anxiously. “What were you dreaming this time?”

  I drew in a deep breath to steady my nerves, preparing to relive it in my mind. The vast gymnasium seemed unwelcoming right about then and I was glad Harrison was there with me.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it…”

  “No, I can…I can.” But I took in another breath anyways before recounting the nightmare.

  When I was done, he assessed me quietly. “Do you think this one was a warning?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not going to wait to find out,” I said sliding off the pad. Though my heart was slowing its pounding against my ribcage, it leapt a little when the thought of my destination came into mind.

  Without me saying a word, Harrison knew instantly where I was headed.

  “You’re not going alone,” he said, standing to escort me.

  I was pleasantly surprised. “You’re not afraid of turning?” I asked.

  “If I do,” he said with bitter sincerity, “you and your rifle will be there to take care of it.”

  Leaving the gym, we walked without speaking so we didn’t alert anyone to Harrison’s “escape”. We did the same in the kitchen and at the back door, where we paused to make sure there was no sound of disruption on the other side. When we opened it, the Infected just outside the gate stirred and approached the bars. In the moonlight, their faces and bodies almost seemed to be coated in silver, making them even more disturbing. Intentionally ignoring this fact, I found the pipe I’d seen in my nightmare, which seemed to be waiting neatly for me on the side of the maintenance building, and slid it into a dumpster. Once done, the car that Beverly’s dad had plowed into the fence should have drawn my interest, but it was the gate that I’d seen opening in my nightmare that consumed it. My heartbeat quickened as I realized that it could very well be unlocked. One small motion could bring down the lever.

  “I’ll distract them,” Harrison said, stepping up beside me and jostling my line of thought.

  Without hesitation, he walked up to the fence and stopped just a foot away, the clawed hands of the Infected nearly gripping him. When they were suitably excited by his presence and proximity, he strolled casually down the fence, away from me and the gate. It was a work of art, that walk, keeping himself close enough to provoke them and just out of reach where they couldn’t get to him. He did it with absolute confidence and a fearlessness that left me wanting to stare at his squared, solid shoulders and strong, steady strides rather than head for the gate. When I finally did, I saw that the gate was clear and rushed for it. And when I found it was unlocked, exactly as it had been in my nightmare, my muscles went into temporary paralysis. The reality left me unnerved because this simple oversight could have meant death to everyone inside. I quickly locked it, thanked God for keeping it shut, and called Harrison back.

  As we stood there, focused on the lever, neither of us spoke for a few extended seconds. Then, without turning his head to me, he asked, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Yeah,” I replied with a nod.

  The two of us set out to circle the school, checking the remaining three locks on each side of the property and finding all of them previously secured. On a subconscious level, I knew they would be because it had been just that one in the maintenance area my nightmare had identified.

  After we were back inside the gym and sitting facing each other on the pad, he warned, “There are more of them coming.”

  “I saw,” I said. That should have left me uneasy, but my face lit up at my next thought.

  “Hmm,” he mumbled tentatively. “I’m not sure I want to know but I’m going to ask anyways. What are you thinking now?”

  “That you didn’t turn.”

  He broke into a chuckle, a rumble that had the same solid resonance as his voice. “That’s true…I didn’t.” He sounded justifiably grateful for it and gradually became serious again. “If I had turned, would you have shot me?”

  “Don’t ask me that.” The thought of it sickened me.

  He nodded in understanding. “Knowing what is right is sometimes easier than doing what is right.”

  I silently agreed and let go of the heavy, depressed sigh lodged in my throat. “Who would have thought we’d end up here?”

  “In our sch
ool’s gym surrounded by psychotic cannibals?”

  It was an understatement and again we laughed before his expression grew unexpectedly adoring. “I have to be honest, Kennedy. Taking away all that’s happened, there is one good thing that came out of it.”

  “What?”

  “I got to know you.” He said this with such sincerity it was staggering. It came through in his eyes, the lean of his body toward me, and the sudden tension that filled the air between us. “That chance,” he said with certainty in his tone, “would never have come any other way.”

  “You’re right,” I whispered, my emotions rising up inside me. “We would have kept our distance, graduated, gone on to college, and I would never have…” I stopped to search for the right phrase.

  “Have known,” he finished.

  “That’s right.”

  The tension between us grew then, thickening until it seemed to absorb the air around us. I had to fight not to lean closer to him. With his neck muscles strained taut, I had the feeling he was battling the same need. But before it went any further, I had a sudden urge to be honest with him, as much as he had been with me.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said offhandedly.

  “Okay.”

  And suddenly, because this issue had been lurking beneath the surface of my consciousness and had suddenly been exposed, I knew how Harrison must have felt when he told me his darkest secret. It was my turn now. I had poked the hornet’s nest with this discussion and while a part of me wanted to take it back, I had spun the proverbial bottle and it landed pointing at me; and I was guessing that a kiss wouldn’t aptly close the subject.

  “I…,” I began and stopped, instantly feeling self-conscious. He gave me time, which spoke volumes about his patience with me and compassion for my feelings. The truth was most of the SEALs who had trained with me didn’t blab about their abilities. They kept them to themselves because it was no one else’s business. I’d kept it a secret because my world had been split between two identities: one designed to please my friends and maintain the prissy image I’d created and the other more in depth version of me that had me running through covert simulation trainings with my dad each weekend. These two identities clashed entirely. But I’d discarded the first identity over a year ago. It was time for Harrison to know the true me.