Infected

by Justin Clay

  “Even still, it would be better if you tried.”

  “Alright,” I say, hunkering down and holding his chest down with both of my hands as firmly as I can. Eli doesn’t seem to be noticing…at all.

  “Here we go,” I hear Aidan murmur and I wince, turning my head away as he goes to work. There’s a sudden snap of bone as I feel Eli’s leg shift and then a crackling pop, before it’s finished. Eli is groaning — he’s definitely in pain. This guy has been through so much. His body has been run ragged. How much more can he withstand? Abruptly, I feel something cold collide into my neck: wet and trickling. A rain drop. Odd. And then another and another. There’s a tumultuous rumbling above and I finally look to the sky. I had been so transfixed on saving them, I hadn’t noticed my surroundings. The city had grown much darker due to the lack of sunlight and overspread ominously gray clouds beyond. This did not bode well.

  “We better hurry and get him back,” Aidan says promptly. “A storm’s coming.”

  Bear nods. “See if he can walk.”

  “He’s barely conscious,” I tell them. “There’s no way he can walk now.”

  “So what do you want to do? Wait and let the rain make him sick on top of a bum leg?”

  I sigh frustrated. “Fine, Aidan…So how do we get him out?”

  “I got an idea,” Bear says and Aidan and I watch intently as the large hairy man carries it out. Bear ties the end of the rope around Eli’s waist until it’s taut. “Good enough…Now, one of you just need to get up there and help pull while I hoist him up.”

  “I’ll go,” I tell them. And Bear holds out cupped hands that boost me up to ground level when I step forward. Getting my bearings, I manage to hold onto the rope. I notice my sister is holding Wind at bay with her reins but something’s…Wind is sputtering nervously. Bear tells me to go ahead and pull, and I look back. As I grunt, and we slowly, tediously raise Eli up, I can feel the rainfall is worsening; it’s becoming a full-out deluge. We almost have Eli in the clear, when I feel June tug on my sleeve incessantly.

  “What — Wha…” I lose my voice when I see what’s she’s pointing to…About thirty feet away is a herd of Infected loping straight for us, grumbling and yellow-eyed. “Uh…Uh guys we got a problem…A big problem.”

  “What the hell is it?” Bear bellows, and I hear Wind neighing, spooked.

  “It’s the Infected and there’s a lot of them.”

  “Great,” he sighs. “Come on…Put your back into it Aidan!”

  “I’m trying! This guy isn’t the lightest you know!”

  “Hurry!” June shouts from somewhere nearby.

  “Almost…there,” Bear says, his face bright red and soaked with rain, so much so what strands of dark hair he has left is plastered to his forehead. There’s a dull plop of flesh onto muddy soil as Eli is finally out of that damn hole. While Bear and Aidan climb out of the hole with the rope’s help, I try and wake Eli. Shaking him fiercely, I cry out: “Eli! Can you hear me? Wake up! We have to go! The Infected are coming! PLEASE!”

  “Wha…What?” Eli mumbles, at last coming to…sort of. He glances me with one eye barely open.

  “The Infected!” I echo, “they’re headed straight for us…Can you get up!?”

  “I’ll try,” he says, exasperated. His eyes are bloodshot. “But I’ll need…I’ll need help.”

  “You got it,” I say, and grunting I assist him in standing his wobbly body with my shoulders beneath one of his burly arms. I call out to the others and swiftly we help raise him onto Wind. June tells me she can help Eli steer and I make a quick decision boosting her up too onto the horse.

  “That brick building there,” Bear says over the loud din of the rushing rain, pointing, and Eli nods, “go there…We need to get to higher ground…Go!”

  I grab June’s hand and give her a stern look. “Go there quickly and no one else,” I tell her. She nods, Eli holding her from behind. She flicks the reins and off they go.

  Bear, Aidan and I move forward, following them from behind, hoping we’ll get there in time. Alive.

  Hours pass as we wait for the storm to pass, until it’s well into the night. And by this point Bear thinks it’s a good idea for us to remain where we are — in this worn-down office building until morning. I don’t argue. I don’t want June out in all of this…

  That wouldn’t be rational. So we just listen, listen to rain pattering against the windows here, silent for the most part. Eli sits beside me, his head propped up against the wall shadowed by the flickering traffic lights from the outside. He’s out like a light, but still breathing. Although, very shallowly. He really had done a number on his leg. After Aidan inspected it — Eli was very unconscious by this point, he figured out Eli hadn’t broken it, just dislocated and badly sprained it. He got lucky. Very lucky.

  Somewhere along the way, my eyes become too heavy for me to keep open and I succumb to sleep. The next thing I know, someone is pushing my arm, waking me.

  Blinking, I see that it’s Aidan.

  “Come on, we’re leaving,” he says firmly. I look at his angled features in the morning light, at his deep brown eyes and for some reason I think of Lucas, and I become nauseated.

  “Okay,” I say, and I tell my sister to get up.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Bear, as I help Eli to his feet. The night’s rest has seemed to do him some good. He appears to be a great deal more attentive.

  “We need guns, better guns,” he tells us, “where we’re going…So we’re going back to the apartment…”

  This cryptic answer has me thinking that wherever we’re going there’s going to be Infected and a bunch of them. “And then going to the hospital?”

  “Something like that,” he tells me. Eli needs medical supplies and our best bet is the local hospital. “You two ready?”

  Eli inclines his head, and I tell him that we are. “Good,” Bear responds briskly. “Let’s go.”

  The journey back to their nest is thankfully uneventful. It gives us all a moment to catch our breath. Eli and June still ride astride Wind, as he cannot walk well just yet. Wind’s silvery coat is still shiny, soaked from the fallen rain.

  When we finally reach the plain, brick apartment building, Bear leads us up through the main entrance, up a few flights of stairs until we enter their living room. The air smells of dust and casual neglect; what furniture pieces occupy the room are barely visible due to the muddled amount of stuff atop them. Random, antique, dust smeared stuff. A certain winged statue carrying an empty pitcher catches my eye. I watch the sunlight pool through the curtained window beyond me onto a tacky blue chair, beside the table with the winged creature; it’s piled high with all sorts of magazines, books, and who-knows-what else.

  Bear tells us he’ll be right back as he disappears into the bedroom. I look to Eli; he’s frowning and his eyes tell me how truly haggard he’s become. For whatever reason I feel guilty of this — that everything that’s happened thus far has been my fault because it’s been my brilliant idea to continue this wild goose chase for the Carriers. I’m not even sure they exist anymore.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him quietly, and Eli stares at me distantly. As if he’s not really looking at me, or anything in particular. I don’t know what to think of this really.

  “I’m fine,” he says sullenly. Obviously.

  “Alright, so here’s the plan,” Bear says emerging with a rolled up tattered paper in hand. He unfurls the floppy thing onto a coffee table, where the thick book, Moby Dick, is supporting one of its legs. The long gridded paper that’s yellowed and splotched with dark stains here and there seems to be a map of the town. He’s tracing a finger along it as he talks. “I figure we wait a day or so for your friend — ”

  “Eli, his name is Eli,” I interject, and Bear nods.

  “Okay, we wait for Eli to get well enough that he can walk without support,” Bear goes on, “because I’m going to need all the help I can get; because where we’re going there’s Infected and a me
ss of them.”

  “To this hospital you talked about? What’s so special about it?”

  He looks at me, annoyed. “I was getting to that...The only engine — to my knowledge — that’s got any juice in it or the best chance of being useful in this whole damn town is naturally in the worst parts of town and that’s the local hospital…The engine still in one of the military transits that was left behind when the city was evacuated years ago.”

  “Why are you just now trying to get to it, if you’ve been here this long?”

  “Because, my dear, it takes quite some time searching through every damn vehicle out there, especially when it’s only two of us…”

  “But why do you need an engine if you don’t plan on leaving?”

  “Well since you asked,” Bear begins but Aidan interrupts:

  “It’s for me…Bear is doing this for me,” he says. “As nice as he’s been to me…I just can’t…I can’t stay here.” Aidan is staring past us, clearly not wanting to express all of this in front of Bear. I wouldn’t take Aidan’s partner in crime, here, to be one for a good Samaritan; just doing a good favor, without something in return. I wonder what Aidan gave up. I suppose it doesn’t matter by now. All that does is getting there.

  “And once we transplant that engine into the van I’ve been working on,” Bear goes on, “Aidan will be able to drive you out of here, to wherever you need to get...Also, while we’re at the hospital we can get medication for your friend here, that quite needs it. So it just works out.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I say, nodding. “Eli, what do you think?”

  I turn and we look at the bearded man with bagged purpled eyes, leaning against the wall, his arms folded. He doesn’t seem exactly thrilled. “Looks like you all already figured it out.”

  “So how long do you think you’ll need?” Bear asks him.

  “One day,” Eli replies and I’m not so convinced.

  “I think — ” I start but Eli waves for me to silence, so I do.

  “I’ll be fine,” he admits. “I look worse than I feel, I’m sure.”

  “Well then, it’s settled,” Bear says, inclining his head. “One day it is…Now…Aidan, you know what you need to do.”

  “What? What is it?” I question, curious.

  “I’m going on a stock run,” he says, and arches a brow. “Want to come?”

  I glance at June, and she doesn’t say anything; in fact, she’s not even paying attention. She’s staring out the window. Typical. “Sure,” I tell him. What else would I do? Waiting around this place would make me too anxious.

  I hold my silver pistol’s handle steady as I step into the sunlight; I can hear Aidan’s breathing behind me. Glancing behind us, I see the brick apartment building, Wind tied up outside, where I left my sister, is now the size of my arm in height. I can only wonder what she’s doing…

  “This way,” Aidan says, and I nod, snapping my attention back to where we are. The large trash bag Aidan had brought to put our gatherings in flutters in the breeze as we walk onward.

  Aidan says we’re going near the outskirts, looting a supermarket that supposedly resides there. The sun is warm against my neck; I have my long hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. We pass the abandoned post office he spoke of a few minutes; it should be much further now.

  When we come to a wide road with a mud-spattered sign listing direction to the nearby high school, Aidan points. And I see it. Just beyond us, about a hundred feet rests the supermarket, its massive rundown parking lot still littered with vehicles, rusted from countless rainstorms and recognizable neglect, defunct.

  As we approach its doors, we hear the expected. The groaning of the Infected.

  “It looks like there is only about six of them,” Aidan says, after peering through the binoculars he grabbed before heading out.

  “That shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  Aidan frowns.

  I’m surveying the snack aisle intently; most of everything from the looks of it has already been nabbed. Whether from Aidan, or others, the supermarket has been nearly wiped clean, testament to the years that have passed. I notice on the top shelf laying lopsided is a couple bags of chips, and something else I can’t fully see. I glance down the long dim aisle both ways, making sure I’m alone. Once we quickly disposed of the few loitering Infected, we found out that the inside of the supermarket had been strangely empty of any more.

  I holster my gun, because I’ll need both hands to grab. I stand on my tip-toes and reach. I snatch the bags, and pull; something falls, smacking against the linoleum. I hear rustling, and my eyes widen, when I look up.

  I see it’s only Aidan; he’s holding the box of Twinkies that was somehow with both of the bags of chips, I’m now holding in my arms.

  “Good finds,” he says, “throw them in.” He holds open the bag, and I toss the chips, hearing their crinkling as they’re dropped.

  “Did you find anything?”

  Aidan makes a face. “Not much really,” he says. “Found a couple tubes of toothpaste, a few razors, and some packs of beef jerky and headache meds…Expected.”

  “Do you think that’s enough?”

  “I think so,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  As we’re leaving, Aidan stops suddenly and jerks me to the side; confused, I glare at him. “What — ” I begin but I quiet when I see him holding a hushing finger to his lips.

  He motions with his head for me to follow him around a produce table, kneeling. What the hell? We’re nearly out of this store; what’s going on?

  When we’re fully hidden behind the fixture, he leans and whispers, “We’re not alone.”

  My brow furrows in consternation. What does he mean? “What?”

  “Listen.”

  So I do. Closing my eyes, I try to focus. At first, I only hear the occasional dripping of water from the ceiling. Then, it happens. My eyes light up, opening them. There are voices. And they’re coming near the doorway. It’s difficult to hear what they’re talking about, because I know for certain, there’s more than just one. The echoing comes closer, and I almost gasp.

  “So why do you think boss wants us to be looking around in this shit-hole anyway?” one of the voices, scratchy and male, says. “Doesn’t look they’re much of nothin’ left.”

  “I don’t know, Kabe,” the other one says, also a male, but much deeper. “What do I look like, boss man’s brain? We’re hungry as hell, and I guess he thought this was good as any place to find food…I hope we do find something, because I rather not have to have anyone as scrawny as you again.”

  I nearly gag, and I hope this guy’s joking. But something sickening tells me he’s not. “You shut up Darel,” Kabe says, and I hear the squishing of his boots against the flooring. They’re getting closer. My breathing intensifies; my heart rate escalates. I swallow nervously.

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Darel says, suspiciously. “I smell something’s not…right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know that feeling when you’re being watched?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “I got it right now.”

  “I think you’re just being paranoid; we’re the only live ones around here.”

  “I don’t know about that…Those Frothers out there, their blood looks pretty fresh to me. Don’t you think?”

  Aidan looks to me, quickly pulling out his handgun. I nod, understanding. We’ll have to do this quick. We jump to our feet and are faced with the men lurking only feet from us. They’re both carrying automatic rifles but it takes them a second to realize we’ve revealed ourselves. A second too late. We shoot, aiming for their heads. Once they stare at us, surprised, it’s over. There are loud bangs from our fired bullets, a splattering of blood, and both of their bodies hit the ground, cold.

  Holding my gun up, tentatively, I step toward the dead men. I notice Aidan follows me. They’re an unlikely pair from their looks. One of them looks like he’s drug-addicted, pale
as white sheets, and skinny as a rail; I suppose this is Kabe. He has a scraggily beard, and the red cap he wears sits askew on his head from the fall. I try not to stare at the gore spewing from the newly inflicted bullet wounds.

  The other one is as tall as he is fat. I take this to be Darel. The man’s balding severely, but that didn’t stop him from growing out his disheveled dirty blonde hair, comically on the sides. He also has a beard, but not much of one; more like a stubbly shadow. Further down I notice that the giant white shirt of his, isn’t as giant as it should probably be as a portion of his hairy belly fat hangs over his belted jeans, sagging like balloon filled with too much water. At this point I can’t look anymore. But one important thing to take away from them, besides the fact of not being alone, the guns they have…