The Red X Chronicles (Book 1): Emergent

by Sullivan, Robert Patrick

My eyes sunk to the floor. “I didn’t know.”

  “I figured that.” He brought his hand to his face and rubbed his forehead. “Let’s make this quick.” He let me get up and we followed after Elizabeth who was knocking on the door.

  “Will hurry up and open the door.”

  We could hear him from the other side. “Hold on babe.”

  She had only started to say, “Now’s not the time!” when the door swung open and he was standing there all dressed up in nice clothes, designer pants, an unbuttoned over-shirt and drenched in some kind of body spray that made me realize I hated him. Although looking back it may have been more because he was the kind of guy I thought I wanted to be, or maybe it was just because he was dating the woman I was interested in, or even because he was about two inches taller and a lot more handsome. Shit, it was all of the above, but that didn’t make liking him any easier.

  “What’s going on?” Will asked immediately confused. “I thought you said we were going out with some of your friends. Who’s this guy?” He took an aggressive stance and pointed at me, I could tell I was encroaching on his territory, and he didn’t like it. But I can’t blame him for that, I did want to be with his girlfriend after all.

  “Will, we have to get out of here, things are-“ But Elizabeth was cut off as John was standing behind us, his hand on his gun, ready for something to come popping out of the shadows.

  “What’s with the cop?” His aggressive behavior was checked immediately, and he started acting defensively.

  “I’m your escort out of town, now get in the car.” John didn’t realize that his being brash would only serve to further increase Will’s resistance.

  “What? No man I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I doubt that.” John said under his breath again, it was obvious he got the same impression that I had.

  “Will, we need to get out of here. Things are getting bad.”

  “I’m not going with no cop.” He was so oblivious to the situation.

  We heard something rustle in the bushes at the corner. John pulled out his gun and pointed it ready to fire, which only made Will even more resistant. “You don’t have to do that man, just-“

  “Shut up!” John whispered forcefully. A cat came from the bushes not even paying attention to us, which made John relax only for a moment. “Alright let’s go.”

  “No! I’m not going if I’m not under arrest. I know my rights.”

  “You know what, yeah you’re under arrest get in the car.” John grabbed him by the arm to pull him from his apartment.

  Will yanked his arm free. “For what? I didn’t do anything.”

  John was done. “Alright, fine! Get yourself fucking eaten. See if I care. We’re leaving.” He began moving back toward the car when Elizabeth grabbed his arm.

  “Please don’t leave him.” She begged.

  He looked at her and exhaled deeply. What I saw after this was one of the most terroristic acts of kindness I have ever witnessed. John turned around and put his gun directly in Will’s face. “Get in the fucking car!” Will just about shit his pants, and I was loving every second of it.

  “Whoa man calm down!” Will had put his hands up.

  John grabbed him by the arm again and jerked him from the door nearly throwing him on the ground. “Shut up and move.”

  “What the hell, aren’t you supposed to read me my rights?”

  John kicked him in the ass enough to get him moving in the right direction. “You have the right to shut the hell up! Anything you say or do will result in a gun being held against you! You have the right to an ass kicking for being such a shit! And most importantly you have the right to be shot for not doing what I say!” He was still pointing the gun at him with one hand. “Now I’m only going to say this one more time, get in the fucking car!”

  “Ok man, ok!” Will had gotten in the back of the car with Elizabeth following behind him.

  She turned around to face John and silently mouthed the words “Thank you.”

  When the door had closed, John looked back at me with a grin on his face. I was trying desperately not to smile, but it broke through after a second or two. “I always wanted to do that.” John said, trying not to let them see his face. “This job’s full of shit heads, it would be so much easier if we could just kick someone’s ass or put a gun in their face whenever we need to.”

  “I don’t think that’s right though.” I replied trying my best to act like the good guy.

  “Oh don’t give me that. I see you smiling. You enjoyed that just as much as me.”

  “Whatever.” I said shaking my head still grinning like an idiot.

  “Let’s get a move on, time’s still ticking. Go ahead and get in the front.”

  That’s when I looked at the window, still covered in blood. It wasn’t exactly an inviting sight. “You mean I have to sit next to that?”

  “Quit your bitching Mark, unless you want me to read you your rights too?”

  “Ah man!” I opened the door, and that’s when I realized that it wasn’t just the window, the entire passenger’s side was a bloody mess. Shannon had bled quite a lot into the seat, and the entire side panel had been sprayed with a thin layer of blood, brains, and bone chips. Sitting down was disgusting, and it was certainly not how I imagined ending my relationship with my boss, regardless of how little I had liked her. But I was in no mood to piss John off again. So I tried my best to live with it. Closing the door got blood on my hand, but at this point, I had enough blood on my clothes that I didn’t care anymore. I just wiped it on my pants and tried to go on with my life.

  “You can’t do this man!” Will was still being annoying but at least he wasn’t causing any more problems. “I have rights, and you can’t arrest someone without reading them.”

  “You’re not under arrest! Would someone explain to him what the hell is going on so he’ll shut up already?” I don’t know if it was because John was too frustrated, or because he wanted another person’s opinion on it before he called them zombies.

  “Um…” I started. “Just look out the window Will.” I figured that would get the point across pretty fast.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Keep looking, you will…” I added.

  John nodded at me in agreement, and after a few minutes went by sure enough he started to see what we had been dealing with. “What the fuck?” Will asked himself quietly. We passed another group, then another, then John accidentally hit one. “So these are what? Zombies?” Will was the first person to say it.

  “Well I wasn’t going to say it because it sounds stupid, but yeah. I’m pretty damn sure they’re zombies.” John followed up.

  “I think so too.” I said backing up John.

  Elizabeth wasn’t as convinced. “What? You’ve got to be kidding me, zombies? You’ve all been watching too many movies.”

  “Elizabeth,” I turned around in my seat to face her while I spoke. “Think about it for a minute. What do we know? We know that if they bite you, you turn into one of them, they’re slow, uncoordinated, and try to eat people, and if you shoot them in the head they die. Whatever this actually is, is only a semantic difference. As far as we need to know they’re zombies.” She seemed to accept that answer, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to believe it either.

  A few minutes had passed by and we were getting close to the edge of town. “This is bad…” John said.

  I replied. “What is?”

  “The radio’s gone quiet.” I listened and he was right, there was no noise at all coming from the radio. The constant chatter that we heard before was now dead. “That means dispatch got taken out.”

  “So the remaining officers have no direction?” I asked.

  “It’s worse than that, no officers are even trying to call in. I think it’s over. Ashville’s toast.” We were all shocked when he said it.

  “So then, what’s the plan officer… um.” Will asked.

  “It’s John, just call me John. An
d the plan is to get the hell out of here while we still can.”

  I wasn’t too excited about his idea to leave when we first started out, but after seeing what we had been through that night, I had changed my mind. I wanted to get the hell out of there, and fast. The others were coming around to the thought of leaving too.

  “Where are we going exactly?” Will asked John.

  “I don’t care so long as it’s not here.” It didn’t take a genius to see that John hadn’t had the time to think this through, but I suppose it took an idiot to question him on it.

  And lucky for us Will was that idiot. “So… We’re just leaving town? Then what?”

  John was annoyed. “I don’t know. I didn’t exactly have a contingency plan for this shit. I mean look at this!”

  The cab was silent for a few seconds before Will interrupted again. “So?”

  “Really?” John spit out the word viciously.

  “What happened to the car?” He pointed at the blood on the window.

  John cracked a wicked little smirk. “Our last passenger wouldn’t shut up.” I didn’t get to see it, but I bet Will’s eyes bulged out of his head. Elizabeth on the other hand, didn’t take the joke too well.

  “That’s not funny.” She said in disgusted voice.

  John realized he stepped into the wrong. “I’m sorry…” Was his only response.

  Chapter 5

  The number of abandoned cars started getting thicker as we got toward the edge of town, but the zombies continued to thin out. We could finally see what we were after in the distance, but it was not so easy as we were hoping for. “Shit shit shit!” John could see the fences blocking the roads from about a quarter mile away. “Let’s try to get around.” He kept on driving, but each time he reached another exit it was more of the same. Cars blocked the road up to gates where a mass of civilians could be seen trying to make their escape. “Come on there has to be a place where they haven’t barricaded it yet!” John was getting more frantic by the minute, and it was starting to wear off on all of us. “Fuck!” John slammed on the brakes. “This is why I wanted to hurry…”

  “There’s a military base right outside of town isn’t there?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s why I knew they were coming.” He held onto the steering wheel at ten and two, hunched over.

  “My point is, maybe we never had a chance of getting out of here so easily.” It wasn’t the most optimistic tone, but we couldn’t just keep sitting there. “What do we do now?”

  John crushed his eyelids together while he thought. “Ok, I guess we’re going to have to go through the blockade like everyone else.” He started looking through all of the mirrors and windows. “Anyone see any of those things out there?” We each checked the surroundings of the car and sounded off as we couldn’t find any. “Ok good let’s go.” He grabbed the shotgun again before he stepped out of the car. I got out and opened the door for Elizabeth and Will to get out, while John popped the trunk of his cruiser.

  I walked around to see what he was doing. “Looking for something?”

  He was struggling with the busted trunk, but he managed to pry it open. “I had a couple of boxes of shells somewhere in here. I think most of them fell out in the wreck though. There!” He pulled up a box of shotgun shells and opened the top. He loaded his gun one shell at a time, then started patting himself down, checking to see if his pockets had room. “Screw it.” He took handfuls of cartridges and shoved them in any place where he could fit them. He grabbed a box of pistol ammo and did the same. “Is everybody ready?” He asked, getting nods from the group. “Good… let’s get moving.”

  We started walking toward the quarantine screening area. It was about a quarter mile off, but we couldn’t get the car any closer due to the gridlock before us. We were moving slow, as none of us wanted to find ourselves surprised by a set of hungry teeth jumping out in the night. “We just had to stop, didn’t we…?” John was asking himself rhetorically. Other people were walking with us, or I should say by us. We were all heading to the same place, but as we got closer fewer people were rushing past and a small group was following us directly. I think the sight of a police officer with a gun was giving people a sense of comfort in a night that held so many terrors. We were about half way there when someone up at the road block had the bright idea to use a megaphone to address the people.

  “If you’ll all remain calm and come through the checkpoint in an orderly fashion this will go a lot faster.” I heard the voice boom down the street, and it was followed by the sounds of moaning behind us. I turned back to see where the sound was coming from, and we could see them coming out of the woodworks. Panic set into the crowd of people and they began to rush toward the gate up ahead. John got pushed over by someone. Elizabeth and I stopped to help him up. The majority of the people had passed us by when we had gotten him to his feet, which put us between the zombies and the crowd.

  We ran toward the gate as fast as we could but there were at least a hundred or two people blocking the path. They were pushing against the chain link fence, trying to get free. When we had caught up with the main group I turned around to see what was coming when the man on the megaphone piped up again. “If you don’t stop pushing we can’t get you through.”

  But fear had gripped the crowd. “They’re right behind us!” they yelled and screamed. I could see a horde of zombies amassing. It wasn’t a small one either. The sound of the loudspeaker was drawing them all right to the crowd, and we were still caught in the middle.

  “There’s no way.” I said to myself before raising my voice so that our group could hear me. “There’s no way we can get through the gate before they reach us!” A few of the faster ones were drawing close, and I don’t know whether it was my words or just the sight of them that caused the crowd to go into a frenzy, but they began forcing the gate.

  “If you don’t stop we are going to have to take extreme measures to ensure quarantine procedures!” We heard the megaphone blared again.

  “We can’t stay here!” Elizabeth yelled.

  She was right, there was nothing we could do to defend ourselves against that many, and there was just no way they were going to let all of us through the gates in time. “She’s right!” I said following up on her words.

  John yelled back. “I’m all ears kid!”

  “We charge back the way we came and cut down an alley. There’s no way you can kill them all before they get here, but maybe we can fight through a few to get away!”

  He looked at the crowd, and then to the zombies that were getting closer and closer. “It’s better than staying here! Let’s move!” Elizabeth and I were ready to go, but Will hadn’t been paying attention. He was at the back of the crowd still trying to force his way toward the gate.

  Elizabeth grabbed Will by the arm. “Come on Will we have to go!” John was already starting to make his move till I stopped him. He turned around quickly and grabbed Will alongside Elizabeth jerking him free and getting his attention.

  “If we stay here we die!” John yelled in Will’s face. “We have to go now!”

  Will was shaken but quickly fell in line with the plan. We began running from the crowd with John leading the way. When we had gotten about ten feet from the first zombie he readied his shotgun and tore its face off. He started moving again, but slower so he could reach in his pocket and feed the gun another shell. When he had finished he got back up to speed. Three more of them were between us and the first alley we could reach, and the shotgun made short work of them. John took his time reloading after each shot. I couldn’t blame him there was no telling what was around the corner. And when we made the turn it was dark, not so much that we couldn’t see what was just before us, but enough that we couldn’t find the end. There were curbs lining the alleyway. It must have been used as some kind of parking area judging from the meters in the sidewalk, but other than that there was little more than the walls of the businesses with a reinforced door here and there. John dispatche
d another two zombies as we made our way forward.

  It was a dead end. A brick wall rose higher than any of us could climb, even with each other’s help. When we turned back we found that our little plan had been just a little too late. We saw the zombies walking in the entrance. They had been attracted by the gunshots, and they were coming.

  “What are you waiting for? Kill them!” Will yelled at John.

  “Shooting might just bring more our way, and I don’t have enough ammo to kill them all.”

  “We can’t just stay here, we have to at least fight back!” Will was right, but John was too. Neither option gave us a chance at survival. That’s when I saw it, just a simple drain in the gutter. It wasn’t very big, but it got me thinking. I looked around and sure enough on the cement beside it was a manhole cover.

  “Maybe I can get this open.” I stamped down on it to point it out.

  “Not without that… you know that tool they use? Those things aren’t light!” John replied focusing on the zombies heading our way.

  I got down on the ground and began climbing into the drain. “I meant from the inside.”

  By the time John looked at me my legs were already halfway inside. “That might work… are you really skinny enough to fit in there?”

  I was trying my best to shimmy my way in, it wasn’t hard at first, but my chest was a tight fit. It hurt, scratching me terribly, but it wasn’t as though I had a choice. When I got my chest free I fell the rest of the way. I had hit my head against the top on the way in though. In the dark, I rubbed the spot where I had hit, till I was brought back to my senses by the sound of John firing again.

  “Hurry up Mark! We’re in real trouble up here!” John said.

  I reached around in the blackness till I found a rebar ladder that had been built into the side. I could see just a point of light peering through the small opening in the manhole cover. I climbed the ladder up to it, only to find it practically immovable. My arms were useless, I just couldn’t get it to budge that way. I climbed higher so I could use my legs and push at it with the top of my back. When I had given it just about all of the strength I could muster I felt it pop free.