by Welker, Wick
They stalked, step by step, until their backs were pressed up against the low clearance, front bumper of the car. Keith flattened on his belly and peered around the bumper. The edge of the crowd was backing away from the trunk of the car, their backs still turned to them. He crawled along the driver’s side of the car and looked into the window. A bright pink Energizer bunny was dangling from a set of keys that were left in the ignition. Looking back, he saw Ellen’s head peeking up over the hood. He gave her a thumbs-up and motioned over to the passenger side of the car.
A deep tension that had wound up in his stomach disappeared as he opened the handle of the car door, but then he felt it seize in a cold panic as the car alarm immediately blared in his ears.
“Oh shit!” He looked over at Ellen who quickly stood to her feet. He rattled the door handle back and forth but it was locked.
Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the heads the dozens of the dead slowly turn towards him in unison. Keith stood to his feet and blindly ran at the leading edge of the crowd. Within a few steps, a muscular young man with no shirt was lurching towards him. Keith approached him, put his hands around his head and threw his body to the ground. The man stumbled down onto his knees and Keith then wrapped his fingers around his neck and started to drag him towards the car. The infected man was cocking his head back and forth, trying to bite at Keith’s hands, but they were placed just under his jaw, preventing any way for Keith to be bitten.
“Keith! What are you doing?” Ellen yelled at him as she came around to his side of the car.
Without responding, he dragged the man to the side of the driver’s side window. Squeezing his hands even tighter, he lifted him up by his neck allowing him to regain his footing. Keith let go of his neck and then placed both hands on the side of his head and slammed it down into the passenger’s side window, creating an explosion of glass. The window completely caved in.
Keith pushed Ellen back and the man’s body fell to the ground. “Get back to the other side, and let’s get out of here!” He yelled at Ellen as he reached into the window and manually unlocked the car door and violently brought it open, pushing the infected man’s body out of the way.
They quickly got in the car and slammed the doors shut. Ellen felt a sharp pain in her thigh as she sat; knowing it was glass but wasn’t currently interested in any new injuries that appeared as blemishes, considering what she had already been through that day.
Looking down at the car’s beeper on the key chain, Keith managed to turn the alarm off and start the ignition as the crowd overtook the back of the car with several people crawling over the trunk. He slammed on the gas. The car spun in the mud for a brief instant, found traction and leapt forward, spewing the several bodies off into the mud. He turned the wheel, following the clearing out, but the other wall of the crowd was now moving into them, attracted by the sounds.
Angling the car to follow the closing space, he accelerated as they sped past row after row of the sick, as the gap in bodies got smaller ahead of them.
“They’re closing in up ahead, do you see?” Ellen pointed ahead at a few figures at the edge of the school grounds.
The car violently bumped up and down as it sped across the uneven surface of grass and mud. Keith’s calf muscle was beginning to cramp from holding the gas pedal completely flat against the floorboard. He tightened his grip on the wheel and headed straight for a small crowd of figures. Their eyes lit up with red reflection from the car’s headlights.
“Hold on,” Keith calmly said to Ellen.
The corner of the bumper hit the first body and it spun off to the side, but the car then struck two people head on. They rolled up the hood and slammed into the windshield, immediately breaking the glass creating a constellation of fractured light. The side windows were now streaked with whatever liquid contents their bodies were holding. One body rolled off, but the other came to rest on the windshield. Keith rolled down the window, leaned out and grabbed the person’s leg, yanking the body free from the car.
Maintaining his head out of the window to see, he yelled to Ellen, “Okay, where is the house?”
She rolled down her window and leaned out to see ahead. There were now less infected people in front of them and they had cleared the school grounds. The street ahead of them had transformed into a chaotic wasteland of overturned cars, scattered furniture, small fires and a multitude of lifeless bodies. Keith could only drive forward by zigzagging across lawns and parts of the road that were clear.
“What street is this? Is this… is this Crowley?” She asked.
“I don’t know. I barely have any idea where we are.” Keith looked up at a light post. “Oh wait, yes, yes, I see a street sign there. This is Crowley.”
“Okay, that means her street is just one block that way,” she said, pointing to the right. “Take the next right that you can and I’m pretty sure we’ll be on her street.” She turned around, looked behind the car, and saw several large fires in the distance.
“I got a better idea, so bring your head in,” Keith said. He turned the wheel towards a house on the right, brought the car up over the front lawn and burst through the fence leading to the backyard. The car thumped briefly into the air as it ran over the collapsed fence. He continued the car forward into the other side of the backyard and slammed through the opposing fence, scattering shards of wood across the front of the car.
They came through the backyard of the adjacent house. Keith stuck his head out and saw a thick metal-barred fence that led to the street. He slammed on the brakes and stopped the car in the yard.
“I don’t think this little car is going to make it through that fence.” He turned to the back seat and looked around. “Are you sure that this is the street?”
“Yes, I know this is it.”
“Alright, I think we should just go on foot. I don’t see many of them around here. I think we can make it to the house.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” She opened the glove box and found a flashlight.
“Looks like these people came prepared,” Keith said, producing a large crowbar from the back seat. “Man, this thing is heavy.” He lifted it to the front seat and opened the door. “Okay, let’s go.”
The dark yard was surprisingly clear of any people. Keith stepped over a bundle of fence wood next to the car and headed over to the steel gate leading to the other street. Opening the latch, they exited together with slow footsteps, surveying the new street ahead of them. Ellen stopped and placed her hand on Keith’s shoulder.
“Maryanne,” she said.
“Who?”
“The little girl who was stuck in the other fridge with me. We should’ve brought her with us, Keith.”
“Oh, that’s right. I completely forgot about her.” He paused and looked down. “Maybe she was able to get away with some of those other teachers. It was so hard, Ellen. We barely even knew what we were doing… it was such a mess. I already feel like such a bastard for so many things that I’ve done today.”
She looked out over the dark street. “It looks like the power has gone out on this street. Come on; let’s go shine the light on the street sign right over there to make sure we’re in the right place.”
They moved quietly down to the street. “The explosions closer to the school must be drawing all of the infected people over that way.”
“Here it is,” said Ellen. She shined the flashlight on the street sign above them. “Oh, thank God, it’s the right one, Brady Street.”
“What was the number on her house?”
“215.”
“Well, what’s the number on this house here?”
“I don’t know,” she said in an annoyed tone. “Let’s go look, Keith.”
Cautiously, she walked out to the curb where a postal van lay on its side. The street was covered in letters and packages that blew from the opened back doors. Ellen started kicking the letters away from the curb, searching for the numbered address and finally found it with her flashlight: 219.
“Keith! This is 219. That means…” she looked over at the house at the right. “That’s the one right there. That’s Miss Stutson’s house. I can’t believe it’s just right here.”
“Is that way west?”
“Yes, come on.”
They walked through the dark yards between the two homes looking out over the street for any movement. Keith held the heavy crowbar with both arms in front of him as they approached the house. Ellen kept the flashlight off.
“Keith,” she said to him. “I’m so tired.”
“I know, me too.”
“What time is it?”
“I don’t know, but we need to get into that…” he paused as an explosion sounded in the distance. “I think the bombings are getting more frequent, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. I can barely think right now.”
They went up to the front steps and stopped. Keith took the light from Ellen’s hand and shinned it up on the front awning. It said 215.
“She’s in there,” he said and swiftly walked up the steps. Ellen stayed behind and sat on a step.
“I’m so weak, Keith. I need water. I…”
Coming back down the step, he put his arm around her. “Okay, honey, let’s just get you inside. It looks pretty clear from out here.”
“I was electrocuted.”
“What? How?” He stroked the side of her head.
“A power line fell on me.”
“Oh my gosh, we need to get you a lot of fluids right now. Come on.” He picked her up in his arms, wincing at the thought of his wife being electrocuted, and walked to the front door. Looking into the side windowpane, he only saw darkness. Placing Ellen down at the side of the door, he shinned the flashlight in and saw only the red wooden surface of some sort of furniture that had been placed to block the door. He turned to the door and tried the knob but it was locked, so he tried knocking but received no response.
“Okay.” Keith lifted the crowbar to the doorknob and thrust it forward into the wood around the lock. After several blows, the lock came free from the wood and Keith kicked in the door, making whatever piece of furniture there was slam down on the hardwood floor of the foyer. He pushed the door forward and looked around with the light, finding no movement.
Bending over, he lifted Ellen in his arms and carried her into the house laying her on a couch in the living room. The home appeared undisturbed.
“Hello?” Keith said loudly at the house, holding his crowbar tightly. He was only answered by silence.
He turned the corner from the room, walked into the dark kitchen and flipped on the flashlight. The light bounced around the room, reflecting off thousands of shards of broken glass. There were back patio double doors that had been busted inward with the glass panes shattered. A kitchen table was pushed to the side of the kitchen on its side. Keith set the flashlight on the kitchen counter, held his crowbar in front of him and crept forward slowly. The floor in front of the double doors came into view. It was covered in blood. A body lay in the middle of the blood and glass. Keith approached it silently and nudged the shoulder with his shoe. There was no movement. He crouched down with flashlight and got a better look. The body appeared to be an older man with a gunshot entry at his right temple.
Unwilling to investigate further, he went to the refrigerator, found several bottles of water and took them to Ellen in the other room.
“Hey, hey, wake up, wake up,” he said to her. Her eyes were lazily moving around the room, attempting to focus on Keith. “I’ve got a lot of water, you should drink as much as you can.”
“Jayne?” Ellen asked.
“I don’t know, I haven’t even looked. There’s a body in the kitchen but it’s not Miss Stutsen. You just stay here. I’m going to search the house, okay?”
She said nothing, took the bottle from Keith’s hand, and began to drink slowly. “Go, look,” she said and continued drinking.
A sudden and frightful urgency ran through Keith’s body. He quickly left the room with the flashlight and began searching every room on the main floor. The kitchen was empty, except for a dead body. There was an untouched and dusty living room with no movement. He found a laundry room with the washer and dryer stacked on top of each other blocking the door to the outside patio. The garage was surprisingly clean without large tool cabinets or any other sign that a man lived in the home. There was a single suburban SUV from what Keith guess was the late eighties. He quickly shined the flashlight in the windows of the vehicle and saw nothing.
Returning to the main floor, he ran up the stairs, skipping steps until he was at the top. He faced a short hallway from which several rooms led. The master bedroom had a neatly made bed, a closet with what Keith thought was an enormous amount of shoes, and a small bathtub with no small child hiding in it. After looking under the bed, he returned to the hallway and quietly spoke Jayne’s name with no response.
“Jayne!” He finally yelled. He quietly waited with no response and then went on to the next room.
Downstairs, Ellen finished her third bottle of water and slowly got to her feet, testing to see if she would faint. She managed to stabilize herself on the side of the couch while looking out the window onto the dark street. She was surprised by the silence in the house. Her head pounded and her shoulder ached from where she was bitten. Turning towards the staircase, Keith came stomping down.
“There’s no one here.” He walked across the foyer. “I’ve looked in every room.”
Ellen stood in the hallway and looked at Keith’s face, darkened by shadows. Her head began to spin and she quickly sat down on the hard wood floor. Her thoughts became a tangential cascade of feverish worry and grief. She couldn’t hold onto any single thought, only a stream of the events of the day and paranoia of their situation. She tried speaking, but only slurred words came out.
Keith picked her up and took her to the garage, her head and legs swaying with his footsteps. Opening the back door of the suburban, he rested his sick wife in the back seat and closed the door.
Returning inside of the home, Keith found that his body was acting with little regard to what his mind was thinking. He was at the refrigerator, collecting all usable food possible. He ransacked the cabinets and the pantry of canned goods and water bottles, putting them in the back of the suburban. Up in the bedrooms, he found sleeping bags, blankets and pillows. He went to the bathroom and threw shampoo, soaps and shaving supplies into a plastic laundry basket, and took it to the suburban.
What he wanted to do was find a sledgehammer and bring down the entire house to find his daughter, but his body was rejecting his plans. The same surviving instinct that had made him leave a man to die in the subway earlier that day was driving him to abandon hope for his daughter and flee the city. Once again, he didn’t argue, he simply went from room to room gathering anything that they would need for their escape from the living hell that had become his life. He knew his daughter was gone and there was no way to look for her. The entire city was lost along with his daughter and he wanted to move on as quickly as possible.
After a while, he had the suburban packed full of supplies while his wife still slept in the back. He thought of how much braver she was and how she would be fighting for her daughter right now. She would be going from house to house, kicking in the doors and yelling out her name all around the neighborhood.
Keith opened the garage door by hand and saw a few of the sick walking around the streets. He just stood and stared at them as they noticed his movements. For a moment, he thought that they would stop and look at him, to give even one human thought about what they would do next. They didn’t stop or wait, but began walking toward him, some falling to their knees.
He sighed and slowly walked to the driver side of the car and looked back again, wanting them to be normal people for just a moment. Getting in, he started the engine with the radio coming to life. It was a small looped recording:
“This is not a test. Any New York area survivors are u
rged to report to Richmond, Virginia for medical treatment. If you have been bitten but have not shown signs of infection, please contact local authorities immediately or report to Richmond, Virginia.”
A small hope for the sick people in his rearview mirror began to grow in his mind. After all, he thought, I have a bitten wife who seems to be doing just fine. Stepping on the gas, he drove down the street and through a yard, searching for the river parkway.
Chapter twenty
“It’s because I don’t have to answer to you or anyone else in this unit. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I understand that and at this point, I really don’t give a shit.”
“Anderson, as soon as we are back in Washington, you are no longer in this unit.”
“That’s not your call.”
“As soon as we get to Washington, the request will be made.”
Anderson was looking directly at Ortega inside the tiny cabin in the front of the Humvee. The rest of the vehicle had become silent as soon as the argument had erupted out of nowhere.
“That’s good then,” Anderson said. “We’ll all have a little chat about what happened in Strykersville then. How does that sound? I wonder what they’ll think about pointlessly air striking a U.S. town.”
“I don’t have to explain my actions to you.”
“And don’t think I’m going to corroborate whatever bullshit story you come up with either.”
The two men then stopped talking and stared forward through the windshield as the Humvee sped down a long hill of the dark highway. The headlights provided small cones of light on the quickly moving pavement.
Dave was beginning to understand Anderson’s blatant insubordination of Ortega. Ortega seemed to be improvising ever since they had been in Strykersville. He had the team contain the infected in the town but then ordered an airstrike. A few hours earlier, he had them driving in the opposite direction and had them stop the Humvee and turn back towards D.C. without even a conversation with his little people in his mouthpiece. He was also constantly aggravated and kept yelling at the crew for not being quick enough to respond to his commands.
