by Hunt, Jack
“Go, get her out,” Garret was yelling. Garret had only turned for a few seconds when a Z sank its teeth into his arm. He screamed in agony and used his other to shoot it in the face. But it was too late. He’d been bitten. I grabbed Kat and we all raced into the stairwell and ascended the stairs two at a time. There was nothing to hold back the doors. The swarm of the dead followed us, some spilled over the banister as they forged towards us.
When we reached the main floor my legs were burning. My chest was on fire from breathing hard. We didn’t stop or look back. The only thought pushing through my mind was to get out. To get as far away from the building as we could. We stumbled out into the rain, defeated by the dead, and for what? We had nothing, or at least that’s what I thought.
We trudged our way down the street searching for the nearest abandoned building. The choice was endless. The irony was, we settled on a 7-Eleven beside a gas station.
Ralphie grinned, feeling at home. I was just glad to get out of the rain. We piled into the store, Baja and I made sure there was no one there before we locked the door behind us. The last thing we needed was any more surprises.
Garret was in agony. The Z had torn through the muscle in his right forearm. In all the confusion, someone had left the medic kit behind at the library. He was now bleeding out.
“I’ll find something to tie it off,” I said.
“No. Cut it,” he yelled.
“What?”
“Cut it. Do it now.”
We stared at each other. Dax didn’t pause, blink, or ask if he was sure. He reached a hand behind his back and in one smooth motion pulled the machete from its sheath.
“Hold him down,” he said.
Baja was the only one that had presence of mind to follow his directions. Garret held out his chewed-up arm and Dax brought the blade down about ten inches up from the bite without any hesitation. More blood splatter hit Kat in the face. Some of it went in her mouth. Her eyes went as wide as dollar coins. She looked if she was in shock. Her skin was pale and body unflinching to the horror taking place before her.
Dax brought the blade down on Garret’s arm four times before he cut through the bone. Garret went unconscious from pain in two. We stood there staring at the severed arm in a pool of blood while Dax tied off the stump with his own pant belt.
“You think that will do it?” Jess asked.
“No. But it’s all we’ve got for now. We need to cauterize it fast to stop the bleeding.”
Without any power, all we had was a BIC lighter that Baja pulled out.
“Yeah, this isn’t a concert, you moron. I’m pretty sure we are going to need something bigger than that,” Dax said.
Specs got up and began looking around. He disappeared down an aisle. We could hear him rooting through the little that remained in the store.
“Here we go,” he came back with some TRESemmé hairspray.
“I don’t think he needs a new hairdo, dude,” Baja replied.
Specs shook his head and took the lighter.
“Stand back.”
He placed the lighter in front of the travel canister. It couldn’t have been much bigger than his hand. He flicked it on and a flame appeared. A quick burst of hairspray and a flame shot out a foot long.
“By the way I hear that’s all the rage now. Using swords and fire to cut hair.”
“Baja, I swear you are demented,” Izzy said, watching in horror.
“No, I’m dead serious. I saw it on TV. Some Aussie was slicing the shit out of some chick’s hair and burning the ends with fire.”
“I’ll remember that when I need a haircut, now can we get his arm sorted out?”
Specs was already on it. Everyone averted their eyes at the sound of sizzling flesh. The smell was far worse than we imagined. It reeked of rotten eggs and weeks-old milk. When Specs pulled back I glanced at his handiwork. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to see. But it wasn’t that. He had practically turned the guy’s stub into a roasted sausage. I’d seen marshmallows on the end of a stick fare better at a campfire than that. But at least it wasn’t bleeding. I grimaced at the sight. Garret had remained unconscious through it all, though I figured if he had woken up he would have probably passed out.
“Kat.”
She stared forward barely blinking.
“Kat,” I repeated.
I got up and went over to Dax who was admiring Specs’s handiwork. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into an aisle.
“Was that trip worth it? Did you find anything? I told you we shouldn’t have gone.”
“Get your hand off me, Johnny.”
I glared at him and slowly released my grip.
“You want to blame me for that? Really? After some of the shit you pulled back at home?”
I looked away.
“Yeah, I thought so.”
“Things aren’t going to go right, Johnny. You know that. Every day we walk out there, there is a chance that you, me, or one of them isn’t coming back. If you have a problem with that, you need to deal with it now. This is war, brother. No matter how you look at it. We are up against an enemy that has us outnumbered. The odds of us surviving are very fucking slim. So buckle up, grow some balls and help, or stay the fuck out of my way.”
Silence ensued for a moment as both of us sat in the discomfort of our own words.
“And as for what we found. Yeah, it was worth it. We didn’t find the cure if that’s what you’re asking. But Garret found this!”
Dax pulled from a leather bag what looked like a communications unit.
“I think we can use this.”
“Is that military?” I asked.
“It doesn’t look like what I’ve seen in the field,” he replied. “But maybe the military tried to pull employees out of the CDC when this happened?”
“More like attacked them,” Kat mumbled. She didn’t turn our way.
“Kat. Do you know something about what went down at the CDC?”
She craned her head around. “I know that the military wasn’t taking any chances on who was infected. We saw them killing regular people. They slaughtered them like cattle.”
I glanced at Dax. “You still want to use that?”
7-ELEVEN
The 7-Eleven had three aisles of shelving and a cooler at the back. The ground was tiled white with a thick streak of blood that went out back. Whatever had been killed had got up and walked away or been devoured. What struck us as strange was that while the place had clearly been ransacked, not everything had been taken. A few cartons of milk that had expired weeks ago were still in there. None of us was brave enough to drink it especially after Baja stuck it under our noses. And I thought Z’s smelled bad! A rotisserie hotdog machine still had hotdogs. Cold and with a good amount of mold. I forced myself to taste one to the laughter of everyone. They tasted like shit even when there wasn’t a zombie apocalypse and because they were still there, we assumed others thought the same. It was the one thing you didn’t touch even if you were starving. That stuff could give you indigestion like no other food. I had once bought one of their burgers in a cardboard box just to see how bad they were. I’m pretty sure I used it for a doorstop. The thing was solid. The guy behind the counter wouldn’t give me my money back. “No returns,” he said in a thick Indian accent, followed up with, “Do you want to buy a Lotto ticket?”
I flipped him the bird.
We had been in there for close to six hours. It was the middle of the afternoon. We had pushed some of the shelving in front of the doors and used some loose rope behind the counter to tie off the handles. Our worry wasn’t as much Z’s breaking in, as it was the Tongan Crips.
Garret didn’t look as if he was improving. All the color had run from his face. He was sweating profusely and showing signs that I had seen in Caitlin before she turned. Dax was berating himself for waiting so long to chop off the arm. I could hear him muttering about cutting higher, cutting sooner, cutting cleaner. I don’t think it really mattered. We h
ad no clue if a person could survive if a leg or arm was cut off. Did the virus or whatever the hell this was move through the system immediately? Or was it slow? By the time we had made it to the 7-Eleven, Garret had already lost a lot of blood. If he didn’t bleed to death, he would eventually turn.
I turned to find Baja with his head under the slushy machine draining what remaining drops it would release without power. Specs flipped through a porn magazine and had his head tilted to one side to see the center spread. Ralphie stared absently up at an employee of the month photo, probably reassessing his life goals. I ventured out back to see what I could scavenge. When we had initially entered and cleared the rooms, I’d seen brown boxes stacked on shelves and a large refrigerator tucked into a corner with a lock on it. There was also a table and chair out back. There was a place for a computer but it had been ripped from the wall and likely used to crush the head of a Z. Chunks of it were scattered across the floor. I pulled down the boxes, a couple had some bars of soap, and a few others had Kraft Easy Mac Triple Cheese microwave cups.
I threw those to one side, they could come in handy.
Another box had twenty bottles of BBQ sauce. I opened one and squeezed some into my mouth. Yep, not something I would advise anyone doing but without any meat that was the closest I was getting to a T-bone. I coughed and spat the rest out. As I wiped the corner of my mouth I glanced at the refrigerator. It was white, with a silver handle. It kind of looked like the type that employees would use to stash their lunch in, except this sucker had a gleaming silver lock on the outside. Who the hell locked a refrigerator?
I scanned the room for anything I could use to break the lock off with. I went back out front and gazed around.
“You okay, bud?” Baja asked.
I didn’t reply. I went over and grabbed the axe off his back.
“Just borrowing this for a sec.”
Back in the storage area I took a few sharp swings at the lock and it came off. I tossed the axe to one side and hesitated before opening. Maybe it was my imagination playing tricks on my mind or having seen one too many horror movies, but I was damn sure something was going to pop out.
“I’m pretty sure there’s no zombie midget inside there.”
I turned to find Jess leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, looking amused. I smirked before kicking the door handle and backed up. As it swung open I peered in and grimaced as a human head toppled out.
“I think I found the employee of the month.”
On the ground in front of us was a severed head. The skull was caved in, and still had a piece of the computer monitor embedded in one eye. Now, had that been the only thing inside I might have been somewhat depressed. It wasn’t. Above that on a separate shelf was a moldy sandwich and five cans of unopened Budweiser.
I swear, I got down on my knees and kissed the floor like it was hallowed ground.
“And you kiss me with those lips?” she said.
“Ah come on, you gotta admit, this is heavenly.” I scooped up the beers by the plastic ring. When we joined the others, Baja was on me faster than a whore on crack. I tossed a can to Dax, Izzy, and Specs and was in the process of taking a swig from my own when I looked at Garret. His eyes were open. He wasn’t looking any better but he had a slight curl to his lip. I walked over to him.
“Here, dude, I think you deserve some.”
I brought the beer can up to his lips.
He gulped some down but then coughed most of it out.
“Sorry, I’m gonna miss this.”
“Nah, you’re gonna make it. Hang in there, man,” I said.
He stifled a laugh.
“Look, um.” I paused, dropping my chin. “I’m sorry about going off on you back at the library.”
“No apologies needed.”
I nodded slowly, appreciative.
“Johnny, bring me the comms unit.”
I frowned. “You know how to work it?”
“They do teach us a few things in the secret society.” He let out another chuckle that ended up being more cough than laughter. I scrambled over to it and dragged it back. Before I handed it to him I asked him a question. “Can these people be trusted?”
“Did I at any point attempt to harm you?” he replied.
I studied him. Even if he were lying I probably wouldn’t have picked up on it.
“Tell me and be honest. You knew there wasn’t a cure at the CDC, didn’t you? That’s where you were when this thing kicked off. You went for this unit and those men were yours?”
He blinked hard, and tried to lean forward. Kat and I helped him.
“In the event that I lost contact with the president, my orders were to get his daughter to safety. This is the only way to reach NORAD.”
“Let me guess, the telephone number is 1-800-NORAD?” Baja said, strolling over swigging his beer like a boss. Garret smirked. I think even he was warming up to him. Which said a lot.
“That’s not your run-of-the-mill military comms unit though, is it?” Dax asked.
“And you would know?”
“Did four years in the Marines. I never saw anything like that.”
“It’s not rocket science, it’s easy to carry, lightweight, and does the job,” he replied.
It wasn’t a bulky unit. It couldn’t have been bigger than a tablet computer. Except it had a wireless earpiece that Garret jammed into his ear.
“If the power is out, how the hell’s that gonna work?” Dax asked.
“You want me to give you a technology lesson, or do you want to get the hell out of here?”
As Garret began fiddling with the device, it flashed on. The UI had the seal of the President of the United States. Garret tapped in what appeared to be a password.
Baja leaned closer. Garret looked up at him and Baja backed up.
“I knew it. I told you that’s some serious Area 51 shit. From the moment I laid eyes on it. Garret, before you die, is it true? Do we have downed UFOs from other planets?”
I tossed my empty can of Budweiser at him. “Dude.”
“What?” he replied as if he couldn’t see how utterly ridiculous he was acting.
“NORAD, this is Eagle One, come in.” Garret repeated himself three times. We watched curiously as they must have requested a code. It was numerical.
“6198320443888.”
How well did we know our government? So much of what they did was shrouded in secrecy. But with secrets came the need to lie. How long had they been lying about their use of biological weapons? What other weapons had they deployed that had been the cause of wars? I was all for protecting our country but to what extent?
Garret’s conversation didn’t last long. Most of it was short sound bites.
“That’s a negative,” Garret said. “Overrun. Yep.”
He nodded.
“Roger that.”
When the call ended he removed the earpiece.
“Twelve hours. There’ll be choppers at Salt Lake City Airport.”
I glanced at my watch; it was three thirty in the afternoon. That meant we would have to be there no later than three in the morning.
“Wouldn’t they use Hill Air Force Base?” Kat asked.
“It’s overrun. Plus it’s too far out of the city. The airport is only ten minutes from here.”
“Let’s move,” I said.
We tried to lift Garret up but he groaned in agony.
“Leave me here.”
“We’re not doing that,” Kat said.
“I’m not going to make it. It’s already begun.”
He coughed again hard.
“Then I’ll stay with you.”
“Don’t be stupid, go with them. Get on that chopper.”
“No. You didn’t leave me alone. I’m not leaving you here to die by yourself.”
Garret stared at her before glancing at us.
“It’s okay, we’ll stay for a while, you know, until…” I said.
* * *
A spark of ho
pe could be felt among us as darkness fell. Hours from now, in the early hours of the morning under the cover of night, we would slip out and make a dash for the Salt Lake City Airport. Choppers would be waiting to pick us up.
I was certain all of us were thinking about the same thing. What was it going to be like to be under the protection of the U.S. government? How bad could it be? If anyone was prepared to survive the worst, it was all the fat cats at the top. If Specs’s father had one hell of a supply in his underground shelter, how much more did the government? They had prime real estate, the best money could buy, and protection behind 25-ton blast doors in a granite mountain.
Kat sat with Garret for as long she could until he began to show signs that he was slipping away. Even then she held his hand muttering words we couldn’t hear. How strange it must have been to live out your life being followed by the Secret Service day in and day out. Having them watching over you as personal bodyguards. Ready at any moment to take a bullet or whisk you away to a safe location.
I thought about those we had met in our short time in the city. Benjamin Garcia and Elijah. Both were from opposite sides of the tracks and yet they still helped us. Neither of them wanted to leave. I was sure Benjamin would. How could one person cope under this strain alone? I looked at Baja, Specs, Izzy, Jess, and Dax and now Ralphie. As much as we got on each other’s nerves, we were family. A unit that moved together watching each other’s backs. And in what remained of society that meant everything. I was certain if we weren’t together, I would have lost my mind weeks ago.
Elijah, well, that was different. He was like us in many ways, tied to a group through association. Blood or not. Loyalty ran strong through any group that had been together a long time. The thought of staying in the city didn’t sit well with me. Could we have found a place to hunker down like Benjamin? Found enough resources in apartments, stores, and factories? Possibly. But what would it matter? Eventually we would run out of food, water, and ammo. Then what would we become? Animals?
We needed hope, we needed something to drive us to a better tomorrow. Even if it was built upon lies. Governed by rulers who had no clue what they were doing. Maybe they did? Maybe they were like us, just looking out for their own interests. Trying to protect the ones they loved at all costs. That I could I understand.
