by mike Evans
Shaun wiped at his forehead, walking to the front and the back twice in a row, listening and hearing the dead everywhere, and pleased that they had crashed after the end of the bridge. The RV shook as they fought to enter. The sound of scraping sheet metal was easy to hear, and the sound of the screws being ripped from it were easy to make out. Shaun was getting as much ammunition around him as possible and throwing bags filled with it from the farmhouse to everyone with an outstretched hand. “Fucking load up!”
Timmy ran up to the door on the ground, lifting it up. Everyone watched him in awe, trying to figure out what he was doing. Brandy smiled when she saw a manhole cover in the street below the RV. It was only the tip of it, but it was enough to be blatantly clear that was exactly where they needed to go. She ran up, lifting him out of the way and getting her thoughts about her before she just started blabbering. “Oh, Timmy, you are an absolute genius.” She kissed him on the head, squeezing him until he squealed from the pressure.
Shaun saw the manhole and realized they were still about three feet from having a hope of lifting it off. He wasted no time running to the bedroom where their supplies were. He did his best to not step on the broken jars which were in no short supply. The smell of fruit made its way throughout the entire RV. “We need to get this thing to move a few feet, or we need to get the space cleared so we can climb down.”
“How are we supposed to get this thing to move, Shaun? I'm sure you’ve got to know how much it weighs, and the fact that we are inside of it does very little to help,” Jay tried to explain.
“You want to die, or you want to get out of this stupid thing? We get in that sewer and close it, and we have a lot better chance of getting away. I don’t know if it is any safer, but I can only assume it is going to be better than what we are up against. The dead don’t get bored, and they won’t leave while we are in here,” Shaun said.
Unanimously, the rest of the group said, “We’ll take the sewer tunnels!”
Shaun found a crowbar, looking at the spot where the hole’s cover was just beginning to show. He ran back, looking at the cover and fitting in the tip of the crowbar so that, with assistance, he would have the strength needed to move it. “All right, we aren’t coming back. Anything you can carry, you need to stick in a bag. Look through that food, see if there’s anything that can be salvaged. There might be some jars that didn’t break. Otherwise get the MREs. We are going to need something to eat.”
“We need to get out of here,” Talon said.
“Right, and when we are out, and we get safe, we are going to need to eat. There’s no reason to leave it here for those things to crush and ruin, is there? Get every bullet you can carry while still being able to hike a good ways. I want to stay down there for a few miles. Hopefully there’s enough shit going on that all those dead are going to be paying attention to that, and not know or think to look in the tunnels for us.”
They spent the next five minutes gathering. When they had all the gear that they could fit in their bags, everyone stared at Shaun. “The next part isn’t going to come off like a good idea.”
Shaun pulled out his knife, knowing it had never touched The Turned’s skin before. He ran it long ways across his arm as deep as he dared to, praying it would not need stitches. The rest of the group stared in shock. “What the hell are you doing?” Ben asked.
Shaun replied through gritted teeth as he wrapped an extra shirt around it. “I'm giving them a reason to go crazy.”
Shaun took the crowbar and ran it through the end of the RV. He put his bloody rag up next to the hole and the result was music to his ears. The dead began to ram into the back of it. Each of them was fighting to be first. The pounding on the roof stopped for a second and the force with which they hit the RV with made them lose their balance. When Shaun could see the full manhole cover, he let go of the bloody rag. The pounding stopped, and growling and clawing could be heard outside. He knew that there was currently a serious fight taking place out there. He tossed the crowbar to Talon, who put it in the hole, prying it up to where the other two boys could help him get it off.
Just as they were about to roll it to the side, Brandy yelled, “Don’t drop it. We need to get in there and put it back where it was, or those things will just follow us when they can. We don’t want that, you know that, and so do I.”
Talon didn’t respond, he knew she was right. Jay flicked on a flashlight and did the sign of the cross, sliding in. The pounding on the roof began and the sheet metal was beginning to buckle. Ben went next, and when there were no screams coming, Shaun figured it must’ve been somewhat safe. He lowered Timmy down into the hole until he could be caught by the boys.
Brady said, “You guys sure about this?”
Shaun was going to answer when arms punched through the weakened metal. “You can stay if you want to, Brady, but I think it’s as good an option as any right now.”
One of The Turned stuck their head through after prying back the metal, and daylight shone through. Shaun pulled his pistol, not thinking twice. When it stuck its head through, he pulled the trigger twice, decimating its face. Brady didn’t need any other words to make him go in.
Brandy looked to Shaun, and he motioned with a nod of his head to go in. Talon was holding it up for everyone and Shaun let her and Brady get down there before he worried about it. The dead that lay in the hole dripped blackened sludge down into the RV. Shaun watched as the body began to shake. It was pulled with such force that what was left was ripped from its place, letting half of its face fall into the hole.
More of the dead’s faces appeared and Shaun repeated the process. Hands started coming in and pulling the sheet metal and RV frame back. Shaun ran for the hole, dropping the gear bags down one at a time as quickly as he could. He took the manhole cover, letting Talon drop down.
Talon yelled, “We’re good, come on!”
Shaun didn’t need any more motivation than the dead that were falling through the hole. He dropped down, letting the crowbar fall free with him. He gripped onto the ladder with one hand, feeling like his shoulder was going to be torn from its socket. He hit hard, grunting against the ladder before getting a foot back on it and climbing down slowly. The manhole cover above shook, but there was nothing the dead could do. Pounding began on the pavement above, but it was not enough to make getting through possible. The small group took the flashlights back and forth, trying to determine which way to head.
Shaun pointed the way that they had been driving. “We don’t want to back track, we hit the bridge, we run out of room to go any further.”
They listened to the sounds of metal being crunched. The RV was being torn apart. Shaun walked slowly, attaching the flashlight to the end of his gun. He took it back and forth, unsure what he should be doing. The fact that there was a horde most likely the size of an entire city broke his heart. He would have loved to have Clary here. He knew that even with minimal time, the son of a bitch would have had no issues at all pulling off something amazing and sending all of those things to hell where they belonged.
The fact that he didn’t have any of the materials he needed to make anything wonderful had left them vulnerable in more than one case so far. He thought to himself that if there was a military or police station anywhere close, that going by it to see if there were any supplies of use might not be a bad thing. He realized there was a good chance after a year that the two options were that: only the dead occupied it, or the humans had locked it down and were waiting for a safer time to try to leave, but until then we aren’t going anywhere. The second one seemed more nerve wrecking for the simple fact that they were going to be the others that had come to their base.
He wondered if there would be a chance where he could speak to someone without being fired upon first. Ben’s group had given him hope, although he’d more than had his chance to prove himself by taking out all the dead from the town, leaving little question if he was one of the good or the bad.
“The sewer smells like
poop,” Timmy said, his voice echoing down the tunnel, which seemed to go forever.
“It’s okay, it’s better than being up there with all the dead,” Ben said, patting the little boy’s back. He let everyone go ahead of him, then suddenly screamed as a shot of pain ripped through his body. “Son of a bitch! Ow!”
Everyone shone the light on him and watched as a rat ran off into the distance with a piece of skin and jeans hanging down from its mouth. Shaun ran up to him raising the leg of his pants and looking at it. “That’s going to get nasty if we don’t do something about it. Are you all right? Is that the only bite?”
“Christ, do I need any more bites? That hurt like-”
“Like a rat bit you?” Brady said cutting him off.
Shaun put a piece of gauze up against the cut and wrapped it tight with some ace bandage. “Leave that on there, I’m sure it’ll be okay. Maybe we can hit a drugstore and get some rabies medicine or something. I don’t think it’d hurt to get some first aid supplies, or at least something better than ace bandages and Band-Aids. We need to be able to fight off stupid things like infection and disease.”
“Whatever, just kill any of those things if you see them. That hurt like a fucker.”
They started down the path, not sure what they were hearing, the noise of screeching echoed towards them. They kept close to the edge of the wall, and when they went to turn, they saw exactly what the noise was. Shaun saw at minimum a thousand rats, some eating each other, and those who weren’t eating became the meals—against their choice, of course.
“Fuck—run! Run, go that way! Go that way, now!” Shaun yelled.
Brandy didn’t want to know but had to ask. “What is it Shaun?”
“You want to live, get your asses moving, now!”
She ran past as the sound of the chewing stopped and the rats began to realize that there was a much larger meal in front of them. The sound of their nails echoed off the concrete tunnel as they started racing for the group. Shaun had seen rats in his dad’s lab run before, and these rats were not like others that he had ever encountered. The ones in the lab that had eaten the others were now making their way into his thought process, and horrible things were lining up one after another and it was not a pleasant thought.
“They’re infected!! Go, go, go, go!” Shaun ordered, screaming at the top of his lungs.
When they started making their way towards them, Shaun fired off an entire magazine at the rats. He realized he might as well be using a bb gun—he would make no dent in them whatsoever. They were too small a target. He felt his pockets, finding his very last grenade, wishing that he could hold onto it, because he never knew if this would be the worst that they would have it. Shaun did not want to have to worry about a thousand of these things racing behind them, for he knew at some point, they would catch up to them.
He let everyone get a head start. Ben was in the rear, hobbling the best that he could. Shaun replaced the magazine, not wanting to be running with an empty gun. Clary and Aslin’s screams during training had carved that into his mind. He waited until he could just barely see the group before pulling the pin on the grenade. He let go of it and knelt, rolling it to the edge of the small path that ran down the tunnel where they had been feasting on their brothers and sisters. Shaun wasted no time once he saw that it was where he’d wanted it, not that there would have been shit he could have done to fix the grenade’s path once it left his fingertips.
He got up off the ground, tripping at first, counting in his head. He got back up, running on all fours until he was able to move again at full speed. Shaun started pumping his arms. The rifle was clanking against the rear of his head. He was thinking of his high power rifles and how much other gear that he’d had to leave in the RV. He knew that he was going to regret that, but at this very minute, the fact that he was probably thirty or forty pounds lighter not carrying both ammunition and the weight of the gun was something that he should probably be thankful for at the moment.
When the count was over, nothing happened. He stopped running, letting the pressure off his ears and spun around, trying to see what was happening. The blast went off and his hearing instantly vanished. The deafening boom of the grenade rattled the walls, and Shaun’s head felt like someone had sucked all the air out of it. His vision went blurry, and he stumbled to a knee.
He shut his eyes and opened them repeatedly, but it did no good. He looked behind him, trying to see if he had done what he’d been trying to, but at the moment could not focus on what it was that had been his end goal. Two arms went around his biceps, lifting him up.
Brandy was in his face yelling something, but the words made no sense. He had never felt this disoriented, healthy or sick. Brandy screamed to Brady and Talon, “Come on, let’s get him out of here!”
The group began running again. Ben was in the front, doing a piss poor job of leading the way with his limp. They went for twenty minutes before Shaun seemed to snap out of it. His ears were still ringing, and he associated that with how his head felt, as it felt like drums were going off inside his skull. He pulled his arms back from them, taking a minute to breathe, holding up his finger to wait.
Shaun turned around, looking to see if the rats were coming. He screamed, “Can you hear the rats? I can’t hear anything.”
They listened and shrugged, shaking their head no. He hit the light on his rifle, looking down the long tunnel and to his pleasure, saw nothing. He gave them a thumbs up and tried his best to pop his ears but they were still far from allowing that to happen.
Jay yelled for Ben and Timmy to stop, but they were now getting too far away. Timmy finally heard him and pulled Ben’s shirt, getting his attention to stop. He turned around, looking confused, and only Shaun saw it. He had a reason for it, but Ben didn’t, and he was already trying to aim his rifle.
When Talon saw him, he thought that he was still out of it. He took the gun, lifting it up as Shaun pulled the trigger. The others hadn't seen what happened and ducked when the gunfire erupted through the tunnel.
“What the hell are you doing, Shaun? Christ, you could have hit someone!” Talon said.
Shaun didn’t hear a thing, he screamed as loud as he could. “You need to get Timmy! Ben is infected!”
Talon let go of the rifle and took off in a sprint, as did Brady, leaving Shaun leaning against the wall feeling worthless. He watched the scene take place and felt like it was in slow motion. Talon sprinted for Timmy, who was looking at him as if something was wrong but was unsure what it was. His cousin’s face was scaring him. Talon was waving him away, but he sounded like he was delirious.
Ben tried to speak, but it came out as garble. He went to a knee, putting a hand on Timmy’s shoulder, and then fell into the water, which was as black as night.
Talon picked up Timmy in a hug and tossed him down and yelled, “Run! Run back to Brandy! Go. Go now.” He slapped the boy on the ass and he took off like a horse at the track. Talon pulled his pistol, looking over the edge. No air bubbles were surfacing, and he looked back to the others. He smiled when Timmy jumped into Brandy’s arms. He’d let himself feel bad later about slapping him, but it was for his own good and survival.
Shaun screamed, “No!” from his spot as a raging Ben came from out of the dark waters. He knew that it was already over before it got started.
Ben gripped onto Talon’s rifle strap, pulling him off balance and to the ground. He held the giant red haired boy in place and buried his face into his neck. Talon screamed and his legs and arms flailed, but there was nothing he could do to save himself. The best he could do now was to put a bullet in his head.
Talon tried freeing himself, and after Ben had a mouthful of flesh, he finally came up for air. A strip of skin hung from his mouth like Shaun had never seen before. Shaun rested his head against the wall for only a second, trying to push himself past his breaking point like he’d done time and time again.
Brandy held Timmy into her chest, trying to keep him from seeing the
worst things imaginable. Talon lay on the ground, spasming as the blood came from his neck. He tried to hold a hand to it but Ben came back, gripping his wrist and ripping his finger off. Talon screamed again and with his good hand, punched Ben in the face sending him back a few feet. He rolled away out of his reach.
Shaun staggered down the tunnel, bouncing off the wall, doing his best not to fall in the water himself. Talon sat up, holding his bleeding hand to his chest and holding his neck with his good hand. Shaun let off a blast of gunfire, practically decapitating Ben, who flew back in the water.
Talon held up his good hand pleading. “Don’t, Shaun, please… I’ll be okay, please, don’t do it.”
Shaun could feel a fire in his chest building. It was something that he prayed over time would ice over and he would no longer feel. He’d been forced to put too many good people down, and had seen too goddamn many lost.
Shaun shouldered his rifle, holding up his hands. Talon looked relieved, smiling as the blood dripped out of his mouth. Shaun looked over his shoulder. Brandy and Timmy were still not looking, they could not bear it. Shaun pulled his pistol in one fluid movement, pulling back the hammer. “I'm sorry, Talon, it’s for the best.”
