This brings me back to my point of encounters that leave you bewildered and baffled. What the hell happened to him? How the hell did this, maybe salesman, end up as an infected laying in a doctors hallway with fuckin' broken legs? Who knows.
Maybe he was an early infected, before the sudden fast killing fever. Maybe the fever occurred while he was here waiting to be seen. Little was known at the start of it all. He turns, he attacks. Perhaps he bit a few. Maybe someone didn't want to "kill" him and broke his legs to immobilize him. Best story I can come up with.
A crack of thunder from out of nowhere made us all, silently, jump out of our skins. I looked at the Stagnants face, expected it to have it's eyes locked on us. It didn't. Quiet sigh of relief.
We had to kill this bastard before it could call out to others. The dilemma...best way to go about said task.
Option 1: I could slowly approach it and deliver a hit to the skull as soon as I was in range. But what if there was a creak in the floor? What if it was alerted before I could finish the distance between us?
Option 2: I could just rush the son of a bitch. Rush down the hall and crush it's skull before it even had a chance to even register that I'm food. I wanted to turn around and discuss it in hushed tones...but I was too worried about even whispers alerting the thing.
After they took their turn looking down the hallway, they gave me a look of wanting to retreat. Tim shook his head. Reggie mouthed "let's get the fuck out of here!" I shook my head. Much to his dismay.
Now or never. Slow going I decided was the wrong choice. Another crack of thunder could come at any moment and alert this thing to our existence.
I rushed into the hall. I heard an audible, but low gasp from Reggie. Within a few fast bounding steps I was in distance...it's eyes flashed open, head began to turn and look upward at me before I brought the bar down as hard as I could against it's skull. A sickening crunch. Spray of blackish blood against the wall and part of my arm. I shone my light down and observed a gaping wound on the back of it's skull.
I didn't feel ill this time. No want to run and wretch. Perhaps that was a one time deal. It's hard, and scary, to think about getting used to this. To this being everyday life now. Part of the norm. The new norm in a dark, harsh world.
Behind me I heard Reggie utter the words "you're fuckin' insane." Well, we couldn't just leave I reasoned. We came here to find Ken. His truck was outside and for all we knew he was in one of these patient rooms.
Reggie and Tim seemed to tiptoe into the hall. On Reggie's left was a door. I motioned at it. I made a knocking motion, because I knew he wasn't about to open it.
He lightly tapped on the door with a finger. Then a little harder.
No sounds within.
I turned around and peered at the door to the right of me feet away. I decided to make a few light knocks myself.
Silence.
I opened it with care and shone light into the room. Empty. There was blood smeared on the floor. A foul odor emitting. I closed the door and moved down the hall, stepping around the body I had just bludgeoned.
I approached the door Reggie knocked on and turned the knob, gently pushing the door open. Empty as well. No blood this time, no smell of decay. Seemingly untouched as if awaiting a new patient.
Fuck.
***
Outside, in the Sky Lanes parking lot, we spoke in hushed tones about the bowling alley. Inside the doctors office there had been one infected. How many potentially were in the alley? The double glass doors were intact. That could have been a good sign. I opened the door and leaned partially inside. No sound of any movement. So sight of any movement. No smell of death. All very promising signs. It's only been a month and change I reminded myself...and what's to really loot in a bowling alley aside from some food. Maybe this place hasn't been touched.
I looked at them both. Tim was scared but ready. And Reggie, well...you know. Another look that screamed "FUCK!"
I went in. I held the door, Reggie held it open for Tim who took the rear. Again, our eyes needed to adjust more. I wanted to make sure we all could see clearly before cutting the dark with beams of light. Far ahead were the lanes. Before us the railing to a staircase...the stairs on the other side ahead, descending down before us into the dark like an ominous pit. It occurred to me then that I had zero clue what was down there....I never took the stairs. Right then those stairs were the scariest thing in the whole place to me. I leaned over the railing and clicked my light on, shining it down. Nothing alerted so I eased up a bit.
I walked forward past the bar to my left. Tim and I would sit there years before drinking pop and eating nachos with cheese. I wonder if Tim had been thinking about that.
Tim walked behind me....his machete held out to the right of him, ready to easily swing at a moments notice. In the dimly lit area, neither he not I had noticed a glass mug sitting on the wooded flat railing.
His machete clanked against it and sent it spiraling, some form of drink whirling out, down into the dark stairwell, where it clanked and shattered on the stairs.
I tensed up, frozen in fear and anticipation. We all did. I could hear Reggie's nervous shuffle. I knew at ant moment we'd hear a Dead Call....it would echo throughout this large room of lanes. Or maybe we were about to be rushed at full sprint from a pack of Bolters. Would there be enough time to get back outside...to get to the vehicle? Could we fight a small number off and survive? Could we.....
But nothing exploded from the darkness. There was no Dead Call to signal our horrible, bloody demise. No sound of a crawling or struggling Stagnant. It was empty. When the mug fell and shattered, the thought I had between my fear, was to turn and slap the ever loving shit out of him before we all got fuckin' slaughtered. Now I could easily hug him just from such a huge relief.
On the plus side, we didn't have to lightfoot around as much now...we could explore a little less tensely. Not recklessly....just with some ease.
***
It was eerie to stand before the quiet lanes in front of us. Another relic of a dead world. Last month, early on, people were still here. Playing games and drinking and gathering. Kids on the arcades. Teens gossiping at the bar while gorging on snacks. This place, and many like it, would never experience such times again.
No, places like this would end up being shelters for the lost. Maybe permanent homes would be made of some. Bedrooms in back storage rooms. Boxes and crates of supplies lining the once busy lanes.
Made me wonder where we would end up. How long would we be at Ken's home? It was good for now, but we'd need to find more people. Decent people we could join with. Right now we were vulnerable. We could only hope we didn't have any longterm issues. Maybe we could keep the house hidden away for months longer. It's hidden well because of the trees, but soon it would be fall and the trees would lose their cover....as would we...visible easily then from the road. We needed to start thinking of ways to safeguard the property in advance before the first leaves started to brown.
Who knows....someday we may end up in a place just like this as how I described it.
***
I sat at last the stool at the end of the bar and sighed. There was a note there on a small index card.
Take what you need.
I could only assume it had been left by an owner...a true Samaritan. I stood and leaned over the bar. On the floor six pack cases of water bottles. One package was cut open with four bottles taken. Either it was placed that way from whomever set it out or someone had taken them. Why not take a whole pack? Or all the packs?
Just then the glass doors behind us opened. I leapt from the stool turning as the others did. On instinct I reached and pulled my pistol. I knew an infected didn't open a damn door.
A boy. Preteen...maybe teen. He approached with his head down, oblivious to the fact we were there. He was obviously comfortable here...he knew the place was empty and clear of the dead.
I saw the straps on his shoulders to the backpack he wore. His clothing was dirty
and slightly ragged. He wore a Cleveland Cavaliers cap and a plain white shirt. His jean were torn at the knees, black shoes with mud stains.
Was he living here? Was he alone? It was very apparent he was....how long had he been on his own I wondered.
I lowered my gun. Reggie and Tim eased as well. The boy looked up when he was mere feet away, likely sensing a presence. His face went white and his jaw fell. Not that I blamed him....in his shoes I'm not sure what I would have done. I most likely would have guessed us bad people and tried to make a break for the doors. He didn't however. He froze completely, and had a look like "this is it."
As Recorded:
"it's okay!" I had said. "We're not going to hurt you, I swear. We were looking for a missing person. We're not bad people."
[The boy eyed my gun and the others brandishing their weapons]
"You scared us, that's all." I said.
[I holster weapon]
"My name is Jack," I continued. "This is my friend Reggie and my cousin Tim."
"I'm Ben." the boy responded.
[At this point I stepped between Reggie and Tim and offered my hand]
"You don't have to shake it if you don't think you can trust us. I hate to leave you here if you're alone, you should be with people...we will leave you be and never come back if that's what you want."
[Slowly he reached and shook my hand lightly and drew his hand back a second later.]
"I've been staying here about a week and a half," he said. "There was no one here and none of those things. Took me awhile to figure that out slowly."
"Brave boy, you are," Reggie said. "Braver than I am anyway."
"Outside," Tim interjected. "The truck there in the parking lot....did you see the man?"
"Tall man? Little bigger and balding?" Ben asked.
"Yes!"
"Yeah, he scared me," Ben said. "I thought he was going to come in here. I was over by the lanes getting ready to run and hide. He went to the offices nextdoor instead. I heard glass shatter at their door. After that there was that awful sound....the ones they make...you know what I'm talking about?"
[stomach sank]
"We do."
"Well," Ben went on. "I heard him run down the stairs where the lower parking lot is. I saw some of the fast ones starting to come from the field across the street over there."
[He pointed]
"He the missing person?" Ben asked.
"Yeah, my Uncle. Tim's father." I replied.
"I'm sorry."
"Was that it? All you saw and heard?" Tim asked, a pleading to his tone.
[The boy didn't appear to want to answer. That only confirmed bad news for us all]
"It's alright. Go ahead." I urged.
"I heard some screams in the lower lot down there," Ben continued. "They didn't last long. After a few hours, before it got too dark, I went outside and looked around. I was scared of course....why I went out I donno. Trying to make myself not be scared I guess. In the middle of the lot I saw him. I'm sorry."
"Dead...or dead?" Reggie asked with reluctance.
"He was standing there...kinda like, sniffing the air I guess you'd say," Ben said, now avoiding eye contact.
[Tim walked over to the lanes to let his emotions out. Reggie went to be with him.]
There's food and water here, you know that obviously. Why are you going outside?
I don't go far. There's a few houses nearby. I thought I would find a gun, maybe. Also, just to look around from different points of view. I haven't seen a lot of them lately. They come through though. I had to stay in one of the houses all night once.
Why?
A lot of them! I donno where the heck they came from, but....there had to be over a hundred, maybe more. They walked down the street in this large ass...sorry. This large group. It was really scary.
They must just migrate around a lot. We call those ones....the ones that walk around in groups...Roamers.
And those little groups that run around?
Bolters. We've never seen them in very large packs. The ones that are really slow that are in bad shape...we just call those bastards Shamblers. Easy enough to walk right past if it wasn't for the Dead Calls.
The what?
Oh, yeah. That's what we call the horrible sounds they shriek out.
Oh...yeah! Those sounds are the worst. They've woke me up many times. Can't go back to sleep when they do. Any other term I should know about, mister?
Well, for starters you can drop the term mister. [Boy laughs] The only other one we have is the Stagnants. Those are the ones that have either been injured to the point they can't walk or they haven't eaten enough to slow down their decaying process. They'll get weak and stop walking. Wait for food to come to them. Dangerous.
Yeah. I haven't seen any of them or of the...Shamblers? None of those either. Just the...Bolters and...Roamers. I'll remember.
You said you were looking for a gun...do you even know how to shoot?
Yes. I used to target shoot with my old man.
....Can I ask where your parents are?
They're dead. But...I don't want to talk about that right now.
Of course. That's absolutely fine. Do you want to come with us?
Yes. I'm scared...but I'm more afraid of being here alone.
I understand. Well, you don't need to be afraid. Not of us anyway. But bad people could come through here...it's not safe. Any questions you have go ahead and ask.
[Thunder audible]
Well, where do you guys live?
We're staying at my Uncle's house. It's out in the country outside of Hiram. Two story home. Pretty well hidden from the road at a glance. Lots of trees around it. And fields.
Anyone else there?
Two people. My friend Jim and his wife, Kelly.
You always live there?
No, I used to spend my summers there though, when I was about your age...how old are you, anyway?
Thirteen.
Okay. Anyways, my friend Reggie and the two at the house and myself are from Akron. We just made our way out of the city yesterday to find my Uncle and Cousin's house.
What was the city like....I mean, with all this that's happened?
Dangerous. Scary. On edge. We got lucky, though. The area we were in didn't see too much violence. Some looters, some infected, but not in huge numbers. They were in the inner city areas. It was only a matter of time though before they'd start spreading out and pouring into the area. Staying would have been a death trap.
Lose people?
Yeah. Lost some people. Lost good neighbors. And one not so good one.
Okay, I'll go with you guys.
Okay. I promise you're safe with us. I know that means little, but you'll see for yourself.
Thank you....I really am grateful...but you're still, you know, strangers.
Of course. As I said, choice is all yours.
I know. I'm coming with you....how long would I last out here, anyway?
End of Recording.
***
The storm moved in closer. Tim insisted on driving around town just for at least ten minutes to see if they could spot Ken. Understandably he didn't want to leave his father walking around in that state. As some dead creature feeding on people and animals.
The sun was getting low and the sky darker by the minute. Reluctantly we agreed. But only for ten minutes. Being out in a storm, of which the severity of it unknown to us, in the dark was asking for a disaster. There was the chance Ken had wandered into other....I hate to refer to my deceased Uncle this way...but other Bolters. I hated the fuckin' thought of him as one of those fearful predators, giving chase to whom or whatever with others along side him.
We carefully made sure the immediate area was clear, peering from behind walls around the staircase outside.
As I opened my door and slid into the seat, sprinkles of water began to dot the windshield. Only ten minutes. I wouldn't risk any longer than that, even if he pleaded with me. We could always come
back and look around tomorrow if we didn't find him.
I backed us up and then forward, swinging around and heading toward the main road where I made a right to head back into downtown. At least it's a small place. Ten minutes would cover downtown but not the outskirts.
Passing the Roller Hutt the sprinkles began to get heavier. We shortly arrived back at the Mill where we basically began, staring down the hill. The Roamer we witnessed in the road earlier was gone now. Hesitantly I pressed my foot down lightly and sent us slowly down the hill. I stopped at the intersection out of pure instinct as if to wait for a green light. The lights hung in a back and forth wind that was picking up. I moved us into the middle of the intersection to look in all four directions.
The Dead Lands Diary (Book 1) Page 6
