by D. J. Molles
“I don’t think he’s kidding,” Shelley said.
Lee retched, a lumpy, yellow liquid that tasted of bile and fish. He pitched forward, tried to think about what he was doing. Tried to keep control of himself. He swiped his hands up, pulling the collar free of the dog just as the vomit reached his lips and purged out.
Kev recoiled as the vomit splashed the floor of the van. “Don’t you fuckin’ puke on me!” The muzzle of the rifle swept up, pointing at the ceiling.
And Lee saw it like a door exploding open in a dark room, nothing but daylight beyond.
His way out. His opportunity.
Do or die time.
Moving towards the open side door of the van, in mid-heave, he turned and drove straight into Kev’s body with everything he had, slamming his bound hands into Kev’s throat, even as he retched again, spilling vomit across Kev’s chest. Lee’s fingers latched onto the man’s larynx and bore down with everything he had. He could feel the thin bones snapping under his fingers, the nails digging into the skin. Kev’s eyes stared back, his jaw locked open in a silent, gagging scream as his windpipe gave under the pressure. Lee growled, strained with the effort, his teeth clenched, yellow froth bubbling madly from between them. He ripped his hands back and forth as though trying to tear Kev’s throat out, felt things moving in there that shouldn’t have been moving.
At first Kev’s hands flew to his neck, trying to claw Lee’s fingers from his windpipe. Lee felt Kev’s rifle clatter to the ground, useless when the combatants were so close together. He could also hear Shelley screaming, and from the peripheral of his vision, Lee could see her moving about rapidly, reaching for something. Then Kev torqued his body, slamming an elbow across Lee’s face and knocking him sideways.
Black and white like an ink-blot test.
Then the ceiling of the van, with purplish sparkles at the edges of his vision.
The weight of Kev clambering wildly to get on top of him. Lee kicked with his knees, tried to get them between his body and Kev’s. Kev slammed something into Lee’s midsection, driving the air out of his lungs.
Shelley, coming into view, trying to point a pistol at Lee’s head, yelling something.
But Lee was already in motion, the decision was made, the actions taken. There would be no stopping now. Not for anything.
He reached up, grabbed the pistol that stared at him, his bound wrists forcing his arms to work in tandem. He shoved the pistol up and away from him, tried to wrestle it out of Shelley’s grip, but a big hand swept across Lee’s vision, knocking the pistol out of Lee’s hand before he could get it from Shelley. It flew out of Lee’s sight, crashing somewhere in the front area of the vehicle.
Kev was still trying to get on top of him, his arms swinging in wild body blows that grew weaker with each repetition, all the oxygen burning up in Kev’s muscles, and his lungs not getting anything new passed his crushed throat. Lee had one knee between him and Kev, straining to heave the bulk of the man off of him. Kev stared down at him, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his face puffy and strange, his throat misshapen. He tried to rear back for another blow but then toppled.
“Kev!” Shelley screamed.
Lee pushed out with his leg, shoving Kev’s nearly-unconscious body off of him. He tried to roll into a better position, but Shelley tumbled into the back, her fists glancing off of Lee’s head, skinning his face as she made insane sounds and kept screaming. Lee reached up, hooked his bound wrists behind her head and pulled her down into his chest to keep her from hitting him anymore. She writhed against him in that position, clawing at his arms, his face, his neck. White-hot pain through the left side of his chest as she bit into his skin and tore her head back and forth like a wild animal.
Lee cried out in pain, kicked with his feet to rid them of the weight of Kev’s body, then rolled, desperately twisting his body until he was on top and Shelley was below him on her back. He arched his back, driving his head into her stomach, then pulled his head up and slammed it into her again. She cried out, but still fought, punching and kicking at him, but unable to move with her body pinned to the ground by Lee’s head. He had his body bridged over her so that all of his weight was directed into her midsection. Lee pulled himself off of her just long enough to throw everything he had into a knee strike that hit the top of her skull. Whether or not it had stunned her, or whether or not she would have kept fighting after that point, Lee didn’t know. He didn’t wait to find out. He kept driving that knee into her head. Felt the skull crack on the fourth or fifth blow. Kept going until he registered that she wasn’t moving anymore.
He rolled off of her, the fatigue hitting him in a single, crashing wave. His muscles burned, his lungs heaved, trying to suck every last bit of oxygen out of the air. His mouth tasted of blood and vomit. His face ached, his already broken nose bleeding again, dripping on the dirty white floor of the van’s cargo hold. He looked at Shelley, saw her eyelids fluttering, though her body was limp. Maybe still alive. Or maybe just peripheral nerves firing off randomly.
He realized that Deuce was still barking.
He twisted, looked to the back of the van. Deuce was poised on the tailgate, staring out at the street and barking his head off, his tail lowered along his legs, his ears erect and wary. He paused from his barking just long enough to look back at Lee as though to say, I know you can hear me!
“Fuck!” Lee lurched onto his hands and knees, found himself weak and wobbly. He spat, saw blood in his saliva, along with bits of tuna and whatever else he’d voided from his stomach. The adrenaline masked much of the pain and the sickness he’d felt, but that would wear off, and he knew the hurt was coming.
He needed antibiotics. At least some fever medication. Some water. He needed to get out of the van before Shumate and James and the Quiet Man came back. Surely they’d heard the commotion. At the very least they’d heard Shelley’s screams. Lee needed to get out of here. He needed a weapon. Where were the infected that Deuce was barking about? He needed to run. To find someplace to hide…
Slow it down!
Compartmentalize.
He took a shaky breath.
First thing was first: he needed a gun. The only gun that was immediately available was Kev’s rifle, and he couldn’t handle that with his hands bound together. One of them had to have a knife. He began rifling through their pockets and belts, looking up quickly to glance out the back for infected, or out the side for Shumate and his crew to come running.
He found his own KABAR attached to the back of Kev’s belt, along with his sheath. He removed it from Kev’s belt, then slid his KABAR out. He jammed the handle between his knees and began working at the bindings on his wrists. Even after all the abuse, the blade was still sharp and after an agonizing twenty seconds, his wrists were finally free.
He spent no time working life back into them or rubbing the angry red bands that glared at him. They stung like he wore gloves filled with needles, but he knew that would pass. He sheathed the knife and shoved it into his pocket. Then he reached across Kev’s body, took the M4, checked the mag, checked the chamber—locked and loaded. He grabbed an extra magazine and looked to the front of the van, thinking, damn, maybe I can just drive out of here…
“Holy shit!”
He heard the words coming from outside, and knew without having to look that they were back. He flattened himself against the inside of the van, trying not to be seen. Too late. Gunshots cracked the cold air, punching holes clean through the van—in one side and out the other.
Lee dove for the back end, the catastrophic noise causing Deuce to bolt out ahead of him. Lee hit the tailgate on his stomach, rolled, and fell to the concrete on his back. He scrambled to his feet, and though he couldn’t see them through the van, pointed his rifle in their general direction and let loose a volley that shredded through the taillights and caused shouts of alarm on the other side.
Lee took his chance and turned to run.
Deuce stood in the street, still barking incessantly, t
he hackles along his spine raised up.
Down the street about three blocks, a mass of filthy humanity spilled around the corner of a brownstone building, a horde of naked, barefooted wretches, screeching, grunting, and sprinting for them at breakneck speed.
CHAPTER 14: CLARITY
Lee ran. His boots slammed pavement, jarring his legs, but every ache in his body suddenly evaporated. All superfluous messages to his brain were filtered and discarded, his mind singular: Get away. Get away from Shumate, and get away from the infected.
Barreling across the street, hunched over and hoping that the van still blocked him from Shumate’s view, he looked at a wall of glass and wood. Store front windows. Most of them boarded up. Some of them broken in, but not enough to get through without getting cut. And jumping through a plate glass window looked great in the movies, but would slice you up bad in real life.
He pivoted for a door—an old, brown wooden thing that seemed flimsy enough that it wouldn’t give much of a fight. He lowered his shoulder on the approach and didn’t slow down. There was no time to slow down. No time for hesitation.
He went through the door in a cloud of splinters, sprawled out in the middle of a narrow hallway. White tiles with little black accents, worn smooth by passing feet. His body hurt blindingly for a flash, mainly in his chest and shoulders, but it almost immediately abated to a dull ache. He scrambled to his feet, took a glance behind him and found Deuce slipping through the door.
To either side of him were waist-high platforms where antique furniture and other useless trash was displayed in ornamental fashion for window shoppers. Lee dove for a wooden chair. It felt creaky and ancient in his hands, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He kicked the door shut and jammed the back of the old chair under the loose doorknob.
He turned. Found himself in nearly complete darkness.
Outside, there was a horrid sound building to a roar. The sound of hundreds of infected, screeching, barking, yapping at each other. There were human shouts amid the noise, the shouts of Shumate and James and the Quiet Man, and the rapid pop-pop-pop of gunshots.
Lee shuffled his feet down the hall, his right hand gripping the rifle and pulling it into his shoulder, the left extended out in front of him like a blind man. His vision adjusted slowly, and from the spears of light coming in through cracks in the boarded windows, Lee could just make out the interior of the shop.
It smelled of cedar chests and pine furniture and old fabric passed down through generations. Musty old clutter in dark towers to his left and right, strangely shaped and ominous in the dark. He realized he was breathing rapidly with his mouth open. He closed it. The bile in his mouth had dried to a sickening paste. He spat, tried to clear his arid throat.
Find a safe place. That’s what you need to do. Find a safe place.
Behind him the front door of the shop banged loudly, as though an irate customer was demanding entry. He swiveled, pointing the rifle at the door. He could hear the commotion outside, but the bang was not repeated and it did not seem that anything was pressing to get in. Perhaps Shumate and his crew had distracted the horde long enough for Lee to get away.
Lee prayed to God for that to be the case.
Because God knows that chair ain’t gonna last.
He forced himself to turn around again, face the dark. He kept moving forward, not sure what he was looking for. A door perhaps. One that led to a basement. Or better yet, an upper level. He tried to think if the building was two-story, tried to recall what it had looked like when he’d run towards it, but he’d been focused on the door. Architectural details had escaped him.
“Come on, Deuce,” Lee said, for no more reason than to put a voice into the darkness. He could hear the clicking of the dog’s claws on the tile floor beside him. The dog whined and growled intermittently, not wanting to go further into the shop, but not wanting to go back the way they came either.
Lee found the cashier’s counter, stepped behind it into an even darker room. Tested the walls. Found a door. He stood at the door for a moment, trying to listen, but the noise from outside was too loud for him to hear if anything was moving beyond the door. Finally he took a step back, raised his rifle, and knocked.
He waited.
No response.
He tested the doorknob, found it unlocked. He opened the door.
A narrow set of stairs, barely distinguishable in the dark.
Behind him, something collided with the front door of the shop, rattling it on its hinges. The chair pinning the door shifted and creaked against the tiles. Lee snapped his head around, saw a flash of daylight come through a crack in the door, a dark shadow of something pressing into that small space as though it might squeeze itself through. The door shook violently and the antique shop was filled with a screech as loud as if it were inside with Lee.
“Upstairs!” Lee shoved Deuce up ahead of him with his foot. The dog scrabbled up the stairs, Lee following quickly through the door and closing it behind him just as the front door exploded. The antique chair flew to pieces, the door clattering back off its stopper as two spidery figures tumbled inside.
Lee latched the door. Locked it. Breathing hard again.
He turned and flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His legs felt like spring coils for the first few steps and then suddenly they were made of lead as he passed the halfway point, as though he had just sucked up the last little bit of energy left in his muscles. Lee had experienced hitting “the wall” before—the point at which your body simply stopped obeying any commands for speed or strength. He knew the feeling and he feared his body giving out more than anything. The other times he’d experienced it had been long and drawn out times of 100% effort. But with his current physical state, it seemed to be hitting him quicker than ever before.
This is not the time to be weak, he attempted to berate himself into pushing past the wall. But everyone who had ever hit it knew that it wasn’t something you could push past.
He took the last few steps, one foot in front of the other, one hand hobbling him up like a tri-pod. Below them in the antique shop, wood cracked, shelves were toppled, glass broke. There was more barking and growling now. It sounded like a half-dozen of them were tearing the place apart.
How’d they find me? Did they sniff me out?
Will they smell their way to me upstairs?
His mind painted a vivid picture of them pouring through the door to the upstairs area, and him unable to run, unable to fight. Just backing himself into a corner and using every last round he had before he set to slashing away with his knife, a hopeless gesture as the soiled and putrid bodies kept piling atop him, pinning his arms and legs down as they went to work on his belly.
I don’t wanna die like this.
“You’re not gonna die,” Lee said through clenched teeth. “Buck up, motherfucker.”
He stood up at the top of the stairs, twitching with the slam of each heartbeat as he looked quickly left and right. A wide open space, packed in the corners with some boxes and old furniture. A small window to the front of the building—one that Lee assumed looked over the street—shed light into the attic storage area.
Keep moving. Gotta keep moving.
He traced the perimeter of the upstairs room. The clattering ruckus continued down below, as though the infected were vandals intent on destroying everything. Lee tried to pinpoint the noise, see how close they were getting, if they were sniffing him out, or if they were simply tearing the place apart looking for something to eat—it was impossible to determine the motivations of someone gone insane. But it seemed like it was getting louder.
“Find a way out. Find a way out.”
A ladder, bolted to the wall, moving into a recess in the ceiling. Lee felt unraveled as he looked at it, relief letting loose some of that bowstring tension. He could escape onto the roof, find a way down from there…
A whine turned his attention around.
Glinting eyes and perked ears. Attention shifting betwee
n Lee and the stairwell.
Shit…
Lee swore, moving quickly to the ladder and looking up. It was a roof-access point, probably for utilities. He looked at the dog, knew without having to think about it that he wasn’t going to leave the dog behind. Stupid! Stupid! Don’t risk your life for a fucking dog! But blame it on delirium or fever or some sort of mental break that fissured up from the dark parts of his soul, so long under such enormous pressures…He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look at Deuce and not see Tango, and no matter how much reason or logic it defied, he couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t leave the damn dog behind.
“C’mere you stupid mutt,” Lee growled. He stood over the dog, realized he was not going to carry his rifle and the dog at the same time. He slung into the rifle, draping it over his back and scrambled up the ladder, unlatching the roof access and shoving it open. Daylight blazed down on him. Cold water dribbled in onto his face, down his collar, into his mouth. It tasted like dirt and mold.
Below him, Deuce began barking.
“Shut up!” Lee hissed, but it was no use. Something rattled the door at the bottom of the stairs, and Deuce backed himself up against the ladder, his tail tucked, going into defense mode. Lee slid down the ladder, almost landed on the dog. He felt his entire body shaking, not from fever or cold this time, but it seemed every muscle in his body quivered under his own weight.
I don’t know if I can carry the fucking dog.
You can carry the dog.
He bent down, put an arm around the dog’s chest and heaved up. Deuce squirmed a bit, but Lee held him tight. “Relax, dumbass. I’m doin’ this for you.” The dog was lighter than he remembered Tango being. Smaller. He could feel the dog’s bones, his ribs and his hips, digging into his side as he held him under one arm, already breathing hard from the effort.
You’re too weak.
No, I’m gonna make it.
The door at the bottom of the stairs banged loudly. Something trying to get in.
How the fuck do they know?
