by Mark Lukens
It took Max a little while to fall asleep. Petra had fallen asleep within thirty minutes, already breathing heavily, almost snoring. Max had stayed awake a little while, sitting up and talking to Brooke and Kate, trying to get Brooke to fall asleep. He had asked Brooke about her favorite movies and TV shows, but he had avoided any conversation that steered to talk of her friends and family she had lost.
Finally, Brooke had fallen asleep, curling up on her side. Before it had gotten dark, Max and Kate had found six blankets, making sure there were no bloodstains on them. They found a few pillows. Max thought about dragging a mattress downstairs, but he decided they would do that tomorrow morning. Some of the mattresses had splatters of blood on them, and they would need to check them carefully before using them.
Max talked to Kate for a little bit, keeping up the theme of movies and TV shows. He’d done most of the talking, remembering the TV shows he and Glen used to watch together.
And then he drifted off to sleep.
Max’s memories of Glen turned into dreams of him. But these weren’t dreams of the happy years they had spent together—these were dreams of the last few days when everything had begun to collapse, and when Glen had begun to turn.
“Run,” Glen said in a moment of clarity. His face was red; he was sweating. At some point he had pulled at his blue Polo shirt, ripping off a strip from the bottom of it and stretching it out. He’d been speaking gibberish before, words strung together that didn’t make any sense, clawing at the air in frustration. The electricity was out, and the internet and cell phones, which had been spotty at best over the last few days, were down for good. Max had no information, no help from neighbors, many of whom had shut and locked themselves in their homes to keep from being contaminated.
“I’m not leaving you,” Max told Glen, trying to hold onto him.
“You need to get away from me. I’m turning into one of those things, one of those rippers.”
“You don’t know that,” Max said. He’d wanted to take Glen to the hospital, but Glen had refused and wouldn’t budge. He said that the hospitals would be a nightmare and that there would be no help there. Max knew it was true.
Glen already knew what was wrong with him, what was happening to him; he didn’t need a doctor to diagnose it for him. And deep down inside, Max knew it too.
Max and Glen hadn’t had much work in the last few months as the real estate market had tanked. Everyone was trying to sell their homes, but nobody was buying. In the last few weeks most banks had put all lending on hold until further notice. Max and Glen had one home they had managed to flip and unload right before the loans were cut off. They had gotten rid of it as quickly as they could, barely breaking even on it. But at least it was gone. Now they only had their own home and two commercial rental properties (but rental income wouldn’t matter now).
Without any work, they’d had plenty of time to watch the twenty-four hour news shows and scour the internet. Neither of them had been news junkies, but this felt big, catastrophic. They’d weathered the housing market collapse of 2009, but this felt much worse, the mother of all bubbles, as some called it. The Big Collapse as others had coined it.
Glen’s brother sent him some links to viral videos from the web, videos that were being taken down as fast as they were being put up. But there were smaller blogs and internet sites that still showed the videos. The government and police ran ads on the internet and on TV, dismissing the videos as dangerous hoaxes, people trying to cash in during desperate times.
Max had watched the videos Glen had gotten from his brother. If these videos were hoaxes, then they were on par with Hollywood films when it came to special effects. Some of the footage was grainy and blurry, some of it shaky, some of it with nonstop, expletive-filled commentary. But Max could see enough to tell what was going on. He watched a ripper drag a woman out of a car, attacking her before she was all the way out of the vehicle. He watched another video of a group of rippers attacking people in a crowd at a shopping center, an old man shooting two of the rippers with a handgun. Max saw footage of riots filmed from office building windows and other clips filmed from amateur drones. He saw film of panic at grocery stores and gas stations, crowds amassed in front of government buildings and police departments, the people demanding answers.
At least he and Glen had had the time to stock up on some food and water before the stores were either cleaned out or closed down. Max had been through some hurricane scares before in the Virginia beach town he had lived, so he was ready when disaster came. He and Glen liked to cook and often bought food in bulk, but Glen had a feeling that things were going to get much worse. At least it would be prudent to stay away from the riots, from the infected.
They didn’t have any firearms in the house—that was the one thing Max wished they would have had. Maybe it would have made things so much easier in the end.
“Get some rope,” Glen begged. “Tie me down to a chair or something. Hurry before I change again.”
“I can’t,” Max cried.
“I can feel it coming,” Glen said. “I can feel the hunger, a hunger like I’ve never known before. And I want to hurt people. I want to hurt you. Please, Max. If you love me, you’ll do this for me.”
Max had waited too long and it was a struggle to get Glen tied down to a kitchen chair he had taken into their bedroom. He’d tied Glen’s hands down to the arms of the chair. He had tied Glen’s ankles together. But it wasn’t enough. Glen tried to gnaw at the ropes around his wrists, contorting his body to do it. Max tied ropes around Glen’s torso, and even his neck, to keep him pinned back in the chair. He ran out of rope. He used duct tape, wrapping the tape around Glen’s forearms and knees, taping his thighs down to the seat of the chair. Glen had pissed himself, then shit himself. Max gave Glen water, but most of it dribbled out of his mouth and down the front of his ripped Polo shirt. Max fed him food, which he gulped down. Glen’s words didn’t make any sense, the words turning into grunts and yells, screams and screeches. Max knew there were other rippers roaming around. He had secured their windows with the hurricane shutters, locked the door to the garage, deadbolted the doors, bracing them shut with pieces of two-by-fours. He had collected some kitchen knives and a few pieces of lumber that he had hammered nails into, anything he could use as a weapon.
Glen kept on screeching from the chair he was tied to. It sounded like he was howling, like he was calling other rippers. Max had no choice but to gag Glen with a dish cloth, wrapping lengths of tape around his face to keep the rag in place.
The memories were there in Max’s dreams, but it also seemed different. It felt like it was happening all over again, like Max was there in his home again, transported back in time. Max was in the kitchen as night fell. He knew someone was in the kitchen with him. He turned and saw the shadowy man, tall and dressed in black, a hood over his head that hid his face in shadows. But his eyes shined, a yellowish-white light coming from the shadowy blur of his face. He raised his hands from his sides like he was showing that he had no weapons. His hands were sheathed in black leather gloves, his black pants tucked down into a pair of black boots, laced up tight.
“You had to kill him, didn’t you?” the Dragon said, mock sympathy dripping from his voice.
Max looked around his large kitchen in panic. It was dark, but still light enough for him to see that the kitchen he and Glen had so carefully designed was in ruins. The place had been ransacked. He realized now that he was no longer dreaming of the past—he was there right now in his own house, teleported there at this very moment.
“You killed him, didn’t you?” the Dragon asked. There was no anger in his voice, just a patient curiosity.
Max didn’t answer. But he remembered what had happened even though he didn’t want to.
A noise sounded from the other side of the house, a loud thumping noise. Max ran from the kitchen, happy to be away from the Dragon but afraid of what he was going to find in the bedroom. He opened the door and saw the empt
y chair, the lengths of rope and twisted duct tape hanging from it, the bloodstains underneath it.
And then he was running down a road that knifed through the dense woods. It was night, but he could see by the moon’s light. There was a group of people up ahead. It was Petra, Kate and Brooke. Max was about to catch up to them, call out to them to wait for him.
But then he realized that there was someone right behind him on the road. He could feel the warm glow of light touching him. He turned around and saw the beautiful blind woman. She had her dark glasses on and just the hint of a smile.
“It’s you,” Max whispered.
“You’re all together,” the woman said. “You need to stay together. Whatever you do, you need to stay together.”
“And then what? Where do we go?”
The blind woman didn’t answer. She began to drift backward, like she was floating an inch or two above the pavement, the glow of light around her fading away quickly.
“No,” Max said. “Don’t go. We need your help. We need to know what to do.”
CHAPTER 49
Max snapped awake. It was still somewhat dark, but the early-morning light was coming in through the windows above the plywood he had attached. The sun was rising, but it wasn’t completely above the mountains yet.
He looked around. Kate and Petra were awake. Petra was still lying down, but Kate was sitting in the same spot as last night, her back up against the wall. Tiger had left Brooke at some time in the night and curled up right beside Kate.
“You didn’t wake me up to take a watch,” Max told Kate. “Did you stay awake all night?”
“No. I fell asleep at some point, but I don’t remember when.”
“How long have you two been awake?” Max asked, looking at Petra.
“About an hour,” she answered.
Kate nodded in agreement.
“You haven’t heard anything out there?”
“No,” Petra said. “Just some critters scurrying around and a few birds chirping.”
Max felt like that was a good sign. He felt cold. He didn’t want to get out from under his blanket. Petra was cuddled up in her own blanket with her shotgun and flashlight within easy reach. Kate had her blanket around her body like a giant shawl.
Max sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “I had another one of those strange dreams.” He didn’t want to talk about the parts of the dream Glen had been in. “I saw the Dragon. And then I was on some back country road. You three were walking together and I was trying to catch up to you. I was trying to call out to you to wait up. But then I knew the blind woman was right behind me. I could feel the warm glow coming from her.”
“I had a dream just like that,” Kate said. “Except I was trying to catch up to the three of you on that road. I was afraid you were leaving me.”
“Was the blind woman right behind you on the road?” Max asked.
Kate nodded. “Yeah. I knew it was her. Like you said, I could feel the warmth from her.”
“Did she say anything to you?” Max asked.
“She said we were together now and that we needed to stay together.”
Max felt a shiver run through his body. “That’s the same thing she said to me.” He looked at Petra. She hadn’t moved a muscle, and her eyes were closed again. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Did you have the same dream?”
“What kind of shit is that?” she grumbled.
“You did, didn’t you?” Max said. “Admit it.”
Petra admitted nothing.
Max turned away from Petra in frustration and looked at Kate. “I tried to ask the blind woman questions. God, I hate calling her that. I wish I knew her name. But I asked her what we were supposed to do. Where we were supposed to go. But she didn’t answer me. She just faded away. What about you? Did she say anything to you?”
“No,” Kate said. “She just told me that we needed to stay together.”
“Well, that’s something, I guess.”
“It’s nothing,” Petra muttered. She still had her eyes closed, the blanket pulled up to her chin. “It’s just you two imagining what you want to see in your dreams.”
“Yeah, and you don’t want to see it,” Max said. “But you saw it in your dreams. I know you did.”
Petra clammed up again.
Max wasn’t going to waste his time arguing with Petra.
*
After a few sips of water, which was their breakfast, they got ready to leave the house.
Petra had objected to Kate and Brooke joining her and Max on their scouting mission, but Kate stood her ground. Kate said she and Brooke needed to learn how to do these kinds of things, and Max agreed. He also felt, especially after last night’s dream, that they should all stay together and learn to work together as a team. None of them had ever been in the military, but now they needed to work together as a unit, walking in silence, looking out for each other, covering each other’s back.
Max and Petra took their packs along, both really just small backpacks, but it was something they could carry any water or food they found. They also took the cardboard boxes that Max found in the garage and loaded them into the back of the SUV with the two packs. Max had his pistol and Petra had her shotgun. She also had Kate’s pistol in the SUV as a backup—she drew the line at letting Kate walk around with a loaded pistol. “She can carry a knife or something,” Petra had suggested. “I’m not getting shot in the leg because she jumps at a noise and pulls the trigger.”
Kate seemed to take offense at Petra’s caricature of her, but she didn’t challenge Petra on it. To Max, Kate seemed a little relieved about not having to keep the gun on her.
Kate used a sheet of paper from a notebook from her sister’s room to draw a simple map of the area. She drew a long line for the street they were on—Appleton Road—and then another line dissecting through Appleton Road, which she labeled Creekbend Drive. She drew a rectangle at the intersection of the two roads, marking that rectangle as her parents’ home.
“We came into town on Creekbend Drive,” Kate said, running her finger along the road. “I think we should go this way down Appleton Road. The Bennetts are down the street.” She drew a rectangle for their house. “And a little ways down across the street is the Millers’ place. We can work our way down to the Fosters’ farm. It’s a big place.”
“Sounds good,” Max said. “What about after that?”
“We could follow the road back around to where it leads back into town.”
“Are there any streams or rivers around here?” Petra asked.
“Yeah,” Kate said, brightening up like she hadn’t thought of that. “There’s this little bridge off of this road here.” Kate drew a road leading away from where the edge of the town would be. “The stream isn’t too big.”
“Are there fish in there?” Petra asked. “I saw some fishing gear in the garage.”
“I guess. But my dad used to fish at Lake Harney. It’s about ten miles from here.”
“Might be worth checking out eventually,” Max said.
“My only concern is that rippers, and even survivors, may congregate at a water source,” Kate said. “Like animals in the wild do.”
Max envisioned a watering hole in the middle of Africa with crocodiles and hippos.
“We’ll try to find some water in town,” Petra said. “Our last resort would be to scope out the stream and then the lake.”
Kate nodded. “Sure.”
They walked out to the SUV. Max glanced around, listening for the sounds of rippers, but he heard nothing. The sky was overcast, but it didn’t seem like it was going to rain anytime soon. He had left the plastic buckets in the backyard just in case.
“I’ll drive,” Max said. “If that’s okay.”
“Fine with me,” Kate said. “I’ll navigate.”
“Me and Brooke will take the back seat,” Petra said, nudging the girl. “I’m going to teach her how to shoot.”
“Reall
y?” Brooke asked, her face lighting up.
“No,” Petra said, all humor leaving her face as quickly as it had come.
CHAPTER 50
Kate knew Petra wasn’t happy about her and Brooke coming along, but at least she had given in to reason. Kate knew this town; she knew the people who used to live here, the roads, the buildings, the streams and lakes. She hadn’t been here in years, but it was all coming back to her now, memories popping up at every turn.
They stopped at the Bennetts’ home first. It was roughly the same size house as her parents’ home, maybe a little bigger and newer. Like most people around here, they had barns and garages in the back, and a small field of crops and tobacco.
Petra had gone over some hand signs as they drove to the Bennetts’ home, the signs that she and Max had been using over the last few days: stop, look, wait, listen, you-go-this-way-and-I’ll-go-that-way. The sign language was pretty obvious stuff, but Kate sat through the lesson and made sure Brooke was paying attention.
They sat in front of the Bennetts’ home for a few minutes, watching for any movement. To the right there was a collection of cars and trucks, some of them parked under a large awning. There were some old car parts collected and a johnboat on a trailer. A cast-iron bathtub sat near the boat and an ancient air compressor. A swing set was off to the left by the huge pecan tree. Kate used to play with the Bennetts’ daughter Ariana, who was a year older than she was. They used to have an aboveground pool in the backyard.
Max and Petra watched the sagging front porch of the home while the SUV idled. Max’s hand was on the gear selector, ready to shift into reverse if he needed to. He looked back at Petra and nodded at her. Both of them seemed satisfied that it was safe enough.
“You stay right with me the whole time,” Kate told Brooke as they got out of the truck. She’d already told Brooke this several times, but she said it again. “Tiger’s going to be fine. We won’t be in the house long.”
Tiger had crawled into the back of the SUV, rummaging around inside the two cardboard boxes. Brooke looked at the cat for a moment through the window and then went with Kate.
