by Wise, A. R.
SURVIVE
Day Two
By: A.R. Wise
Cover by A.R. Wise
Photo sourced from istockphoto.com
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SURVIVE
Day Two – 12:00am
Day Two – 12:31am
Day Two – 1:26am
Day Two – 1:59am
Day Two – 10:58am
Day Two – 12:16am
Day Two – 12:48am
Day Two – 2:37pm
Day Two – 3:39 pm
Day Two – 5:03 pm
Day Two – 8:49 pm
Day Two – 11:38 pm
Author’s Note
Day Two – 12:00 am
“She could be infected,” said Porter with his finger on the trigger. He pointed the pistol at the ground instead of at June, for his brother’s benefit, but he was prepared to aim and take a shot if necessary.
Red stood between June and Porter, a tense guardian, like a wall between warring nations.
“I’m not,” said June.
“You could be.” Porter stood, despite the pain in his leg and ankle. “We don’t know how it spreads.”
“Give me the gun,” Red outstretched his hand to Porter, clearly taking sides against him.
“Red, you’ve gotta trust me,” said Porter. “I won’t shoot unless I have to.”
“Give me the gun!”
“I’m protecting you,” said Porter.
“I don’t need protection. Now give me the gun.” Red stepped forward, prepared to wrestle with his brother again if necessary.
Porter relented, and handed the gun over. “We need to be careful.” He looked over Red’s shoulder at June and said, “I’m sorry, but we have to be careful. We don’t know what this…”
“He’s right,” said June, surprising the brothers. They gawked at her like spectators awaiting the climax of a play.
The Jeep fire on the other side of the road was still raging. An occasional explosion echoed across the fields surrounding them as the ammunition in the vehicle continued to blow. It sounded like an overzealous fireworks launcher had lit the whole lot. The three of them ducked lower, behind the hill of the ditch.
“Porter’s right,” said June again, louder this time, as the three of them leaned against the ground on the side of the ditch. “I could be infected. Here, take this.” She offered her gun to Red. He took it slowly. He held both guns, one in each hand, and looked utterly useless with them. June explained, “We don’t know what causes people to get sick, or crazy, or whatever the hell’s going on. That guy didn’t get to me. He didn’t stab me, or bite me, or anything like that, but still… We don’t know if that’s how you catch it.”
Porter appreciated her calm, thoughtful approach to their predicament, and hoped she’d prove so level-headed throughout their trip.
“You’re fine,” said Red, sounding less than certain. “You didn’t get bit. You’re fine.”
“They’re not zombies,” said Porter.
“We don’t know what they are,” yelled Red with sudden fervor, as if he’d been waiting for a target to focus his anger on. The veins in his neck bulged, and his skin took a tone befitting his name.
“You’re right. Let’s run through what we do know,” said Porter, interjecting a calming influence. “We know that everyone who’s been sick was crying. Their eyes were bloodshot. And we know that they started attacking other people after they got stabbed. At the gas station, they were getting squirrely right after they got attacked. And from the way it looked here, the guy in the truck ran the other woman off the road, and she got infected. He must’ve stabbed her after the crash. At least that’s my guess. They’re transferring the disease through blood. They get their own blood on the knife, and stick it in you.” He mimed the act. “And then you take the knife out of yourself and go find a victim.”
“And they worked together to get us,” said Red.
“They’re not trying to kill people,” said June. “They’re trying to spread the disease, or whatever it is. And once you get sick, you switch over to their side.”
“That truck,” said Porter as he recalled the scene at the gas station.
“What truck?” asked Red. “That one?” He pointed one of the pistols towards the road, where their attacker’s truck sat.
“No. The one we were following on the way to get June. Remember? The one that looked brand new and drove real slow up the mountain. It pulled over into the parking lot at that gas station, and the guy driving it was wearing a suit – like a hazmat suit.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Red. “Do you think he was a terrorist?”
“Probably,” said Porter. “It’d be a hell of a coincidence for him to show up in a hazmat suit and then have a biological attack happen in the same spot ten minutes later.”
“Wait,” said June. “Why would they target a tiny, out-of-the-way town like Carterville?”
“Because they’re not targeting the towns,” said Porter as he pulled the map out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “They’re targeting the highways – the chokepoints.”
“The what?” asked Red as he leaned over to see what Porter was pointing at on his map.
“Look at where Carterville is,” said Porter. “It’s right near I-70, which is the only highway you can take all the way through Colorado to Utah. Carterville is within twenty miles of where 70 connects to a bunch of other major roads. It’s a chokepoint. I bet they were infecting cities all around here, like Evergreen, and Genesee – maybe even Golden.” He pointed to nearby areas. “Not because they’re big cities, but because they can affect the flow of traffic.”
“Like poison in the heart,” said June. “It’ll spread quick.”
“Exactly,” said Porter. “And places like Carterville can’t manage an outbreak. Remember those cops going down the road after we saw that truck?”
Red answered, “Yeah.”
“I bet they were headed to wherever the truck was last. Hell, Carterville probably doesn’t have more than three cop cars in the whole damn town.” Porter slipped the map back in his pocket. “A place like that’s exactly where you’d want to release a plague. And those people at the gas station were already showing signs of infection. It hadn’t even been ten minutes since the attack, and they were acting weird. That means this disease, or whatever it is, moves fast. Real fast.”
“Oh my God,” said June. “What do we do? How do we warn people what’s going on?”
“Warn people?” asked Porter. “There’s no time for that.”
“Then what’re we going to do?” asked Red.
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to trust exactly three people in the whole world,” said Porter as he pointed to the three of them. “And we’re going to get to Texas to find Mary and the boys. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“Texas just got a hell of a lot further away.” Red glanced in the direction of the blazing Jeep.
“We can take that guy’s truck,” said June. “He doesn’t need it.”
“It’s up there in the line of fire,” said Porter. “Hopefully it didn’t take too many shots from our ammo popping off.”
June reached towards Porter’s head. He flinched at her approach, like an abused dog at the reach of its owner.
“You’re bleeding,” she
said.
Porter touched his hairline above his right eye, and winced as he accidentally jammed a shard of glass deeper into his wound. He plucked the glass out, and flicked it away. “It’s not a big deal. This, on the other hand,” he looked down at his wounded leg. “This might be a different story. Did you guys get hurt at all?”
“I’m fine,” said Red.
“I got a few cuts when I jumped in the ditch,” said June. “I think you took the brunt of the crash. The Jeep landed on your side.”
“We’re going to have to be careful about infections,” said Porter as he started to pull off his boot.
Red cursed when he saw how much blood had soaked his brother’s pants and sock. Porter got out his pocket knife, and used it to slice either side of the lower half of his left jeans’ leg. Next, he twisted the two frayed halves around his leg as tight as he could before he tied them together.
“Can you take out the inner lining of this,” said Porter as he took off his jacket and handed it to his brother.
Red tucked both pistols into his waistband like an old west outlaw without a holster. He started to tear at the lining of his brother’s coat.
“Don’t rip it,” said Porter. “It’s got a zipper.”
“Oh,” said Red as he saw how to easily pull out the lining.
“I’m going to try and stop the bleeding with pressure,” said Porter as he examined the hunk of missing flesh on his left calf. “But if I can’t, we’ll have to cauterize it.”
“You mean burn it?” asked June.
“Yeah,” said Porter. “If it comes to that.” He winced as he tied the lining of his jacket over the wound. The lining was waterproof, which made it useless for soaking up the blood. Porter hoped the pressure would stem the flow.
Red climbed on his belly to the lip of the ditch, and peered at the other side of the road. “The fire’s spreading. All that dry grass is going to turn into a wildfire.”
“We should be okay over here, right?” asked June, and she looked to Porter for an answer. “The road will stop the fire.”
“As long as the wind doesn’t blow embers our way,” he said.
“If we’re going to take that truck,” said Red, “then we should get going.”
“We’re going to wait here,” said Porter.
“Why?” asked Red.
“Because once that fire’s out, we can scavenge whatever’s left of our supplies.”
June snorted as if it was a joke. “There’s not going to be much left. Have you seen that fire?”
“There’ll be some tools left, like the bolt cutters,” said Porter. “And some gold.”
“Gold?” asked June.
“I brought some Krugerrands.”
“Some what?” she asked.
“Gold coins,” answered Red, familiar with the coins his father and brother collected.
“Won’t they melt?” she asked.
“Maybe,” said Porter. “But they’ll be in a hell of a lot better shape than the cash I packed.”
There was another loud explosion from the Jeep, and a fireball rose into the sky. A shard of metal whizzed through the air, slicing the tops off blades of grass near the side of the road above them.
“Get down from there,” said Porter as he pulled at Red’s leg, forcing his brother to slide back into the ditch.
“If we’re not leaving now then someone’s got to move the truck, and it sure as hell won’t be you,” said Red as he looked pointedly at Porter’s leg.
“Wait until those gas cans stop exploding,” said June.
“I can’t wait until they stop. They’re the reason we need to move the truck.”
Porter held onto his brother’s leg, “No. It’s too dangerous.”
“Yeah, well, you can yell at me later.” Red pulled his leg free of Porter’s grip, and rushed up the hill.
“Red!” Porter grit his teeth, and then cursed in frustration.
June pleaded with her boyfriend not to be an idiot, but that didn’t stop him. She climbed to the edge of the ditch to watch as he ran to the truck.
Porter went up with June, although he moved slower. As he crawled to the edge of the ditch, he muttered, “Fucking pain in the ass. What the hell’s he trying to do, get himself killed?”
The Jeep’s inferno and the crackling wildfire were significantly louder once Porter got to the edge of the ditch. The heat from the blaze struck him like a newly opened oven, baking his cheeks and forcing him to squint.
Red ducked as he ran, and covered his head. The Jeep’s fire was intense and angry. Tongues of flame whipped at the sky, and only a portion of the Jeep’s frame and driver’s side wheel wells were visible within the brilliant yellow center, as if it was melting directly into the sun. Massive clouds of black smoke rose, clouding out the green glow of the aurora borealis.
“What’s he doing?” asked June as Red got to the truck, opened it, and then turned back around as if giving up.
“He doesn’t have the keys,” said Porter to June before he started yelling at his brother again. “Come back!”
Red ignored the advice, and ran towards the dead man in the road. Another explosion rocked the jeep, causing Red to stumble as he ducked.
“No, no, no,” said June. She started to climb out of the ditch, but Porter grabbed her arm and forced her to stay. She turned to him and yelled, “What if he’s not dead? What if that guy’s still alive and he gets Red?”
Porter hadn’t considered that. He let go of June, willing to let her run into danger to warn his brother.
They both screamed Red’s name, but he ignored them. June crested the ditch’s hill, and ran towards her boyfriend.
She cupped her hands around her mouth to try and yell louder than the blazing fire, “Make sure he’s dead. Red, make sure he’s dead!”
Red had drawn a gun, and was approaching the corpse cautiously. June was near him, yelling her concern. He motioned for her to go back to the ditch, but she refused, and continued to head his way.
The corpse didn’t move, but Red had seen far too many zombie films to trust it. He fired a shot into the back of the dead man’s skull. Bone, brains, and blood gushed out on the pavement in front of the man, but the body only twitched with the impact. June turned, her hands over her mouth in disgust.
Red knelt at the corpse’s side, and reached into his pockets. Porter muttered a warning that only he could hear, “Be careful of knives or needles, Red. God damn it, be careful.”
Red shoved his hands greedily into the pockets, unconcerned. He found the keys, and held them up triumphantly. June was close enough to him that they could speak, and he demanded that she get back in the ditch. She reluctantly agreed, and went into the ditch near the body, far from where Porter was hiding.
Porter felt helpless as he watched his brother duck and run back to the truck. The Jeep fire still raged, as if fueled by hell itself, spewing so much heat that the air around it warped with energy.
Red got the truck started, and raced away. Porter watched as the taillights shrank behind the veil of light the fire produced. Once Red was a safe distance away, Porter slid back into the ditch.
The pain in his leg pulsed, and he could feel each gush of blood his heart pushed out of him. He checked the haphazard bandage. It wasn’t doing any good.
June pushed her way through the weeds in the ditch to rejoin Porter, and found him untying the jacket lining from his leg. She grimaced at the sight.
“How’s your leg look?” she asked with her eyes averted.
“Not good. It must’ve cut an artery in there. I’m going to have to cauterize it.”
“Oh gross,” said June. “That’s horrible. Have you ever done anything like that before?”
“No,” said Porter with a pained chuckle. “I’m not Rambo.”
“How’re you going to do it?”
“I’m not,” said Porter. “Either you or Red are.”
“Why?”
“Because, like I said, I’m not Rambo ove
r here. The last thing I want to do is stick a piece of searing hot metal against myself. Also, it’s hard for me to get a look at the whole wound. It’s going to have to be burned until the blood stops flowing. If I do it, I’ll keep pulling away to check. It’s better to get it done in one go. I’ll get a stick or something to bite on, and do my best not to push you away.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you or Red, and Red’s not here.”
“Does it have to be done right now?” she asked.
“Pretty soon, yeah. I’m losing a lot of blood.”
“Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.”
“I’ve got a lighter and a pocket knife here. You’ll have to get the knife as hot as you can, and then…”
“A minute ago you were going to shoot me because you thought I was going to stab you, and now you’re asking me to stab you?”
“Yeah, well, shit got crazy,” said Porter. “I need your help.”
“Oh Jesus.”
He held out the knife and lighter to her. She took them with trembling hands.
“What if Red comes back and sees me with a knife stuck halfway in your leg?” she asked. “What’s going to stop him from shooting me?”
He considered that for a moment, then nodded. “Good point. I didn’t think of that.”
“I can get the knife ready, but there’s no way I’m sticking it in you until Red’s here.”
“If it’s any consolation, I think he’d choose you over me in that scenario,” said Porter. “He wouldn’t shoot you.”
“What’re you, crazy?” she asked as she flicked the Zippo to life beneath the knife’s blade. “We’ve been together for, like, two frigging weeks. He’d blow me away in a heartbeat if he thought I was hurting you.”
“No, I don’t think so. He’s not my biggest fan.” Porter watched her heat up the blade. “I haven’t been the best brother in the world.”
“Yeah, I know. He told me.”
“He did?”
“Some of it, at least,” she said. “You two used to fight all the time. Yadda yadda, bullshit. Who cares? He still loves you. Me, on the other hand – who the fuck knows? We’ve had a couple good weeks, but I’m not dumb enough to think he’s the type to stick around forever. I mean, come on. Right? He was with my best friend a month ago.” She thought about it, and then amended the statement, “Former best friend.”
