“Sure, no problem.” Setting the rolled up towel with the t-shirts inside on the top pack of water, he lifted the water and followed JJ out of the store, returning to the team and the family they’d saved. He set the package of water on the back of the car, unrolling the town and handing it to the man before passing the t-shirts to the woman.
Both accepted the items graciously, putting them to use immediately. JJ handed out Gatorades to the team, tossed one to Doctor Reed, then offered the remaining four to the family, who gladly accepted, opening the and drinking from them thirstily.
Jonathan looked at the cool bottle of liquid. The fluid inside the plastic bottle was purple and the label read, “Misty Mountain.” Twisting the cap and opening it, he brought it to his lips and took a long drink. The cold liquid was cool and refreshing as it made its way down his throat. ‘Damn, that’s good,’ he thought, savoring the next drink.
Leaning against a nearby car, Serrano looked at his watch and saw it was almost 10:30. “Alright.” He stood up and walked over to the couple. “Sir, Ma’am, my team and I are on a mission with a very tight timeline, so we need to roll out. I’m glad we could help, but please be careful from here out, ‘cause we won’t be there next time. Get out of town and head east, towards the mountains. Recommend you check the store they went into and grab whatever supplies you can get before you go.”
The pair looked at him, surprise showing on their faces. The woman spoke first. “What? You’re leaving?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“But I thought you were here to take control of the city. I was hoping we could go home.”
Serrano shook his head firmly, grinning slightly at her statement. “There’s only five of us, Ma’am. Not enough of us to do that.”
The husband chimed in, feeling a bit more confident now that his pants had dried.
“But what will we do?”
Serrano was losing patience. He hated repeating himself.
“Get out of town. Head east. Towards the mountains.”
Looking back at the blue car, the man shook his head. “I don’t think this car will make it. It’s too far and we haven’t been able to charge it since the power went out.”
Serrano shrugged. “The way I see it, there’s a truck and a van that are currently without owners.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Do you mean, ‘take it?’”
Chili nodded. “Yes.” He squared up on the two, setting his feet shoulder width apart as he gestured towards them, using his finger to point at them. “Look. Do what you have to do. That’s it. Don’t hurt the innocent, but otherwise, do what you have to do. I don’t think there will be any trials any time soon, so it’s unlikely that anyone will question how you procured your vehicle. Got it?”
The two nodded, looking at the van.
“You’ll have to find a hose to siphon gas at some point, so think about that at some point. Serrano nodded to his team, who fell into formation. Looking back over his shoulder, his eyes met the man’s. “Make sure you grab a gun or two as well.”
The man nodded, looking towards where the men lay on the ground.
“Okay,” he said, swallowing slightly at the thought.
When Serrano got to the front of the line, he nodded to the others and stepped off, heading up the street again.
From behind them, the young girl’s voice called out, “Thanks for saving us!”
The SEAL Team members raised their hands in acknowledgement as they continued moving. They heard the van start up as they turned the corner, heading up Thayer Avenue.
The university was just over a mile away, the doctor’s condo at little less than that. With any luck, they’d be there by midday.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
‘Yay!’ The bag of peanuts underneath the pile of chips and pretzels was unopened, mistakenly thrown out by the bar’s staff during their nightly cleaning, which apparently happened four days ago according to the handwritten sign on the front door.
We open tomorrow at 10!
The sign to the right of the door indicated that the only day the place opened at 10 a.m. was on Saturdays, likely for the sports fans, who only needed a game as an excuse to drink before noon.
Tearing into the bag of peanuts, Isabella savored the taste of salt and fat, eating one peanut at a time, allowing each nut to soak into the meager amount of saliva she was able to generate.
She sat on the curb behind the dumpster, remaining out of sight as she munched on what would normally be a snack, knowing that it might likely be her only meal of the day.
If the men from the nearby lodge, some of whom wore biker vests, while others wore law enforcement uniforms, continued their daily excursions, driving up and down the streets of the town, shooting their guns randomly, it would be another day in hiding as well.
Isabella had seen them kill a number of infected, riddling their bodies with bullets until they stopped moving, which was a good thing, but she’d also watched the men laugh and carry on while they chased down and killed innocent people, shooting them only once or twice, leaving them to bleed on the street. Some of them had died where they’d fallen, bleeding out quickly, but others had tried to crawl away, leaving trails of blood. A few times Isabella had been so overwhelmed with sympathy that she’d risen from her place of hiding, intent on trying to help them, only to dive back under cover at the sound of approaching car or motorcycle engines.
The men always - always - came back to ensure those they’d shot died.
It didn’t take long for Isabella to begin sneaking away when the men approached, knowing the inevitable outcome and unwilling to watch the brutality that would soon follow. She felt like a coward, but what could she do?
She’d finally caught a break late in the afternoon on the previous day. Walking through the grounds of the middle school where she spent each night, she decided to visit a different section of the property. Pulling up on the edge of each classroom window as she walked, she’d stopped in shock, wondering if she was hallucinating, when one moved outwards towards her. Fighting off disbelief, she continued pulling it, moving it outward until there was a twelve inch gap between the window and its frame. Grabbing the edge of the windowsill, she lifted herself up and shimmied her way through the narrow opening, falling to the floor awkwardly. She quickly reached up and closed the window, looking through the dusty glass to make sure she hadn’t been seen. Once the window was closed, she sat back against the wall below the window, resting, still shocked that luck had finally smiled upon her.
The silence of the room was a welcome reprieve from the outside world, even if the air was stale and dry. Staying low, she crawled to the door that opened to the hallway and pushed it open slightly, listening for sounds of movement before crawling through the opening and out into the hallway, closing the door behind her. Once in the hallway, she’d risen to her feet, setting out to see what the other rooms held.
The building was long and L-shaped, with multiple rooms opening into the hallway on each side. Unfortunately, there’d been little by way of food in any of the rooms, and she’d been disappointed to discover that the cafeteria was in a different building, but at least there were bathrooms. She used a plastic cup she’d found to scoop water from the tank reservoirs for the toilets and use it to wash up at the sinks, taking advantage of the soap dispensers that were mounted there.
Sleeping on a yoga mat she found, that night she got the best rest she’d had since her parents died, simply because she was somewhat clean and relatively safe.
The good night’s rest filled her with a renewed sense of purpose, and she’d set out this morning determined to find not just a meal, but a source of food that she could come back to or use to stock up the necessary supplies she needed to wait out this nightmare.
Tossing the plastic wrapper in the dumpster, she used her stick to push more trash aside, looking for more peanuts. It quickly became apparent that the unopened bag had been an anomaly, and she gave up, walking away from the metal con
tainer and heading down the street towards the drug store.
If her lucky streak continued, she’d find water, nuts, crackers, cookies, and maybe more there.
She cautiously made her way towards the drug store, cutting through the back part of each property along the way, scaling walls and fences as needed to do so. She stopped on the edge of nearly every property, hiding in the shadows while she looked and listened to be sure that neither the infected or the men from the lodge were close by before proceeding to the next property.
Just over halfway there, she felt her breath catch in her throat as she watched one of the infected, a dark skinned, tall man with long black hair, make his way hurriedly along the far side of the street, shuffling along aimlessly as he searched for prey. He stopped in his tracks suddenly, sniffing the air, his head held high, nose was pointed skyward. The head slowly came down, and when it did, the thing’s eyes settled in her direction. It let loose an angry screech before bolting into the street, running full speed in her direction. Isabella felt her stomach clench as fear told hold of her.
Death was coming, and it was coming at her fast, faster than a human should be able to run.
The thing was mowed down in a barrage of gunfire, causing its body to dance momentarily as the slugs riddled its body before falling backward onto the street. A big truck with two men in the cab and three in the bed roared into view, accelerating as it ran over the body.
“Yee haw!!” Someone on the truck shouted as the truck bounced on its springs, its big tires churning up blood and flesh as it drove away. The men in the bed of the truck took turns firing their guns in the air as they rode by, making Isabella shrink further behind the dumpster, hoping the bullets wouldn’t rain down on her from above.
As the sound of the big truck began to fade, she heard more shooting, followed by even more celebrating.
“Ya dumb fucks!!” One of the men shouted. Even more shooting followed.
Sitting behind the dumpster, Isabella realized she had to do something about her smell. As her mind worked through the problem, she decided it couldn’t just be the fact that she was in need of a real shower that had given away her position. No, it had to be that the creatures could smell humans.
But how to cover the smell?
‘Duh, Isabella,’ she said to herself as she looked at the side of the dumpster. Rising to her feet, she decided she could always wash up again that night. She lifted the lid slowly and carefully, letting out a stench that made her gag immediately. The lid slipped out of her hand, slamming back down onto the top of the container with a loud noise. She froze, her gut still churning from the smell of whatever was rotting inside the big metal container.
After a few minutes, she decided she’d been lucky yet again and nothing and no one had heard the lid drop. Pulling the bottom of her now very dirty Maroon 5 t-shirt out of her pants, she leaned forward, bending over as she tore small strips of fabric from the shirt. She rolled them up tightly and shoved one in each nostril, cutting off the smell. Steeling herself, she lifted the lid again, not letting herself think about anything but getting the lid all the way over the top and then down into a hanging position on the backside of the dumpster. With the lid in place, she took a deep breath, more for summoning her resolve than for a desire to breathe in the dank, putrid air that emanated from the metal receptacle. Placing her hands on the edge of the dumpster, she jumped upwards, bringing a leg up onto the lip of it. She paused briefly at the top, wishing there was another way.
Knowing there wasn’t, she let go, allowing herself to fall into the accumulated trash.
Effective or not, she immediately regretted the choice, wondering briefly if dying was actually worse. Her hands landed in things that were wet and slimy. Bits of decaying food, teeming with maggots, fell onto her face, leaving sticky, wet trails along her skin. The smell of sour milk and rotting meat overpowered her makeshift nose plugs, and she added to the disgusting mess in the dumpster by vomiting out the little bit of food she’d managed to consume that day, including the peanuts she’d so thoroughly enjoyed.
Unable to take it anymore (after all of twenty seconds), she lunged forward, grabbing the edge of the dumpster and lifting herself out. She collapsed on the ground, heaving repeatedly as her body tried to expel things that weren’t there.
After ten minutes of body heaves that gradually decreased in intensity, she sat up, resting her arms on her knees as she tried to catch her breath.
‘Great. Now I smell totally disgusting AND my mouth tastes like vomit.’
The thought of finding bottled water at the drugstore was the driving force that brought her back to her feet. She used the end of her shirt to wipe her face, pausing momentarily to wonder if Maroon 5 was even alive anymore, then began walking slowly towards the edge of the next property.
Over the next hour and a half, she worked her way towards the drugstore, staying low as she darted from one hiding spot to another. At one point, she'd been forced to hide under an old car to avoid a pair of infected people that came walking down one of the cross streets, grunting and snortin g as they shuffled along. The air under the car seemed hot and stale, which was only made worse by the power stench she emanated. Trying only to breathe out of her mouth, she’d remained completely silent as the creatures made their way by, turning left on the street and heading in the direction she’d come from.
When their footsteps had faded away, she had continued to stay where she was, sure that they were waiting for her to emerge from under the car. She looked to her right and saw nothing but the rough surface of the road in either direction.
Maneuvering her head around to look to the left, her heart had nearly stopped when a pair of eyes stared back at her from the woods behind her.
The raccoon blinked, then crawled away, its fat body swinging from side to side. Letting out a sigh of relief, she wiggled out from under the car, rose to her feet, and continued on her way.
Finally, she saw the store, situated on the corner of the intersection where Big Bear Boulevard and Moonridge Road met, two major roads with multiple lanes heading in each direction. The configuration left a large open space that she’d have to cross, exposing her to anyone or anything that might be looking. Hiding behind a realtor building that sat on the corner across from the store, Isabella looked
‘It can’t all be easy, Isabella,’ she thought, creeping forward until she was at the edge of the small parking lot. Looking in each direction once more, she stepped out into the street, replying to herself, ‘Since when has it been easy?’
She darted across the road, running quickly on her thin legs, her matted and dirty hair flying behind her. The road was wide, and it took her much longer than she’d intended to cross, but she kept going, breathing heavily as she ran. When she the other side, she headed towards an old model Ford Truck that had crashed into the side of the building, coming to a rest with its back end on the asphalt of the parking lot, its front end elevated on the right side where its bumper had struck the building, knocking away stucco and cement.
Falling to the ground behind the big vehicle, she sat there, taking in big gulps of air. She leaned her head back against the tire, closing her eyes. Over the last few days, she’d forgotten the effect the high altitude had on people. She felt the beginnings of a headache coming on, and she decided to look for Tylenol when she got inside.
She wanted to rest a bit longer, her mouth and throat were aching for a drink of water, so she rose to her feet again, feeling weaker and more tired than she’d felt in days. She worked her way around the old truck, realizing that she should have checked for people in or around the vehicle before resting against it. She peeked around the back end of the truck, looking towards the open driver’s side door.
A dead man’s body hung half-in, half-out of the truck, held in place by the truck’s seatbelt. The man’s head was dented and bloodied from its collision with the steering wheel. For a split second, Isabella wondered how she didn’t smell the dead body that had been m
ere feet from where she’d sat, but in that split second the wind shifted and she caught a whiff of her own, more powerful scent.
She crept by the dead man, heading towards the front of the building, while remaining in the shadow of the large tree that was planted near the sidewalk. There was another car parked near the entrance, one that looked decidedly normal, parked perfectly between the lines. The only thing that looked out of place were the long strands of cobwebs that extended from the edge of the car to the tree’s branches in multiple places, all part of an intricate web that some spider had devoted long hours on.
Aside from the truck and the car with the spider webs, the parking lot was empty. Standing against the wall of the building, Isabella leaned forward, peering towards the store’s glass front doors. Like many she’d seen over the last few days, they were broken, their guts spilled on the floor of the entryway like a pool of tiny, clear chips.
Taking a deep breath, she snuck around the corner, dodging into the dimly lit store.
“Hello.” A voice called out.
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
The engine roared as the truck accelerated down the empty streets, its driver enjoying the open road. The sheriff’s men had spent the last few days clearing the main roads of abandoned and wrecked vehicles, moving them either onto the shoulder or, when available, to a nearby parking lot, and having four lanes completely open made driving the big truck a blast.
Sheriff Halwell sat in the passenger seat of the truck, his mirrored glasses hiding his eyes as he gazed through the windshield. His face showed a slight smile as they drove through town, cruising up and down the streets that surrounded the Village area.
‘It’s all mine,’ he thought, happy with the progress they’d made over the last few days.
Surviving Rage | Book 1 Page 53
