by Marie Lanza
As she ran through the darkening woods, her peripheral vision caught more movement coming from a short distance to her right.
Carriers. A handful at least.
It was getting darker. The shadowy figures all looked the same as they moved on her. Gunshots crashed through the woods, and Emma could only hope she wasn’t the target.
Emma picked up her pace. Her lungs desperately tried to get air and her legs burned with every step. She hit a slope in the earth and let the downward pull take over. This would be her break. She would disappear from their view and it would almost certainly give her a chance to find a hiding place.
Sunlight was almost gone and the dark of night was falling upon her. Emma veered off her course and turned left chasing what light remained from the day. She could no longer hear the groups chasing her but she wasn’t going to stop and see if she lost them. Emma knew she had to keep moving. A thick bush would be ideal to bury herself in and still get out fast if she needed to run. She didn’t want to be trapped in a tree or a cave. So, she searched for thick brush to hide herself in and wait.
Emma found the coverage she was looking for. Before crawling beneath the branches, she found a downed tree branch and dragged it in close for extra protection. Her heart was racing, making it difficult to slow her breathing, but she did the best she could. There was still no sign of the men or Carriers.
A gunshot echoed from the distance. Then another.
Emma scanned her surroundings to make sure nothing was coming from behind her or any other direction she wasn’t paying attention to.
Shadows seemed to be moving at the top of the hill she had ran down.
Behind her, between a cluster of trees, Emma could swear she saw something standing very still, but not hiding. She squinted her eyes, blinked a few times and tried to focus on the figure. It was too hard to make out if it was Human or Carrier.
Another gunshot, this time it was much closer. It took Emma’s attention back to the direction from which she came. She couldn’t tell if the shadows were moving toward her. She looked back behind her; the figure that was standing off in the distance was gone. Emma cautiously laid down in the brush, afraid to make any noise in the foliage and bring attention to herself. She continued to scan the surroundings, reconfirming there wasn’t immediate danger.
Emma’s nerves were getting the best of her; causing anxious aches in her body nagging her muscles to keep running. The night would help conceal her but it would also help hide her pursuers. She grew more unsettled sitting in the brush, feeling like a sitting target, knowing if they reached her, she would be doomed. There was no time to weigh the pros and cons of the situation. Emma knew she had plenty of run left in her legs.
She pulled her knife and ran.
Emma figured she would keep heading in the direction she was going before. As she ran, she realized that she was no longer just hearing her own footsteps. Emma looked behind her and spotted the group of men. She had a good head start on them but it wasn’t enough. As she turned her head back around, her feet struck something and she was quickly airborne. Before Emma knew it, she was tasting dirt.
The moans of the dead were getting louder, and the sounds of footsteps were getting closer.
Gun shots fired, bodies dropped but it was getting harder to see anything.
Emma got to her feet, and took a quick look to try and see what distance she had between her, the Carriers and the men coming from behind.
The only thing she saw was a black.
***
Wake up, Emma.
Her head was pounding. Emma opened her eyes slowly letting them become accustomed to the brightness in the room around her. The throbbing in her head seemed to beat at the pace of her heart. Emma closed her eyes then opened them again realizing the room wasn’t as bright as she thought. She let her eyes wander the room, along the ceiling and down the walls. She didn’t recognize the surroundings. The place was old, with cobwebs collected in the ceiling corners, exposed framing and a dusty smell. It seemed as if it had been abandoned even before the outbreak.
Emma tried to remember what had happened but her mind still wasn’t clear. It was only a second or two she had a flash memory of an intense pain in her face and then black. She tried to go back a little farther. She was running…
Emma lifted her hands to her face. She wasn’t bound.
Outside, footsteps crossed a porch.
Emma listened. Her eyes followed the sound, then met a silhouette at the window. The shape didn’t move like a Carrier. The movement was fluid, not shuffled. Emma knew instantly this was a living person as she watched them cross the window and make their way to the front door. She thought maybe it was a good idea to close her eyes so they would think she was still unconscious. The other part of her wanted to face her captor… or rescuer.
The door opened and a tall man walked in. He was hard to make out with the outside light glaring through the entrance behind him, making him mostly a shadowy shape.
“You’re awake.” The man closed the door, shutting out the light and allowing Emma to make out who was speaking to her.
The man was older, with deep wrinkles in his face. He dressed like a farmer, wearing overalls and what was once a white t-shirt, now covered in filth. He held a rifle in one hand and a couple of bags in the other. He moved calmly across the room and placed the bags on a small wooden table sitting in the middle of the room. Emma quickly recognized the bags as hers.
Emma sat up slowly, mostly because she felt like she had been hit by a freight train and might throw up, but also because she was afraid to make any sudden movements.
“I found your bags. I’m not sure if anything was stolen but I figured you’d still want them.” The man pulled out a chair and took a seat.
“Thank you. I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything.” Emma looked down to see the front of her shirt was stained in blood, which she figured was hers.
“Do you remember your name?” The man asked.
“Emma.”
“Well Emma, I’m Andrew. My friends call me Andy. I spotted you running from a small group of bandits before they cold-cocked you. You got a pretty nice shiner and a good nose bleed.”
“How did I get away from them?”
“Lucky, here never lets me down.” The man pointed to his rifle.
“You killed the living?”
“What makes those vultures any different than those dead things running around? The living need to be able to depend on the living,” Andy said with no remorse.
Emma couldn’t argue with that. “Thank you.” She nodded in agreement.
There was a small moment of silence.
“Carriers, by the way.” Emma coldly stated, “Those dead people. We call them Carriers.”
Andy gave a hard squint and frowned as he thought about it. “It’s just like the world to give them a name. Ok. Carriers.” Andy stood up and walked across the room to the counter where there were a few bottles of water. He went over to Emma and gave her one. “You got any family I should be getting you back to, Emma?”
“No. I’ve been alone a while now.” Emma accepted the much needed water. Opened it and gulped it down.
Andy nodded.
“What about you?” Emma asked.
“I lost my wife in the beginning. Been alone ever since and helping people as they passed through.”
“How do you keep the Carriers out?”
“I don’t always.” Andy pointed to a wood ladder that led to an opening in the ceiling. “I ride ‘em out up there, sleep up there too. Carriers, like you call them, I kill what I can without bringing much attention to it, but generally they don’t hang out long.”
“Have you heard about the colonies for survivors? Up north.”
“Heard some rumors here and there. Everybody has a different idea.” Andy sat back down at the table. “One day I hear about the military shipping survivors out to bases in the oceans. The next time I hear about fortresses in the mountains.” He c
huckled at the thought.
“You don’t believe any of it?” Emma asked.
“I believe people need hope to keep living.” It was a simple answer that was painstakingly true.
Emma didn’t have anything to say to that. Andy was right, the human spirit needed hope to keep living.
Before the end, religion kept most people moving forward every day. Whatever their religious beliefs were, day in and day out, their God was their salvation. Emma never saw herself as a religious person, and when the virus consumed most of the human populations, she wondered how those people felt about a God who never came to rescue them from the hell that fell on earth. In the first few days, people cried in the streets, screaming to the sky for their God, while others went to their places of worship with the faith that they would be saved. Those places were some of the most populated with dead bodies.
After a few weeks, Emma didn’t hear about God anymore, but she heard about the colonies. That was salvation. That was humanity’s hope to continue living.
“I have to keep moving.” Emma broke the silence. “And you should come with me.”
“Oh I don’t think so, Emma.” Andy rubbed his knees and lost eye contact with Emma. “I’m old and I’d just hold you back.”
“You killed a group of men that by all accounts should have killed us both.”
“I had them on my turf is all.” Andy nervously scratched his head.
“So you just plan on spending the rest of whatever days you have left alone here?”
Andy took in a deep breath, and sighed.
Emma continued, “I have a lot more supplies at the house I’ve been living in the last few months. It’s in a neighborhood not far from here. We can go back for it and get on the road.”
Shadows crossed the window, breaking the conversation. Emma jumped to her feet, and Andy quickly moved from his chair.
Carriers.
“Up the ladder,” Andy directed.
Emma didn’t waste a second. She didn’t have any fight in her with her head throbbing and body aching.
Andy was right behind her.
“I don’t suppose you have a lock on the front door?” Emma asked.
Emma laid flat on her stomach to get a good view of the room below. Andy laid next to her.
The Carriers leaned against the windows leaving bloody smears against the glass. Their feet shuffled across the porch
“Like I said, I just come up here and wait ‘em out,” Andy whispered nonchalantly.
The front door creaked open as a Carrier’s body leaned against it. They moved at a crawling pace and were non-threatening when there wasn’t a meal in front of them. Almost as if they were conserving energy. The infected’s feet dragged against the wood floor, and its heavy whizzing breath were rhythmic. Another soon followed through the door, then another. Within moments two handfuls packed into the room below.
Emma and Andy laid low and completely still so as not to make a sound. Emma hoped that they would eventually find the door again and clear out.
It was just a few minutes later, they did just that; one by one, they meandered back through the door and disappeared into the woods.
Emma exhaled deeply, turned and looked at her rescuer. “Andy, I can’t stay here.”
Andy kept his eyes on the lower level, listening to her words. He faced her, “Alright Emma. You’re right. I’ll go with you.”
***
They could hear the humming of Carriers before they even reached the tree line. Taking cover behind the trees, Emma watched a hoard of Carriers roam the neighborhood that brought her peace the past several months.
“What’s the plan?” Andy whispered.
“We go the back way.” Emma moved through the trees, quietly but steadily, until she came to the fence line that would lead her to the back yard of the home where she had been living.
Andy followed, watching their backs with his rifle ready. Emma stopped at the neighboring fence and dropped her bags to the ground.
“I’ll be in and out.” Emma took an empty bag from Andy. “There’s a wood pile on the other side that’ll make it easy for me to get back over.
“Ok. I’ll be here.” Andy swung his rifle over his shoulder and locked his hands together, creating a step for Emma to get over the fence.
“In and out.” Emma repeated as a way to reassure herself. She placed her foot into Andy’s hands, reached for the top of the fence and he helped her over. Emma didn’t waste any time. She made her way across the yard and slid through the opening of the fence. Her ladder still lay on the ground where she knocked it over. She climbed up to the roof like she had done for so many months and slipped into the open window.
Everything inside was as she had abruptly left it. The bandits never made it through the door. Emma thought for a moment that they should stay here for a few days, but it quickly left her mind. She had to stick to the plan. Continue north.
Emma didn’t waste any more time.
In and out.
She packed the bag with the remaining canned food and water. It would bring them at minimum another week of not having to think about nourishment. More if they conserved.
Emma took another look of her shelter. It was the closest thing she had to a home since the outbreak. And like the life she knew before this new one, she had to say goodbye.
END OF BOOK TWO
The story continues in book three…
Check out Marie’s novel
Fractured: Outbreak Zom-813
Available in paperback and e-book!
Looking back it all began with one news story. A homeless man attacked another down on Skid Row. What didn't make headlines was that neither of these men were ever seen again.
After a deadly virus ravages major cities, Harmony and Dan find themselves in a frantic race to find their loved ones. They're quickly absorbed in a world that has collapsed and surrounded by infection that doesn't discriminate among its victims.
The only question that remains -- did the outbreak already seal their doom?
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