Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days

by Thomas, Jack

  Take it and do it! It’s either me or him!

  I was forced into a corner, I had to do this.

  I waited till the next kick made impact and broke my defense to reach for the gun. My fingers wrapped around its cold frame and a sense of safety and power rushed through me combined with complete awareness that humanity was desperate, Rafael was desperate, and this resulted in my own desperation.

  Three pops left me temporarily deaf and down came two hundred and eighty pounds of pure muscle packed in a six foot six meat bag, right on top of me.

  “Rafael?” Adam knew what happened. I didn’t bother to answer for Rafael; I was more concerned with stopping his body from crushing all the air out of my lungs.

  I pushed him off of me and I stood up.

  “RAFAEL!” Adam yelled. He knew Rafael was dead.

  Eleven rounds left.

  I aimed the gun at the door. Pop, pop, pop, I was deaf again. Three holes the size of small beetles poked through the door. I wasn’t going to check if I hit Adam. Those were warning shots as far as I was concerned. Whether it turned out the truth or the justification was not my problem.

  Eight rounds left.

  I heard nothing from the other side of the door, but I couldn’t risk Adam hiding out ready to ambush me so I scanned the room and found a chair against one of the walls. This was my escape plan, I was going to throw the chair through the window and make my exit down a two story drop. I avoided all thought on the matter and let my body take over. Survival instinct dictated a few bruises from a well placed two story drop was a safer choice of bet than going out through the bedroom door and getting shot multiple times.

  Out went the chair, a sudden crash followed, a sprinkle of glass hit the ground on the other side.

  It was only a matter of time before the infected tracked the sound of the gun shots the entire way back to this neighborhood. Since I shot the gun to attract Rafael and Adam in the first place it was obvious the infected were already on their way to us, these extra gunshots confirmed which direction they needed to go. The woods offered some support to slow them down but based on their numbers back at the warehouse, it was not going to be pleasant to be around when they made it through.

  Out I went. I gave myself a running start so I could achieve more of a horizontal angle on impact and roll with the momentum, this way the pressure and damage would spread out through my body and lower the risk of serious injury.

  Cold air rushed right by me and I hit the ground on the other side. There were no infected yet. There was some time to get away before they reached the house.

  The front door to the house was kicked open and Adam walked out, he applied pressure to his right shoulder. His handgun tightly gripped in his right hand.

  I took cover behind a tree by the sidewalk. When I looked around the side of the tree at Adam he held his left hand to support his right one up and take aim.

  Pop!

  I took cover again.

  One bullet slammed right into the tree and cut a small entrance into it with no exit on the other side.

  The more shots fired the more effectively the infected could track us. He had to be stopped. I was done trying to reason with Richard’s control over people. Anyone under him was ruthless and in order to deal with them I was going to have to be equally as ruthless against them.

  I turned around, still behind the tree, and aimed the gun at the tree towards where I thought Adam could be if the tree wasn’t in the way. I prepared myself to take three steps to the right, get him into my sight and open fire.

  One deep breath

  Two seconds in between

  Three steps two the right

  Four flicks of my finger over the trigger

  Five pops…

  I hit him three of the four times.

  Tightness in my chest and stomach caused my arm to jerk and clench in pain. He hit me too.

  Adam’s lifeless body met with the floor and my still living body did the same.

  Infected yelled nearby in the woods as they made their way to me. I didn’t know if the round pierced any major organs.

  I assumed the round missed anything important and forced myself up, dealt with the pain and tried to find somewhere I could stop and apply pressure to the wound. But first of all, I had to get the hell out of there.

  I placed my cold right hand under my clothes and over the wound to act as a plug till I patched myself up.

  Time to move!

  Blood tried to push its way out and warmed my hand.

  Fences and gates were going to be my best friends. I ran through a backyard away from the woods and made my way to its gate. My goal was first to get out of sight, and then vanish from the general area.

  Out the back gate and onto the next street I went, and I repeated through the next yard and onto the next street. I kept this pattern going for about two blocks before I decided to stop.

  I should be far enough by now.

  Thankfully, the homes were nearly untouched by comparison to some of the other cities and towns I came through to get where I was. I found a house, went inside and locked myself in a room.

  I put a belt in the backpack and a first aid kit I found in one of the buildings I scavenged. I placed one of several Zippo lighters I found on the floor lit to shine up at the ceiling, the light bounced off of the ceiling and onto the walls and floor. It was enough light for a quick patch up.

  Disinfectant was applied first and some antibiotic to protect the wound. I wrapped the wound up with some medical tape and followed it with a compact notebook placed flat over the wound to prevent too much muscle movement in the area. More medical tape went around the notebook to hold it in place. Finally the belt went around the notebook to apply even more pressure over the wound and cause a clot to happen sooner. It was the best I could do for the time.

  If I couldn’t catch up to the kids I would never forgive myself.

  I wasn’t going to waste a second.

  Indescribable pain consumed me entirely. I was weak and faint but I had to continue moving.

  I managed to get far enough from the infected to move at a relatively slower pace than I would normally. I knew there was going to be no infected for a while. They were too busy looking for the source of the gunshots, too busy devouring what was left of Adam.

  I found my way back to Route 23 and moved forward from this point on.

  The highway was empty of infected, empty of both life and death. Crashed cars emptied out by scavengers who came by however many days ago made up the entire highway. As far as the eye could see, a pile up, miles and miles long. All of the infected who were present at some point left in chase of something else, and any dead bodies inside the cars simply came back to life as one of the infected and took off after something along with the rest of them. A traffic jam, several miles long, it must have resulted in thousands of lives lost.

  An hour or two went by and I only became weaker. The morning sun was now in the sky. The bleeding stopped but the pain continued, on top of this I moved too slowly to catch up with anyone. Almost like a miracle sent directly from a God who went missing when this outbreak started, a person who made it through the mess behind me caught up to me and my slow pace.

  “Hey!” a stranger with an accent too strange for me to identify caught up, a young girl who traveled alone as far as I could tell.

  I didn’t think twice about it, I stopped. If I was going to die, I was going to die, whether or not this person was going to be the cause of it.

  The girl slowed down when I turned around. My slow shuffle and pain could have confused anyone to think I was one of the infected, and she was alive for being careful in the first place. She observed me from twenty feet away or so and waited for me to speak or show any sign I was still human, still conscious, still me.

  “I’m not infected,” I told her. This didn’t change her stance or distance, she was still careful for who I could turn out to be. “I’m also not going to hurt you. I have a handgun almost e
mpty of round.”

  I threw the gun in the snow in front of her and she rushed over to pick it up. She aimed it at my head, I didn’t fear her caution. She was still alive, she had to be cautious.

  “My name is Marcus. I came across two guys who tried to kill me before I killed them first. I was forced to do it; I’m not the bad guy. But on the other hand, I am wounded and could use some help. Although this only applies to you if you yourself don’t intend to kill me. If you do, you have the best timing in the world, because I am defenseless.” That kid’s sarcastic tone rubbed off quick. I almost annoyed myself.

  “I don’t intend on killing you, but I wouldn’t mind being a little more sure that you are telling the truth before I get any closer.” She had the perfect amount of risk to walk up to me and the perfect amount of cautious to not believe a word I said.

  “What should I do?”

  “Lift your clothing over your head and spin around once so that I can see if you have any other weapons stashed around your waist,” she said. That was a smart request on her part.

  I didn’t hesitate and did just as she asked. Shirt and jacket went over my head and I turned slowly so she could scan me accurately.

  “What’s with the notebook and the belt?” Her accent was so rare, I heard it somewhere before, I just didn’t know where.

  “The notebook covers an area larger than my injury and it’s tough enough to stop too much movement in that spot. It is used for pain reduction. The belt is just wrapped around the notebook to increase the amount of pressure in the area.” I tried to rush through the dialogue and get to something more meaningful like her helping me stay alive.

  “Put both of your hand in the air and do not bring them down for any reason.” Another request, but she had to be sure I wasn’t a madman.

  Again I did as I was told and put my hands in the air. She proceeded to walk over to me and pat me down with her left hand while she held the gun up at me with her right. Once she was sure I held nothing on me she relaxed a bit and stashed my gun against her waist.

  “How bad is the wound?”

  “It’s a gunshot, but I was shot a couple of hours ago, so I doubt it is too fatal, otherwise I would have already bled out. But of course it’s still a gunshot so I do have some sense of pain and urgency. I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m far from fully functional. I need help.”

  The eyeliner she wore smeared against her face and created a thicker less dense line around her eyes. It almost looked intentional.

  I noticed her focus on my lips. She did it every time I spoke. She had an accent. It made sense, she was deaf.

  “I can patch you up. I hid some of my supplies further back in the highway when I noticed you. I didn’t want to get them taken if you turned out to be like the others,” she said. I could only assume she thought of everything. “I have some medical supplies there. If you stay here, I can go back and get them. I can try to fix you up.”

  Maybe her medical supplies contained something more useful than the first aid kit, the notebook and the belt. It was worth a try. “The bullet is still in there,” I said.

  “I’m sure I have something to fish it out with and I know for a fact I have something to close you up with afterwards. I have drinking alcohol too.” She did think of everything. “It’ll numb you a little while I dig in, if that helps.”

  She opened the door to one of the many cars which surrounded us and helped me sit down in it. “I’ll be back. Stay here.” She said and backed away from the car.

  I grabbed her by the arm to get her attention and she looked at me again. “What’s your name?” I asked before I let her arm go.

  She paused a moment to question whether to tell me her name or not. “It’s Melissa,” she said before she turned around and backtracked through the highway, out of range, and towards her thoughtfully hidden supplies.

  Now I wait. I closed the car door and took a deep breath of the frozen air inside. “And wait I shall.”

  Day 10

  The Arrival

  Jack. That’s what he said his name was before I fell asleep.

  We barricaded the doors and windows of the apartment we camped out in.

  Marcus gave Smarty, now known as Jack, a note with directions which led straight to the apartment we were in. He wanted Jack and me to wait for him to catch up with us before we proceeded to stop Richard.

  The only reasons I agreed to stay and wait was because of two things Jack told me: First, Richard scouted every inch he walked for supplies. He would take his time and sometimes leave men behind to secure the supplies and find more for the overall collection; he was in no rush to get to the school. Second, Richard was a madman with the will to take anyone’s life in the name of his own survival. This information was identical to what Marcus said about Richard, so I accepted this as the truth and decided to wait for the expert on Richardology to arrive.

  I woke up about an hour or so before the sun came up. I still held the handgun Jack gave me the night before. Marcus specifically told him to give me either the handgun or the rifle. Jack was most comfortable with the rifle and forked over the handgun. I didn’t care either way, as long as I held a weapon with more than one suicide declared round in it I would be fine. It would also be safer to have a weapon to help me react in case Jack betrayed Marcus and me for Richard. Based on how Marcus talked about Richard, I wouldn’t put it past him to attempt something like this. Everyone was a potential threat in my world.

  I didn’t immediately get up after I awoke. I laid there for some time and relived every moment from the last nine days. I started from the outbreak and landed right where I lay. I witnessed so many varieties of death, so much murder, so much hate and fear, all in those same nine days. It was hard to imagine where the world was headed when the outbreak began. Where would we be a year into the future? Would there even be anyone alive in a year?

  I laid there till long after the sun came up and shined through small gaps left between the furniture piled up in front of the windows. Random rays of light blinded when they crossed paths with my pupils. I no longer squinted to see with this much light in my face, my eyes were at ease.

  Jack was still asleep in the bedroom which connected to the living room. He possibly dreamt about an endless river of sarcasm, if I guessed. Maybe even an invasion of extremely sarcastic aliens who only came for the purpose of annoying the world with their sarcasm.

  I would have begged for the same dream if it helped get my mind off of everything else. But nothing would take my mind off of anything else; nothing.

  The mission was as clear as ever, make it to the school, stop Richard, save Jason, and finally, get to my mother and Daviel. This was the mission all along. I continued to get sidetracked by the excessive number of deaths around me.

  Regardless of whether Marcus would reach us in time or not, this mission was going to be completed this day; this tenth day of the zombie apocalypse in which no one says the word zombie; this tenth day filled with random movie clichés which only I was able to notice for some reason.

  On the bright side, the fact I was the only person I knew who referred to the infected as zombies was pretty funny. It made things significantly more surreal. Like I could wake up any minute and everything would turn out to be a construct of my own psychological analysis of the world. Of course I would never be fortunate enough for this to actually be how it turned out, but it didn’t hurt to hope, it didn’t hurt to wish for it to happen. Maybe one day I’d wake up and all of this would be an amazingly detailed and epic dream. I could turn the dream into a book and become rich in a world where money still held value.

  Somewhere in the middle of my dazed thoughts Jack walked out of the bedroom and snapped me back into this most unpleasant version of reality. He sat on the living chair across from the couch I laid on and watched me bring myself out of my somewhat amusing thoughts.

  “Your friend still hasn’t arrived,” he said, fully aware I knew this.

  “I didn’t notice,”
I replied. I didn’t take him as one to state the obvious. My mood wasn’t particularly cheery either. The lack of Marcus’s presence meant one of two things for me. On one hand, Marcus was dead and the time wasted in wait of him could have been put to better use to stop Richard. On the other hand, Marcus could have been perfectly fine, which meant we would wait even longer. In return, the amount of time wasted was still too much for my taste and allowed Richard more time to execute his plan to take the school’s supplies by any means necessary.

  One way or another, he would get his way, not another’s.

  Richard was unstoppable. Anything he tried worked out nicely for him and terrible for everyone else. I wondered if I would amount to being such a monster to stop one.

  “I’m sure today will be filled with some horrific junk I’ll never be able to unsee, and I am also sure I knew this yesterday. But my body allowed me to sleep better than I have this entire week,” Jack continued.

  After he said it out loud I realized that I managed to sleep pretty well too. In fact, I could describe it as the best sleep from the week as well. It was relaxing, it was quiet, and it was peaceful.

  “I manage to sleep nicely too now that I think about it,” I replied.

  “So how much longer do you think your friend will take to reach us?” He asked as a courtesy. His mind was distracted with other thoughts, his eyes wondered.

  “There is no way to know. I’d say he likes to take his time, but he always tries to be a million kinds of different superheroes all at once.” If he was dead then whatever, all we could do is keep going. But if he was alive, all the help we could get would be good. I couldn’t balance the odds because I didn’t have an exact time for when anything would happen. If Richard was already at the school then there was no choice but to head after him to try to keep his damage to a minimum. But if Richard wasn’t yet at the school, and Marcus could make it to us with enough time to reach the school together, then the wait for him would make more sense. Since I didn’t know when any of this would happen, the only things we knew for sure were that Richard planned to massacre an entire quarantine zone and that Marcus was not yet with us to help stop him.