The Survivors (Book 1): Summer

by Dreyer, V. L.

  "It's not going to bite you, you know."

  Michael's voice almost made me jump out of my skin. I spun around to face him, startled half out of my wits by his sudden appearance. He was leaning casually against the doorframe, watching me with his eyebrows raised, but he didn’t move from the spot until I calmed down.

  I shoved the gun in my pocket and buried the wave of embarrassment I felt at my overreaction. He knows that I’m... quirky, what’s one more piece of evidence? Just as I was about to say something snippy, he distracted me with something completely unexpected.

  "I made you a present."

  "Eh?" I blinked owlishly.

  "To help you while your foot heals." He reached out the door and grabbed something that was out of my line of sight, and then thrust the haphazardly-constructed wooden object at me. It took me a moment to realise that it was supposed to be a crutch. So that was what I’d caught him working on the other morning.

  That was sweet.

  "Oh, thank you." I couldn’t say anything to him, but I was a little afraid to put my weight on it. It wasn't well made. My Year Seven woodwork teacher would have called it shoddy at best. Still, I tested it and it held up well enough, so I gave him a grateful smile. He looked so pleased that I liked his gift I couldn’t quite remember why I had been preparing to get defensive a second ago.

  "You'll heal faster if you keep your weight off your foot." He shrugged and beckoned for me to follow him.

  We returned to the garage to gather up the basic tools we’d need for the trip, with me trailing behind while I practiced my crutch-walking all the way. Although the petrol was running low, we agreed that taking the Hilux made more sense than going on foot. We needed to find some more fuel for our trip south anyway, so by taking the truck we could do both at once.

  Michael helped me into the passenger seat and climbed into the driver’s seat beside me. The engine spluttered when he turned it over, but it started on the second try; the noise worried me, but I pushed my concern aside for now. Carefully, he turned the truck around and drove it up the ramp that lead to the automated parking garage doors. They clanked open after he leaned out the window and swiped a card against the lock, and then off we went.

  The sunlight seemed so bright after being indoors that I had to shield my eyes. For a moment, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, but by the time my vision adjusted there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary. Michael didn't seem to have noticed anything, so I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination.

  We drove for a while, slowly dodging around debris of a hundred different kinds. I watched where we went with my GPS in hand, but Michael knew where he was going and didn’t need any guidance from me. After ten years in this city, he knew the ruins like the back of his hand. Still, I felt the need to keep busy, to keep my hands and mind distracted.

  Being alone with Michael had me twisted all up in knots. Without something to distract me, that kiss was all I could think about. There was just something hypnotic about his boyish charm. I found it hard not to think about how close he was right now. About the taste of his lips on mine, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hands that were so strong and yet so gentle.

  I shook my head to try and clear it, and then rubbed a hand over my eye, pretending to be distracted by an errant bug. To my relief, he didn't seem to notice that anything was amiss.

  When did my hormones get so out of control? A week ago, I would have – and had – sooner slugged him than kissed him. It had been so long since I’d felt any kind of attraction to another human being, that it made me so uncomfortable that I couldn’t think of anything to say. Thankfully, he didn’t seem bothered by the silence.

  Still, I was relieved when we arrived at our destination. He eased the car off the road into the forecourt of a long-abandoned petrol station, and I was glad for the distraction.

  The place was desolate, the forecourt cracked and overgrown with weeds as nature battled to reclaim what was hers. The pumps stood like lonesome soldiers of some forgotten war, their faces shattered by the riots a decade ago. I was out of the car by the time Michael switched off the engine, hobbling my way over the uneven ground towards the glass shell that protected the petrol station’s attached convenience store.

  The spider-web of cracks in the glass made it difficult to see inside – more remnants of the riots, I assumed. Somehow, no one had managed to get through the door or any of the surrounding windows. That was unusual, since service stations used to stock all kinds of food, alcohol, cash and car maintenance items in addition to fuel. In my experience, they were usually the first places to get ransacked.

  And then I saw something that made me realise why the rioters had left this place untouched.

  Through the fractal lens of shattered glass, I saw a hunched figure standing behind the counter, still clad in the decaying remains of a forecourt attendant’s uniform. He didn't move. He didn't pace. He didn't fidget. He just stood there, a perfect statue of eternal plebeian servitude.

  Michael came up behind me, and immediately saw what I was looking at. "What do we do?" His voice was a whisper, but he needn't have bothered; the creature was completely unaware of our presence. I shot him a look, amused that for once I knew how to proceed and he didn't.

  "We do this." I smiled confidently, and raised my makeshift crutch. With a sharp thrust, I used the foot of the crutch to smash out the night service window near the cashier's left arm, sending shattered glass flying everywhere. The cashier didn't move, even when shards of glass tinkled across the service counter and the floor around his feet. He was way beyond caring. Content that he was unlikely to attack me, I reached through the hole and released the security lock. It disengaged with a rusty click.

  With my free hand on my taser, I tucked my crutch back under my arm and led the way into the building. Although the goods were untouched, there was little that would be any use to us now. Most of the food here had been fresh, sandwiches and baked goods. The stench of decay hung heavily in the air. The only things of use were a few cans stacked on one shelf, but it was the stuff in the auto-care section that caught my eye.

  "Take as much of that as you can carry." I pointed Michael towards a display of precious motor oil near the counter. He hurried to obey, while I hobbled around to take care of the unfortunate cashier. Much as I had done for dear old Benny, I dispatched the poor fellow with a quick jolt to the back of the neck. He collapsed with a disturbingly wet thud, as if he was already liquefied on the inside and the only thing that kept him in human shape at all was his skin.

  "Off you go to the big service station in the sky, mate." I’m no good at eulogies, but I offered him a quick prayer anyway. "Sleep well."

  Michael stared at the corpse for a moment, then looked at me and nodded silently.

  Between his strength and my experience, we stripped the building of useful resources and disengaged the lock on the petrol pumps. Luckily for us, there was more than enough gas left in the underground tanks to fill up the Hilux and all the barrels we brought along with us to store fuel in.

  After we capped off the last of them, I looked at Michael. "That should keep us going for a while."

  "Yes. Most of the people around here were more interested in mobbing the pharmacies and hospitals than the petrol stations." He frowned deeply, and the expression on his face said that he remembered the riots first hand.

  His tone made me consider how lucky I’d been, in a manner of speaking. By the time I returned to civilization, the riots were long over – everyone was already infected. For some reason, that thought disturbed me more than usual today.

  "Let's go check out that plumbing supply store while we're here." I made the suggestion as much to distract myself as from any real desire to go. I had a funny feeling in my gut, like something bad was about to happen and I didn't know what. As we climbed back into the truck, I found myself watching the bushes intently, like I expected something to come screaming out of them at any second.


  Nothing did.

  Yet, my brain added perversely. I muttered a low curse under my breath.

  "You have a potty mouth." Michael shot an amused sideways glance at me.

  "And you have ridiculously acute hearing." I flicked him a glower.

  Urge to brood... rising…

  Thankfully, he took the hint and left me to my sour mood, instead focusing all his attention on finding the thing that most closely resembled a roadway. In some places, it was hard to tell. Nature was determined to reclaim this city, so the roads were overgrown and wild. A drive that would have taken five minutes before took twenty now, but at least it was an uneventful twenty minutes. Finally, we pulled up outside a shop that looked remarkably intact, aside from needing a bit of a clean and a fresh coat of paint.

  "I guess no one wanted to loot a plumbing supply store," I commented dryly. "If only they knew that plumbing supplies would be more valuable than gold one day."

  "Hey, look back there." Michael pointed, distracting me. I followed his finger to a garage next door. There, an old seven-seater minivan waited patiently for the service that would never come.

  "That's perfect." I eased myself out of the truck and onto the ground. "See if you can find the keys; I'll go get what we need from the store."

  Michael hesitated, torn by indecision about whether to follow me or do as I asked. I was already halfway to the store by the time he made up his mind and headed off to look for the keys.

  In retrospect, I should have known better than to split up. I mean, in horror movies, someone always got killed when they did that. So, guess who got the kudos for the stupidest idea of the day?

  That’s right, it was me.

  The store had seen better days, but aside from a thick layer of dust things were mostly just the same as they had been left years ago. Tarnished brass display fixtures hung on the wall, above models of sinks and shower units. The place was small and cramped, so I was forced to pick my way carefully towards the stockroom in the back.

  The door was locked. Undeterred, I lowered myself to my knees and drew a small set of lock picks from one of my pockets. This lock was one of those old, simple ones, and I would have no problem opening it. After a few minutes, it made a satisfying click and I knew I was in. I levered myself back to my feet and switched the set of lock picks for my taser.

  The door swung open to reveal a room hazy with dust, abandoned to its fate long ago. A quick sweeping glance reassured me there was nothing more threatening than rat droppings and the odd cockroach inside. Despite the dust, whoever used to be in charge of this stockroom kept it well-organised and I found what I needed without difficulty. There were a number of spare elements there as well, so I grabbed as many as I could carry.

  There were a few other things that I thought might come in handy as well, so I added them to my armload of loot. I had no intention of coming back to this place any time soon.

  Still, you never knew.

  With that thought in mind, I pulled the door closed behind me as I left, until I heard the lock click back into place.

  Then, leaning heavily on my crutch with my free arm full of supplies, I hobbled back to the truck. It took some awkward juggling to get the rear cab’s door open but somehow I managed it, and when I did I set my treasure down on the back seat.

  As I was shutting the door, I realised something. It shouldn’t have taken that long to find the keys or to give up and come looking for me. Where was Michael?

  I froze, head tilted, listening for the telltale sound of his footfalls, or the soft hiss of his breath against the silence of our empty world. I heard nothing. Hmm, that was worrying. He should have been back by now.

  I managed to take a single footfall towards the garage before the blast of a shotgun discharge shattered the mid-afternoon silence.

  "Oh, fuck." Sorry, Mum. I picked up the pace, using my crutch like a pole to vault myself over fallen debris. "Michael? Michael!"

  My answer was a blood-curdling, inhuman scream.

  I rounded a corner into the alley that ran behind the building, and found my friend pinned to the ground beneath the weight of a female undead, frantically trying to protect his face from her ragged fingernails. He had the shotgun held crosswise, using it to keep her at bay, but while he was protecting himself there was no way for him to go on the offensive.

  "Sandy!" He saw me and called my name, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he battled to keep the undead off him; her ragged nails were mere centimetres from those kind eyes that I adored. "Sandy, run. Run!"

  I ignored him.

  In three strides I crossed the gap between us, screaming at the undead creature until her head jerked up to stare at me. She howled a bloodthirsty wail, mouth wide to reveal bloody jaws.

  "No, fuck you!" I screamed right back at her as I swung the crutch with all my might, using it like an impromptu cricket bat.

  The undead flew backwards and crashed into a low wall a few feet away, but even with her skull caved in and most of her face gone, she was still trying to get up. I was on her before she could right herself, and jabbed the crossbar of my crutch down into her throat to pin her to the ground. The taser was out of my pocket and crackled to life within a heartbeat, ready to deliver its high-voltage payload.

  And deliver it did, when I crammed it down into the bloody socket where the creature’s face used to be. Electrical current surged through the its body, and made her limbs jerk convulsively as she lost control of her nervous system.

  My chest heaved with exertion as I stumbled back, only to be caught by Michael's strong hands. Like me, he was panting, struggling to catch his breath. Adrenaline had our hearts going at a mile a minute, and it took a second for me to notice that he was covered in blood.

  "Is that yours?" I gasped, pointing at the stains. He shook his head and pointed wordlessly at the jerking corpse; I nearly fainted with relief. Then the still-living carcass distracted me. I stared at it, not quite believing what I was seeing. It was still trying to get up. "Oh Christ, those aren't death throes, are they?"

  Michael shook his head, rendered speechless by his brush with death. It came down to me, then, while he was still recovering.

  "Watch her. If she manages to get up, shoot her." I righted my crutch so I could use it for its intended purpose again. It was slippery with blood and other fluids that I'd rather not have thought about, but there was only one thing on my mind and it wasn't grey matter.

  I returned to the abandoned garage, and it didn't take me long to find what I needed: A bottle of methylated spirits, left behind by the former occupants. I imagined they had used it to clean equipment, but I had a much simpler use for it.

  An impromptu cremation.

  I snatched up the bottle and hobbled back to the rear of the building, where I found Michael guarding the flailing infected with focused intensity. When he saw me coming he lowered his shotgun and hurried to meet me. As he drew closer, he spotted the bottle in my hands and anticipated my idea. He took the spirits and undid the cap, then upended the bottle over the writhing corpse.

  Oh god, it was trying to howl, but all that came out of its shattered face was an infuriated gurgling. Its tongue flailed through the bloody mass that had once been a pair of jaws, disembodied and horrifying. My gorge rose.

  Thankfully, Michael had his nerve back and took care of the gruesome task for me. Once it was burning, we left the corpse behind us and hurried back to the front of the building, to put as much distance between us and the stench of death as we possibly could.

  Back at the Hilux, Michael rounded on me with anger on his face. "I told you to run – why didn’t you run? You could have been killed!"

  I'd never seen him angry before, but I was too riled up on adrenaline to care. My back was up and I was still in fight or flight mode. Social graces were completely out the window.

  "And I said fuck you!"

  "No you didn’t – you said that to her!" He yelled, and jabbed a finger back in the direction where the creat
ure burned.

  "Whatever– I don't even– Shut up!" My patience was gone, and my pulse pounded deafeningly in my ears. There was only one thing on my mind, and I needed to sate it before I went mad.

  The crutch clattered to the ground when I lunged at him, taking him completely by surprise. He tripped, and then I had him pinned with his back up against the car before he knew what hit him. The kiss was hot and hungry, passionate, fuelled by our recent brush with death. It was a completely different kind of kiss to the tender taste he'd sampled earlier in the day. It was animalistic. I’d almost lost him before I even had the chance to get to know him, and I was furious about it.

  Not at him, though. I was furious at myself.

  It was my stupidity that almost cost this sweet, kind man his life. My moronic need to show him how strong and independent I was. It was so idiotic. I felt like a fool.

  Our lips parted after a moment that seemed to last forever. I shoved myself back away from him, now out of breath for a completely different reason. He stared at me, both of us still riled up but our anger was fading into… something else.

  Perhaps he understood me a little bit better now, after seeing me fight to protect him. Even if I lacked the means to eloquently express my attraction out loud, he seemed to understand that I couldn’t have abandoned him just because he ordered it. Like him, I would do anything to protect someone that I cared about – even if it cost me my life.

  All of a sudden, it felt like we had far more in common than we initially realised.

  ***

  It took us a while to coax some life out of the minivan, but we got it going long enough to get it back to base.

  It was spluttering and making some very upset noises by the time we finally pulled into the parking garage, with me behind the wheel of the minivan and Michael in the Hilux. Still, we were home and safe, so I’d have time to get it running smoothly before we left again. As the gate rumbled closed behind me, I breathed a sigh of relief at being back in our nice, secure bunker again.