The Sword of Saint Michael

by D C P Fox

  Alexander shrugged. “Don’t make a big deal of it. Don’t let on you’re aware of it.”

  They split up. Alexander left to search for various useful pharmaceuticals while she looked for the lithium, and after she retrieved it, she turned a corner and bumped into him. His bottles of pills spilled down onto the floor.

  “I’m sorry, Alexander.” She stooped over to pick up the bottles. He must have done the same, because their heads collided.

  “Ow!” they both said simultaneously.

  She burst into laughter, and then Alexander joined in. He was so cute when he laughed, and he really was handsome. She found intelligent men sexy.

  She put her arms around his neck, put on her best seductive face, and kissed him.

  He appeared surprised.

  He pulled away from her. “I’m married.”

  She stared at him, a little ashamed, even though his family were probably zombies, or, if not, dead, but she wouldn’t remind him of that. As far as her boyfriend was concerned, they were heading for a break-up anyway.

  But then he kissed her back. Maybe he realized he had to move on, or maybe given their circumstances he needed some intimate human contact, like she did right now. She didn’t ask his motivation, and he didn’t volunteer it. Instead, they continued their kiss passionately. She didn’t want it to end.

  And then, instinctively, without even knowing she was doing it, she grabbed his penis through his pants. This horrified her, and he broke off the kiss.

  He stared at her. “I’ll . . . “ He glanced down at the spilled bottles. “I’ll pick these up later,” he said, still looking down. He never looked at her, and he scampered away.

  Shit.

  Chapter Thirty

  Day Nine

  In the twilight of dawn, Janice shivered, despite the ski jacket. A thin, white layer of frost blanketed the ground. As she and all the others walked in silence—per Vin’s instructions—she alternated between looking at her watch and scanning around for zombies or any hostiles. She carried her handgun—everyone carried theirs—still stained with blood on the grip, behind her back tucked into the elastic band of her pink sweat pants. She mused on how everyone had changed into the sweats, only to have them covered in blood. The retail tag still hung on her ski jacket.

  They all wore their backpacks, just in case something were to go wrong and they needed them.

  Alexander carried Emily, who slept, or at least pretended to. Alexander’s wrist had mostly healed, and other than a few bruises, Emily seemed fine. No, Emily’s sufferings were all in her mind—the trauma of witnessing her family killed and turned into zombies would have caused PTSD in any adult, let alone a child. Fortunately, none of the adults showed signs of it.

  And she did worry about Jocelyn. No healthy person sleeps through the commotion caused by that zombie attack. And now this weird expression on her face—no, not an expression, a lack of expression—that gave Janice the willies. Was that because she was a zombie, or part-zombie? Instead of saying anything, she let it go and hoped no one else noticed.

  Jize suffered from melancholy, bordering on depression—or perhaps he was depressed and masked his symptoms well. He certainly slept well. Or did he? It was possible he laid there in the darkness, suffering in silence. She guessed that a lack of a piano didn’t help, but at least she knew a remedy for that situation. She didn’t want to get his hopes up, though.

  Vin definitely hadn’t slept well, though he seemed to adjust the best. And Marty suffered no lasting effects from his accident.

  Janice admitted to herself that she hadn’t cared for anyone in years like she cared for these people, and she’d known them for only a week, Jocelyn for just twelve hours. In fact, she cared more for these people than she did for her mother who died five years ago. Her emotional attachment to these people was frightening, because she didn’t see it as natural. Maybe this was her reaction to the apocalypse. Maybe this was her way of grieving for society. Maybe she simply hadn’t forgotten what it was like to be a nurse, and she instinctively fulfilled a sorely needed role.

  Janice was thankful that after a half-hour of walking, they reached the rental car lot without incident. They all followed Vin as he walked up to one of five identical large passenger vans, complete with side sliding door and rear barn doors.

  “I see the key fob inside,” Vin said. “It’s probably unlocked.”

  He tried the driver’s door, and it was, indeed, unlocked, and he then opened the barn doors in the back. Janice saw two captain’s chairs up front and two rows of bench seats in the back, with plenty of room for cargo in the rear.

  “This will work,” Vin said. Janice thought this an understatement—it was perfect . . . if it would start. As if reading Janice’s thoughts, Vin said, “Alexander, do you want to try turning it on?”

  “Can you hold Emily?” Alexander asked Janice.

  Janice was glad to do that. She couldn’t carry her for a half-hour while walking, but she wanted to care for Emily like only a mother could. Even if she had never been a mother.

  Alexander walked over to the driver’s door, opened it and climbed in. A few seconds later, Janice heard the roar of the engine. Everyone gave a little cheer, and though Vin “shushed” them, he gave a big grin.

  “Alexander, is there gas?” Vin asked.

  “Full tank,” Alexander said.

  Janice gave a slight gasp. It seemed too good to be true.

  Emily stirred. “What’s going on?” She said, yawning, looking still half-asleep.

  “We’re going to our new home,” Janice said, fighting back tears.

  They all filled the seats, Janice and Emily in the rear. Alexander drove and Vin sat shotgun.

  “Colorado Springs, here we come!” Alexander said as they pulled out of the rental car lot, breaking the wooden arm of the closed gate.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Marty asked Jocelyn, who was seated with Jize in the second row.

  So, Marty noticed it too.

  Jocelyn sighed. “Why do you say that?”

  “Never mind,” Marty said. He grunted.

  “The bad man hit my mommy’s head on the steps,” Emily said.

  They avoided traffic jams the same way Marty had—driving on side roads, sidewalks, median strips, parking lots, vacant lots, and the wrong way—though it was slow going.

  Back at the supermarket, the sun emerged above a nearby mountain while they gathered up their clothing, backpacks, sleeping bags, food, and other supplies. Apprehension crept in, and Jocelyn got a vague feeling they were being watched, but she just chalked it up to her anxiety over the situation. Loading up the van made them vulnerable to attack, by zombies or anyone else.

  Glad she didn’t feel that tingling on the back of her neck, Jocelyn couldn’t remember when it had stopped, but she recalled not feeling it during her encounter with Alexander in the pharmacy.

  They loaded the van without incident, though Vin and Marty took turns standing guard.

  At one point Marty walked away from his post and talked with Vin, though she couldn’t overhear what they said. But after that, Marty jogged back in the van’s direction, and Vin walked up to her.

  “How much of that did you hear?”

  “Nothing. What’s going on?”

  “Marty thought he saw movement near the apartments across the road. It’s probably nothing, but pick up the pace. I’ll tell the others.”

  If Jocelyn’s instincts were correct, and they were being watched, then it wasn’t from draugar. Draugar don’t lurk and watch. Or do they? Jocelyn shuddered and jogged with her bag of food to the van.

  A hardware store near the market on a road parallel to the rental car lot was their first stop. As they approached, the prickly, burning sensation returned to the back of Jocelyn’s neck.

  While Marty and Alexander looted the place for things like gas cans, bolt cutters, and other useful things they didn’t find at the supermarket, two draugar appeared, each looking into the van throug
h the two front seat windows.

  Jocelyn, seated next to the window on the left side of the van, on the second row of seats, was about to cry out when she realized the two draugar weren’t attacking but instead merely looking inside. No one occupied the driver’s seat, but Vin was in the front passenger seat, only a thin pane of glass separating him from one draugar. Vin had his eyes shut and didn’t seem to notice.

  Were they looking for her, as Alexander had suggested? She had the inspiration to try telepathically communicating with them like she could do with animals and plants. Why not draugar? She zeroed in on the one next to Vin, crossed her fingers—a trigger that put herself in a light, meditative state. However, she only had enough time to get “hungry for brains” before Vin exclaimed, “Holy shit!” and broke her communication link.

  Behind her, Janice screamed. Beside her, Jize yelled, “What’s wrong?”

  The draugar disappeared from the front windows. One, at the window of the side door, pushed the van, listing it to the left. Out came Vin’s shotgun as the van rocked back to the right. He climbed back into the second row, stepping on Jize’s foot.

  “Ouch!”

  Vin pulled the sliding door open. A draugar, outside the door, with a torn t-shirt and one of those sores on its arm, immediately lunged forward into a shotgun blast to the chest. But the van rocked toward the side door, and Vin stumbled out the van on top of the draugar. They fell together onto the sidewalk, Vin dropping his shotgun.

  The van rocked back upright onto its wheels. On top of the draugar, Vin had the advantage, and gained his composure, striking the draugar on the head. That did little if any damage, and the draugar grabbed Vin’s head and threw him over on his back. Vin broke his fall with his hands, keeping his head from hitting the sidewalk, but his legs slammed into the wall of the hardware store.

  Jocelyn stood up and almost lost her balance as she climbed over Jize. She leaped out and faced an adult female draugar and vaguely wondered if she had children, and, if so, whether she had eaten their brains. Jocelyn drew her sword and sliced clean through her neck, her head tumbling down, her body slumping onto the cement.

  A draugar to her left sped up toward Vin, and Jocelyn, out of sword range, dropped her sword and picked up Vin’s shotgun, pumped it, aimed, and fired. Its head exploded, the body propelled toward the wall.

  Jocelyn looked around. A third draugar climbed through the door into the third row. Janice and Emily screamed. Jize, his useless gun out, retreated to where Jocelyn had been sitting. Jocelyn didn’t want to risk hitting Emily with shotgun shell pellets, so she dropped her shotgun, picked up her sword, and entered the van. She did not have enough room inside the van, though, to swing her sword. Instead, she thrust it into the draugar’s neck, trying to get in between vertebrae, and the draugar went limp, its body draped over Emily, its head resting on Janice. Puss oozed from a sore on the draugar’s face. Janice looked at it in sheer horror. Emily wailed.

  Knowing the draugar might revive at any moment, Jocelyn pulled the draugar off onto the floor between the seats. While she did that, strong hands gripped her underneath her armpits. Tossed around, she dropped her sword and fell on her side onto the sidewalk, hitting her head. She no longer had a weapon. A draugar straddled her and struck her in the head with strong and directed punches.

  A shot rang out, and the striking stopped. Marty kicked the draugar off of her, followed by two more shotgun shots. She guessed the draugar was dead, but not taking any chances, she crawled away in the opposite the direction of where she thought the draugar fell, pushed herself up, and looked around. No draugar moved.

  She walked over to the sliding door and looked inside: no live draugar, just the one at Janice and Emily’s feet that didn’t stir.

  Janice winced in pain. Emily continued to wail. Jize stared at Jocelyn in horror.

  “They’re bitten,” he said, barely above a whisper.

  Jocelyn retrieved her sword and circled the van. All the draugar were down, some heads almost pulverized by shotgun blasts. She doubled back to the van, and she and Marty pulled the draugar out onto the sidewalk. She made the rounds and severed all the necks, making sure all the draugar were dead and couldn’t come back to life.

  But the damage was done.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Day Nine

  The first thing Marty needed to do was to quiet Emily, whose wailing might attract zombies or other hostiles. He had at least some experience in doing so with Amanda. I’m sorry, Amanda.

  He propped his shotgun up against the van and climbed in. Jize sat in the middle row, just staring at Janice and Emily. Marty surmised he was shell-shocked. When Marty looked at the woman and the girl, he noticed the bite wounds. One on Emily’s forearm, one on Janice’s shoulder, both through their sweat shirts.

  Oh, shit.

  Never mind the crying, they had a much worse problem. He hesitated.

  Would they turn into zombies right now? Should he and Jize get out of that van?

  Janice met his stare.

  “You two, go,” she said, barely above Emily’s crying. She then grabbed Emily and held onto her, gently telling her to hush, that everything would be all right.

  Of course, as Marty and Jize retreated out of the van, he knew everything was not all right. Not at all.

  They were in uncharted territory. Normally, the virus transmitted immediately, and symptoms developed in less than a minute. But in those cases, the “patient” appeared to die with their brains eaten.

  But not always.

  Jocelyn, with her four-day delirium after her bite, during which she fought off the disease, appeared to be immune.

  There were the pre-apocalypse cases. The virus remained dormant, though with some unspecified symptoms—Alexander reported them to appear flu-like in the woman he talked to right before she turned, but he wasn’t sure—until the shit hit the fan. Turning into zombies seemed to have occurred all at once, or, at least, within an hour or two. And clearly, there was more than one “patient zero” because otherwise, it would take far longer for the outbreak to travel from Beaver Park to New York City than it did.

  And now there was Janice and Emily. Both were bitten, but they hadn’t died, nor was any part of their brain eaten. What route would they follow?

  How many people had been bitten, like Jocelyn, only to succumb to the brain-eating? What would have happened to them if they hadn’t? Jocelyn was the only person any of them had come across where the brain had not been eaten, until Janice and Emily.

  “Why did you leave?” Vin asked Marty and Jize. “Will someone shut Emily up?”

  “They’ve been bitten,” Marty said.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Vin exclaimed. He took his shotgun and raised it, moving toward the door.

  “Hold up, Vin!” Marty yelled. “They’re not zombies!”

  Vin scowled. “Not yet zombies, you mean.”

  Marty picked up his shotgun and aimed it at Vin. Vin scowled again. “I’m not going to shoot them, you dumb ass!”

  “Aren’t you?” Marty asked calmly.

  Vin lowered his gun. “No, idiot, I’m not. But we need to protect ourselves in case they become zombies. Why don’t you go get the first aid kit and let me point my gun at them?”

  I’m not falling for that. Marty remained stoic.

  Vin scowled one more time and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Can you guard them? While I go get the first aid kit?”

  Marty nodded. “Without your gun.”

  “Shit.” Vin dropped his weapon and headed for the back of the van. “Get over here now.”

  Marty complied and pointed his shotgun at Janice and Emily, who continued to cry, but now a softer sob. Janice held her, eyes closed, silent tears running down her cheeks.

  While Marty guarded Janice and Emily, Jocelyn retreated with the others to the front of the hardware store, navigating around headless draugar bodies.

  “We need to discuss our options,” Vin said, “now that Janice and Emily are infected.” Jo
celyn grabbed Alexander’s hand before she knew what she was doing. She found it gave her a sense of assurance and humanity, and it gratified her that he did not let go.

  “You can’t know that for sure,” Jocelyn pointed out.

  “She was bitten. Ask your new boyfriend.” Vin looked at Alexander, who suddenly released her hand. “You said it was 100% transmissible saliva to blood.”

  “That was just speculation if the zombies had sores in their mouths,” Alexander said.

  “Oh, so now it’s just speculation.” Vin sneered. “You are so full of it.”

  “I think his speculation is right, though,” Jocelyn interjected. “How else do you explain the rapid spread of the illness?”

  Vin scowled. “Because they ate their brains. It seems to me that if someone dies, and a zombie eats their brains, they come back to life, right away, as a zombie. ‘Course they must only eat part of their brains.”

  Alexander nodded. “I think that’s right. They need to have part of their brain to survive, but only a small part seems to be enough.”

  Vin raised his voice as he asked, “Is that more of your bullshit speculation?”

  “People,” Jize interjected. “We are all just speculating. And we’re all smart.”

  Alexander laughed derisively.

  “Dammit Alexander!” Jocelyn said. “I have a fucking PhD.” Jocelyn crossed her arms, shivering in the morning breeze.

  “And I have an engineering degree,” Vin said. “And you can’t be a world-renowned concert pianist without being smart. Not that that should matter, you asshole. You’ve pieced more of this together, I’ll give you that. But you know nothing for sure any more than we do . . . Now, getting back to the subject at hand. I think we’ll all agree the chance that Janice and Emily are infected is high. Right?”