Dead: Snapshot 01: Portland, Oregon

by T. W. Brown

  Moving down the front of the house, Ken cast a longing glance at the still-open tailgate on his pickup. There was an arsenal in the back of that thing that could arm a small third world nation. He’d made up his mind that he would not move everything into the house until he was satisfied that he would be staying.

  Oddly enough, he had not come to that conclusion yet. While it certainly seemed like a wise choice, Ken had a difficult time seeing himself riding out the apocalypse with these people. Not that he’d ever even remotely considered such things ever happening, but if this was the end of civilization, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be around anybody.

  As he stepped to the right to avoid the outstretched arms of the nearest zombie, he brought his Glock up and jammed it against the temple of the awkward creature and fired. The bullet passed through and promptly punched a hole in a curtained window. He winced inwardly and told himself to be more careful.

  That thought prompted a flood of things that he’d done wrong up to this point. As he made his way from one zombie to the next, oblivious to the fact that he was making his way towards the front gate, he reflected on how careless he’d been. If he wanted to survive (an idea that he was still not convinced of yet), then he was going to need to make smarter decisions.

  It was as he was sliding in a fresh magazine and letting the slide load the next round that Ken chose to stay. These people would need a strong leader. He had not seen anybody that had impressed him back at Erin’s place. He sure as hell wasn’t going to trust these people’s fate to a convict.

  At last, he reached the gate. It was still locked. Glancing to the left and right, it took him a few moments to find the break in the fence. Walking with brisk purpose, Ken could see several more of the undead stumbling along on the road that ran parallel to the property. Taking a good look around, he made out a half dozen more small clusters of zombies, along with a few lone figures that were headed his direction.

  When he reached the part of the fence where the barbed wire had snapped, he put bullets in the heads of the five that were entangled and thrashing around on the ground, each oblivious to the rips and tears that they were inflicting on themselves as the barbs dug furrows in arms, legs, chests and even faces.

  There was no way he could do anything to repair the fence at the moment. The opening was a good three yards wide from post to post. He was still considering his options when a noise behind him made him spin and bring up the Glock.

  “Whoa!” Juanita yelped as she threw up her hands and stumbled back. The black and white dog was at her side, his nose sniffing the air; there were no signs of the other two.

  Maybe they were the smart ones, he thought. He lowered his pistol. “We got trouble.”

  That had been all he’d had the chance to say before the next wave arrived. Actually, they were still a good ten or twenty yards from the gaping hole in the fence, but that stupid dog had rushed out, barking and snapping at the first group of three. Ken had noticed how all the other groups seemed to orient on the dog. Whether it was the noise or the tempting snack the mutt made, he didn’t know, but he was going to use that to his advantage.

  He sent Juanita back to the house to fetch a leash. He made it very clear that she needed to make sure that the other two dogs were shut inside the house. When she returned, he had already dropped eight more undead, but at least thirty or forty more were closing in on him and the dog.

  He clipped the leash to the dog’s collar and started up the road. The beauty of this rural location was the abundance of wooded areas.

  “C’mon, mutt.” Ken gave the leash a tug.

  “His name is Imp,” Juanita corrected.

  “I don’t care.”

  Ken turned and started up the road with Imp and Juanita in tow. He would pause every so often to let the dog bark and the zombies to re-gain some ground. At last he spotted a good place to duck into the trees. He waited once more until the zombies were close enough and the dog was having a conniption fit before ducking into the woods.

  He had never considered the possibility that there would be any zombies in the woods. That had almost cost him his life. He was walking backwards, urging the zombies to follow. The dog had grown more agitated by the minute. When it suddenly turned and lunged behind them, Ken was spun around and found himself face-to-face with a woman that reached for him with a hand missing two fingers that had been bitten off; recently if the wet smear down his jacket’s left sleeve was any indication.

  Ken jammed the gun into the face of the undead woman. “Get that stupid dog back to the house and shut it up!” Ken snapped as he fired pointblank into the face of the zombie.

  “Which way do I go?” Juanita asked, her gaze darting from Ken to the still approaching group of zombies that had followed them from the road and into the woods.

  Ken pointed to his left. “Go that way a good hundred yards or so and then turn for the road. Move fast and keep that dog quiet. I will take these damn things a bit deeper into the woods and then lose them. I’ll meet you back at the house as soon as I can.”

  “What about the hole in the fence?”

  “One thing at a time,” Ken called over his shoulder as he stomped away. A second later, he began belting out the song, Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks.

  He kept his head on a swivel this time, aware that that stupid dog had probably saved his life a moment ago. Once again, he’d been careless. That had to change, starting now. He sang louder when he was sure that the zombies were tracking him instead of Juanita and that dog. From what he had observed so far, sound definitely had an effect on these things. That had to be something they could exploit.

  “…where the whiskey drowns and beer chases my blues away…” Ken warbled as a plan began to form in his head.

  ***

  “My poor car,” Rose sighed as the trio climbed out.

  The large blue and white sign of Legacy Hospital could be seen through some trees. They simply needed to go up and over a couple of blocks.

  The drive in had gotten a lot more interesting the closer that they got to Portland. They began to see a few vehicles on the roads. One instance was a bit terrifying.

  They had passed a large panel van driving east in the westbound lane of Interstate 84. The van had slammed on the brakes and tried to block their path as they neared, but the interstate was too wide and Jason swerved around it. The van had come after them and Jason had made a snap decision.

  “Hand me that street sweeper as soon as I stop,” he said over his shoulder.

  Rose hadn’t actually known what a street sweeper was up to that point, but she grabbed the shotgun with the large canister that looked like some sort revolver on steroids.

  “Hang on!” Jason shouted and then slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel a bit to the left to put the driver’s side of her car facing in the direction of the oncoming panel van. In a flash he threw open his door. “Hand me the shotgun!”

  Rose did as he asked and then watched Jason pump the weapon and bring it to his hip. Then he did something crazy; he started walking towards the oncoming van! She kept wondering why he wouldn’t shoot. At last, he pulled the trigger. Then things got even crazier. Jason kept firing, and the van kept coming. It seemed to be impossibly close and she remembered wondering why she hadn’t gotten out of the car. She was going to be rammed and the odds were not in her favor to come out of it without serious injury. Fortunately, the driver of the van must have finally seen the weapon and been a bit nervous, because it swerved suddenly.

  Jason fired one more shot and then dove out of the way. Rose thought that she heard him yell something like “Hang on!” but she couldn’t be sure. In any case, that last shot must have hit a tire because there was a loud pop or bang and then the van did a sumersault…and another…and then three more. Rose swore that thing actually cleared the hood of her car on that second flip, but in any case, her little Honda Civic had escaped unharmed.

  At least up to that point.

  They came o
ff Interstate 84 and were merging on to Interstate 5 when a black SUV came upon them fast as it rocketed north on Interstate 5. Jason had to swerve hard to the right and clipped the concrete barrier. The horrible grinding sound set Rose’s teeth on edge and made the terrible headache that was banging in her temples that much worse. The SUV clipped them enough to spin them around to where they were now facing south into oncoming traffic. At least a dozen cars flew past with none of them so much as slowing to see if any of them were hurt.

  Jason had to restart the car, and for a moment, it did not look like he would be able to as the engine made odd noises and seemed to sputter. At last it turned over and he spun them back around in the right direction. They had made it off the interstate, but not much further as black smoke began to leak from under the hood.

  “We’re almost there,” Erin pointed at the sign.

  Together, the three of them grabbed everything from the car and started off the rest of the way on foot. They were just coming around the corner of a big park when the sounds of gunfire could be heard coming in bunches from the direction of the hospital. A few louder booms followed sporadically.

  “Grenades?” Jason said as more of a question.

  Rose had no idea. She had never heard a grenade before, but the noise did remind her of the sounds from the Fourth of July displays that came on the heels of the flashing display of light.

  They continued on, Erin starting to increase their pace from a fast jog to more of an all-out run. Rose stayed with them, noticing that they started to slow again after only a minute. She could have kept that pace for a while, but neither Erin nor Jason were in the shape that she was in.

  “Almost there,” Rose reminded, trying to coax the two into picking their tempo up.

  As they passed a non-descript building, a figure stumbled out at them. Rose jumped and cleared it easily, but Jason stepped to his right and fell off the curb, hitting the pavement with an audible exhale that was forced out with a yelp of pain.

  Rose stopped and turned to help him and heard Erin’s footsteps continue on as if nothing had just happened. A pair of zombies were now closing in, and Jason was making a strange croaking noise. The noise was not the problem so much as the fact that he did not seem to be making any effort to get back up or even roll over.

  Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she saw Erin disappear around the corner. Zombies were seeming to come out from every direction. Some of them were following after Erin who was now yelling her friend’s name.

  Rose heard the refrain of “Cherry, where are you!” growing faint as the woman continued on her way towards the hospital and all the gunfire that was now becoming more like popcorn when the batch is almost entirely popped.

  10

  “Yes. This is really happening.”

  Ken hurried along the tree line. He could see the house. So far, not a single zombie could be seen. He paused and made sure before coming out and jogging across the last stretch of open ground that brought him to the barbed wire fence that bordered the property.

  To the left he could see the road that ran along the front. Already, birds were circling the “free” buffet that was being served up as dozens of corpses now began the process of rotting in the sun. That would have to be a top priority on his to-do list. They had to burn or dispose of all these bodies.

  Slipping between two strands of the barbed wire, Ken hurried the rest of the way to the house. He was almost to the porch when he heard a low growl come from inside, quickly followed by a shushing sound. Juanita’s head peeked out from the curtains of the shattered window beside the front door.

  “Thank God it’s you,” she breathed.

  “Who else would it be?” Ken asked gruffly as he reached for the door to enter the house.

  “Some people were outside of the house a moment ago,” she answered in a whisper that, coupled with how fast she spoke, almost made it impossible for Ken to understand what she had said.

  “We aren’t looking for trouble,” a voice said from behind Ken. He spun, his pistol up and ready. It only took a slight adjustment for him to be lined up with a shot that would hit center mass of his target.

  It was a woman, and she was holding the hand of a little boy no older than six or seven. She immediately stepped in front of the child and shielded him with her body.

  “Please!” she almost begged. “Our car crashed up the road a ways. My husband tried to avoid hitting one of those…things. We went into the ditch and he got knocked out by the air bag. I tried to wake him, but nothing worked. A bunch of those things were headed our way so I grabbed Evan and we ran.”

  Ken sighed. He knew what he needed to do, but that didn’t mean he would like it.

  “You and the boy get inside. That is Juanita.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the woman as she opened the front door and emerged onto the porch.

  A second later, before Ken could introduce himself, Evan shrieked. “Doggies!”

  The black and white dog had bolted past Juanita and rushed to the child. Its tail was wagging furiously and the dog nudged and jumped up on the boy until the two fell to the ground and began rolling around, a mix of laughter and happy yips.

  Ken’s eyes began to search in every direction. This noise would bring more of those things. He pursed his lips and snapped, “Quiet!”

  The pair almost froze, both stopping in their play and turning their heads to the man who had just ended the fun. The dog sat down, but the boy started with a jutting lower lip and then erupted into bawling. He scrambled to his feet and ran to his mother that was now looking at Ken like he might actually be worse than the zombies.

  “Listen,” Ken raised his hands in a sign of peace, “you two can play all you want inside. But if you make all that noise out here—”

  “The monsters will come?” little Evan managed around his crocodile tears.

  “Yes, the monsters will come.” He looked up at the mother and saw her stance ease a bit. “I am going to go for a walk up the road…” He raised his eyebrows as he left that sentence as a bit of a question.

  “That way,” the woman said as she pointed up the road towards the direction he had come when he first arrived at this house.

  “Okay.” Ken rose and dusted himself off. “Juanita, you take the new folks inside. Keep the door shut and keep a watch in the direction where the fence is busted. We need to fix it or plug it up, but I don’t think it will do much good. Too many of those things at once and the barbed wire snaps like string. We are going to have to come up with something more durable if we plan on staying here.”

  “You’re staying here?” the woman asked, sounding equal parts shocked and alarmed.

  “Where else would we go?” Juanita asked, signaling Ken to keep quiet. “The FEMA centers are falling. Anybody who is bitten becomes one of those things.”

  Ken would have missed it if he blinked, but he saw the woman’s eyes tighten just a bit at that statement. He gave her a closer look. She seemed fine. He felt his throat go dry as he turned his attention to the boy. Was that a scratch on his right arm? He moved a little to get a better look. Apparently the woman had picked up on his move. She lunged forward and snatched her child back to her side and then nudged him behind her body.

  “On second thought, we will go see if my husband managed to get the car out of the ditch.”

  “I thought that you said he was unconscious?” Juanita asked, obviously confused.

  The woman locked eyes with Ken. Her lips were pressed tight, and he saw a determination in her gaze that let him know she would die trying to save her son if it came down to that. He gave a knowing nod and stepped back. It didn’t matter if he already knew that the child was as good as dead. He let his eyes drift to the boy once more and saw the beginnings of dark tracers creeping into the whites of the little boy’s eyes.

  “I think we might have a few things that would help,” Ken said quietly. Ken nodded to the open back end of the pickup. The woman looked back at Ken and he saw the accepta
nce of a terrible fate in her expression.

  “No thank you.”

  With that, the woman took her son by the hand and headed for the opening in the fence. He watched them go. He almost hated the fact that he was a little relieved when a single zombie fell in behind them and did not come through the open spot in the fence.

  “Why did you let them go?” Juanita’s voice cut through his thoughts and returned him to the situation at hand.

  “The boy was bitten. He was infected and is going to become one of those things.”

  Juanita’s mouth opened and then closed with a snap. She let her gaze drift over and get one final glimpse of the mother and her son just before they vanished from sight.

  “How could you just let them leave like that?”

  Ken spun and saw the reproach directed at him. He had actually expected this woman to understand. Up to this point, she had seemed fairly reasonable.

  “And what would you have me do? Hold them against their will? Wait for the boy to turn into one of those things and then try to fight my way past that mother who is ready to die to save a boy that is beyond saving?” Ken did his best to control his voice, speaking in a low, even tone.

  Juanita seemed to consider his words for a moment. It almost reminded him of watching that frame-by-frame series of pictures when Mount St. Helens blew. It was a slow and steady collapse and then tears streaming in rivulets that cut through the dirt and grime that had accumulated during a day of killing zombies, running through woods, and killing more zombies.

  “This is really happening,” she hiccupped once she stopped crying.

  At that moment, there was a scream. It came from the direction that the woman and her son had gone. A moment later, another scream joined it; mother and son in a chorus of terror. He turned back to Juanita.

  “Yes. This is really happening.”