Billy moved slowly into a crouch, thanking whatever it was that drew the monsters away. “Let’s shut the curtains and do some planning. They all have their backs to us.” He moved the heavy, dark drapes across the massive windows slowly until the three of them sat in partial darkness.
“I have to pee,” Vanessa stated blankly and stood.
“There are two bathrooms, a big one down here and smaller one up there. Go for it.” Billy pointed upstairs.
Vanessa didn’t move. Billy was about to ask what was wrong, when Kyle interrupted, “Daniel told us we never went anywhere alone. Not ever.”
“But I already cleared the place.”
Both kids shook their heads no.
Billy shrugged. “Okay then. Upstairs or down?”
“Down.”
The three of them moved from the living room across the white tiles of the kitchen to the bathroom. Billy moved in first, checking the small closet, looking in the claw-foot tub and even opening a large cabinet.
“Clear.” He waved his hand, indicating the room was all hers. Delighted, she moved past him into the room. He made to close the door, but Kyle put his hand on it.
“We’ll just turn around and let her go,” the boy said. “We always stay in sight.”
Billy smiled. “Daniel was a smart guy.”
“We’re alive because of him.”
“Right. As of now, I adopt Daniel’s Always Stick Together philosophy or whatever. I’m not watching anybody go to the bathroom though, that’s icky. And weird,” he added.
The girl finished up and the three of them grabbed their packs and moved upstairs. Billy had already cleared the rooms, but he did a once-over again, checking closets and large spaces. The place was clean for being deserted for so long, with a bit of dust here and there. The beds were made in all the bedrooms and Billy picked the room with the view of the park and portions of Pacific Heights. The room held a giant flat screen television, several chests of drawers, and two chairs with a small table and desk. Two tall, stainless steel lamps flanked the enormous king-size bed, which sat across from a set of mirrored closet doors. The bedroom door had a lock on it and Billy engaged it before he closed the vertical blinds to the window and drew the heavy drapes. He also took a hefty comforter from the decorative cedar chest at the foot of the bed and ran it across the curtain rod, wrapping it over the drapes. The room had become extremely dark when he covered the window.
He took a few steps back, putting his hands on his hips and admiring his handy work. He took a deep breath, taking in the scent of cedar.
“Should do it.”
The kids had figured out what he was doing, having seen their former guardian do the same thing.
“We can have a light on now?” asked Vanessa.
“Yeah, why not? And guess what? I happen to have one.” Billy began to dig in his pack, but Kyle beat him to it and popped on his flashlight. The kid covered the top of the beam so it would only shine into the backpack, helping in Billy’s search. Billy came away with a wind-up lantern and immediately began to crank the handle. The item brightened instantly, throwing a moderate amount of light throughout the room. He stopped winding after about a minute then dug in his bag again. He produced a small bundle and unwrapped it.
“Prepare to get your butts kicked, young ones!”
He laid out a piece of multicolored cloth which turned out to be a representation of the board from the game Sorry! He also had three different colored pawns and a set of dice.
“Sorry has cards,” Kyle told him.
“Sorry.” Both kids looked at him. “No, I mean I’m sorry that Sorry! is supposed to use cards, but I have dice. A four or a ten moves you backward, everything else is the same. I’ve been playing this way for years. It works.”
“Yeah, but—” began Kyle, but Vanessa cut him off.
“Shh! Do you hear that?”
All three of them cocked their heads and listened. The hacking rasp, mournful moans and terrifying hissing of agitated infected began to become audible. The dead hadn’t moved off for very long and the noises were getting louder.
“Pack up,” Billy quietly demanded of the kids. He switched the lantern off then moved to the drapes. He looked at the kids then moved the left side of the blanket he had added to the drapery. Dozens of infected were streaming through the park toward the building he and the kids were in. Some were already crossing the street between the park and the row of houses.
“They’re coming,” he told the kids and then a Runner screamed. The scream was outside, but close.
To their credit, the kids didn’t look as frightened as he thought they should be. They finished packing and Billy pointed to the Sorry! game. “Don’t forget that. Kyle, can you hold on to it for me?”
Kyle rolled up the cloth board as Billy checked his magazines. “I have fifty-one bullets. There are at least a hundred of them out there and more will come because of the racket these ones are making. If I shoot, every dead-head in the city will come looking. I’m going to have to go hand-to-hand.” He hefted the combat dagger he had appropriated from the remains of the man who had tried to capture him. “I really wish I had my machete back,” he added thoughtfully.
Although the apartment that he and the kids were holed up in occupied the second and third floors, there was a door which led to a hall. The hall led to the exterior door and there were already fists slamming against it. The living folks heard the shattering of glass on the lower level and in moments, the crashing around of infected who had gained access to the single-floor apartment below them. Billy had no doubt that they would gain access to the hall and then the short set of stairs to the apartment door.
The room was fairly dark, Billy’s eyes slowly becoming adjusted. He still couldn’t make out details and he wanted to search for an attic or roof access. He wound the lantern again and began to explore. He and the kids stuck together as they hunted for the access, but there was nothing in any of the upstairs bedrooms, even in the closets.
The sounds of the dead in the apartment two floors below were getting loud. Both the crashing and the vocal noises the dead made. “No wonder these people left. The floors are paper thin. Can you imagine trying to sleep with a big party going on down there? Sheesh.”
The kids looked at each other, then at Billy. Fear was creeping into their eyes. He had been trying to make jokes because he couldn’t think of a way out of this for the kids. There was no fire escape on this building and Billy thought that was ridiculous. What if there had been a fire? Or a plague of the living dead? How were these obviously wealthy people supposed to escape?
The door to the apartment below must have given way, because there was a large crash and then Billy could hear infected in the hall. He had a mental picture of the door coming open and the dead spilling onto the floor.
He just couldn’t figure how they had known he and the kids were in here. He had been super cautious because of the kids. He sighed. It didn’t matter. He had to get rid of the dead, so the kids would live. He looked at the dagger in his hand, shook his head, and made for the door.
“Where are you going?” Kyle demanded immediately.
“Um… So, there are a bunch of dead people down there. They want to be up here and we don’t want that. I’m going to go kill the dead people. Re-kill?” He wrinkled his nose in thought. “Kill again? Execute? Slay? Um… Destroy! Yeah, I’m gonna go destroy them.” He nodded in acceptance. “Destroy.”
Kyle shook his head in the negative. “We stick together! Always!”
“Yeah, so, under normal circumstances, I would agree, but if you come with me, they’ll eat you. They won’t eat me, you’ve seen it, so this is a special situation. Capiche?”
“But Daniel—”
“Isn’t here,” Billy finished for Kyle. He folded his arms. “I’m open to suggestions, but you’d better hurry.”
Fists started to smash against the door to their apartment. A couple of thumps at first, but then it sounded like the e
ntire dead population of San Francisco was knocking.
“You two are going to have to hide up here. Lock and block the door and don’t come out until I come back for you.” He passed Kyle the rifle he had taken from his attempted captor. “Here’s the safety. You eject the clip here, slap in another, pull this handle, and it’s ready to go. Only fire if they get past me, then you’re going to have to get as far from here as possible and quick.”
Vanessa looked scared. “What about you?”
“If they get by me, I’m dead, so nobody will have to worry about me.”
Kyle put the rifle on the bed. “How will we get past them?”
“Juke.”
“Juke?”
“Juke. It means—”
“I know what it means!”
“Then what are you asking me for?” Billy moved to the door. “Lock this. Push everything in the room, even that,” he pointed to a small black and white Teddy bear nestled between the pillows of the king-size bed, “against the door. And don’t shoot unless you absolutely have to.” He made to leave the room, but then rushed back in and gave each kid a hug. “If they get me, make your way to Alcatraz. Tell them I sent you.” Billy nodded once and stepped through the door pulling it closed.
“Did he leave us?” Vanessa asked.
“No. He’s the only one who can do what has to be done. We’ll be fine.” She swallowed hard and nodded her head in agreement. Without a word, the kids started the struggle of moving the big bed.
On the other side of the door, Billy cupped his chin in his hand and contemplated out loud. “Should I hope that they go away and leave the door closed? If they go away, we have a door between us at least. But if they don’t go away, they’ll break the door down. If I open it and let them in, we’ll have a door, but I’ll have to get them all before they figure out where the kids are. A conundrum wrapped in an enigma.” He sighed. “Crud.”
Billy moved down the carpeted steps and to the door. He placed his hand on the doorknob, glancing at the dust that was raining down from the ceiling above. He ripped his hand from the door and ran to the kitchen. In a big wooden block sat many heavy-duty knives and he appropriated a huge single piece stainless steel butcher’s blade and a cleaver. He visually compared the new knife with the dagger he already had then shoved the dagger in his back jeans pocket in favor of the two new weapons.
With a gleaming stainless steel blade in each hand, he rushed to the door and opened it, backing up quickly. The hall teemed with the dead and the sudden opening of the door spilled the ones in the front to the floor. Their brothers fell on them as the ones in the back surged to fit through the door all at once. An enraged scream from the corridor made Billy jerk his head up. A Runner scratched and gouged its dead cousins as it fought its way toward Billy.
It got hung up in the doorway, frantically slashing at the dead around it and suddenly it was in front of him, glaring. It had been a young man once. Now it was just an evil husk of a human, deadly in its own right. He wanted to ask it why it wanted to hurt people. Why it thought killing was something it had to do, but in the end, he just brought the cleaver down on its forehead with all his might. The blade bit through the skull all the way to the bridge of its infected nose. There was a moment of surprise on its face before its eyes rolled back into its head and it fell to the floor.
Not seeing any other Runners, Billy began to stab and hack at the dead. The sheer number of them forced him back into the room and he killed as many as he could. They started to move around him into the apartment and he noticed they were getting bits of their nasty selves all over the horrible black and white carpet he hated. He could hear Kyle and Vanessa sliding furniture in front of the door upstairs and so could the dead. They didn’t have the mental capacity to quickly realize how to get up to the sounds, but they would eventually stumble across the steps.
He no sooner thought that than a disgusting dead mail carrier, shiny black from putrescence, put its stinking, bare foot on the lowest step. He used the cleaver to end its existence, but the thing was so rotten, the blade bit all the way through the skull and lodged in its neck. It took him a moment to extricate the blade and when he turned back, he got a better understanding of how many dead had found them.
The large room was two-thirds full of the walking dead and more were coming. The hall to the outside was wall-to-wall as far as he could see. He stood in front of the entrance to the stairs, blades in each hand and waited. Several of the infected had been staring at the ceiling of the place. The noises from the sliding furniture had ceased. The doors to the loft bedrooms couldn’t be seen from the bottom floor and Billy thought that would give him a little extra time. He moved forward a bit and crushed the skull of another creature with the cleaver. Anything that came near him was destroyed and soon there was a pile of rotten corpses at his feet. He had been keeping a tally at the beginning, but had lost count when the first thing had reached the stairs. He could sort out the numbers later.
He stabbed one of them in the eye with the butcher’s knife, pulled it out, and jabbed the blade into the side of the head of another. They seemed to center on him and he realized they wanted to get upstairs. He stepped over his pile of bodies and into the crowd, stabbing and hacking. He was tired and covered in gore when the first one got past him, climbed the bodies, and began its slow trek up the stairs.
“No! Here!” he yelled and the dead looked differently at him. One put its hand on his shoulder and he pushed it off, cleaving its head for good measure. The tool stuck again and this time, he couldn’t get it out. The thing on the stairs had looked briefly at him, but it turned back around and begun to plod upward. He switched the butcher blade to his right hand and yanked the black dagger from his pocket. Vaulting the ever-growing pile of corpses, Billy caught up with the dead man on the stairs and drove his dagger through its left eye, catching it before it could fall.
More were coming up the steps now and Billy threw the corpse into them. They rolled and flopped back down, falling into the heap of decay. The things instantly tried to rise, but those behind them began to crawl over, pressing them down. There had to be fifty of them in the room now, not including the ones he had destroyed and they all seemed to want to come up the stairs.
Billy was exhausted. He had thought he was in good shape, but this was really taking a toll on him. He lashed out with his right foot, knocking the closest creature to him back down the stairs. Another three were in front of him in a moment, one pushing to get past him. He drove the dagger into its temple and it turned its dead, red eyes on him for a second before it collapsed, taking the dagger with it. He slashed the eyes of another with his last blade then drove the big knife into the forehead of yet another.
He realized this wasn’t going to work when he heard the shriek of a fast one. It stormed into the room, noticed Billy on the steps, and began fighting its way to him. It was the woman from outside that he and Kyle had put a bet on. It began pushing and punching the dead in its way, the noise of it enough to turn the ones on the stairs toward it. This further impeded its progress, but not nearly enough. It made the stairs, fighting until it stood in front of Billy. Billy reached his hands out to both sides, grasped the railings, lifted his feet and gave a vicious two-footed kick to the creature’s chest.
Surprise flooded its face as it flew backward into the arms of its cousins. The crack of its ribs was not lost on Billy, but the thing didn’t seem to mind. It righted itself and came again, Billy repeating the two-footed kick. Once more, it soared backward, taking the few dead on the steps with it. This time, Billy followed it, rushing down the steps and driving his knife into its chest with two downward thrusts. He backed up quickly and the thing stood, its lifeblood coursing from its chest. The thing tried drawing in a breath to utter a shriek, but it began coughing and fell to one knee. Billy kicked the infected woman in the face and she fell back. She tried to stand, a look of hatred on her face, but one of the dead fell on her, pinning her. Two more tripped over them and s
he was lost beneath the pile
More undead began to file into the apartment. Billy began to retreat as they flowed up the stairs. How could they know that food was up there? The kids hadn’t made a peep and the creatures couldn’t possibly smell fresh meat through a door two stories up. He grabbed a dead man by his shirt and threw him down the stairs. He poked a dead thing in blue scrubs in the left eye, but it didn’t drop, so he poked it in the right eye and kicked it in the chest. An emaciated creature wearing a green cocktail dress grabbed him and he lashed out with his forearm, snapping its wrist. It fell and took him down with it, three or four of the things getting past him. He grabbed the pant-leg of one of them, but it easily tore from his grasp. One stepped on his left hand and he felt a searing pain in his ring and pinky fingers. Another stepped on him and another.
Exhausted and with throbbing digits, he valiantly tried to stand. An errant step from one of the things connected with his jaw sending the back of his skull into the metal step. He saw stars and a green tunnel formed in front of him as his consciousness began to ebb. A dead child looked into his eyes briefly, then stumbled, pinning Billy’s injured head to the stairs. He was in a panic, worried for the kids when everything went black.
Abandoned Fair Grounds, Marshfield Massachusetts
Only one other infected had entered the building the survivors were in. It had been a dead one and the team had coerced it upstairs by making some noise and dispatched it when it arrived.
“Ugh,” Anna grunted and held the back of her wrist to her nose. “This one is ripe.”
The four of them glanced at the mottled, shiny black and gray skin of the thing splayed out on the dark wooden floorboards. It was truly disgusting, with maggots wriggling in a wide wound in its back. Dallas covered it with a framed diagram of a Ferris wheel. Rick and Seyfert studied another framed image. An old yellowed map of the fairgrounds sat between the doors to two offices, and Seyfert was pointing at the building they were in.
Run_Book 3_Long Road Home Page 16
