by David Rogers
Candice’s hands on Jessica’s were squeezing hard enough to hurt, a lot, as the girl’s breath came very rapidly, like she was running. Jessica’s mind locked for a second as she stared at the figure to the rear of the car. It hit the rear window again, this time raising a crack, and Jessica’s instincts kicked in.
She just hoped the questions the man at Dennis’ house had asked meant someone was coming. She didn’t know what she was going to do if no one came.
“We’re getting out of the car.” Jessica said, trying to free her hand from Candice’s death grip. She wouldn’t let go, and Jessica tugged harder. “Candice! Let go! Get ready to unbuckle your seatbelt.” Jessica said urgently. “Let go of me!”
Candice’s grip finally slackened, and she reached for the seatbelt’s buckle. Jessica shifted her arms, trying to brace for what she knew was coming. There was a click, and suddenly the seatbelt was no longer holding the girl in the seat above Jessica. She tried to support her daughter, but Candice was heavier than Jessica expected.
Jessica’s breath wooshed out with an ‘oof’ of surprise as Candice fell down into her arms. The extra weight also made her press down harder on her left knee, which responded with an immediate spike of throbbing pain that she barely contained without crying out from.
“Good. Good.” Jessica got out, struggling to catch her breath, as she tried to shuffle aside far enough for Candice to fit next to her. The car rocked again, and she leaned over to look in the back of the car.
There, she grabbed her purse and dropped it over herself, angling the strap across her body from the right shoulder as she settled the bag on her left hip. She scanned around the backseat, trying to ignore the thump she heard only a couple of feet from her, then leaned back further to check under the front seats.
Finally she spotted the lock box, sitting askew under the passenger seat. It resisted her fingers’ attempts to get a grip. The latest thump was followed by another cracking sound, and she darted a desperate look at the rear window. There were multiple cracks showing in it now, and one of them was enormous. She scrabbled at the box, slowly, so terribly slowly, managing to coax it out. When it finally came loose and fell into her hands, she shoved it into her purse. As it fit in she again blessed the oversized ‘Mom’ purse she’d carried ever since a few months after Joey was born and realized why moms had big purses.
The baseball bat was also in the back seat, laying atop Candice’s Dora backpack and Jessica’s duffle bag, but Jessica ignored the bags in favor of the bat. Clean clothing was the least of her worries right now, and the lock box with the box of bullets inside it was heavy enough. Grabbing the bat, she turned her back on the rear of the car and raised the bat above Candice’s head. “Cover your eyes, look at me.” she told Candice.
The girl darted a fast look at the bat, then up at Jessica, before clapping her arms around her head and leaning in against her mother. Jessica gripped the bat tightly in both hands and punched it forward into the windshield. There wasn’t room to swing the bat properly, and she knew she wasn’t very strong, but the already damaged glass sagged outward under the bat’s end. Jessica hit the glass several more times, opening a hole that rapidly widened.
She heard a similar crunching sound behind her, and risked a glance over her shoulder as she hammered the bat into the windshield. The rear window also had a hole in it now, and clumsy hands were tearing at the edges. She could see a slack face with intent, dead eyes peering through at her as the hands worked to get through.
Jessica squeezed down mentally, forcing everything from her mind except the bat and the windshield. She hit the front glass over and over, as fast and as hard as she could. Chunks were flying loose as the bat knocked pieces out of the way.
As the windshield was cleared, she spotted another figure maybe thirty feet distant. She tried to focus on the glass that was in her way, but she couldn’t help but sneak quick peeks. The zombie was definitely shuffling directly toward the Honda. She felt her lips, still thick and heavy from the impact with the airbag, tightening as she dealt with the last of the windshield that was in the way.
“Okay.” Jessica said, panting as she lowered the bat and shook Candice with one hand. The girl looked up frightfully, and Jessica’s hand on her shoulder pressed to turn her around. “Out. Climb out the front sweetie.”
Candice turned, saw the zombie, and shrank back against Jessica. “Sick!” she stammered, pointing.
“Yes, sick.” Jessica said pushing at the girl’s back. “Out, get out of the car. We have to get out of the car.”
Candice was small, and she only had to step through the space the windshield had formerly occupied. Jessica had to twist sideways, squeezing past the steering wheel and edging her way through, and it took her longer. Her knee spiked pain as she got out and stood for the first time, making her stagger as she tried to walk and straighten.
The night air seemed almost cold after the confines of the car. Jessica shifted the bat into her left hand and looked around quickly. They were just shy of an intersection. The east side of the street was undeveloped and covered with pine trees, though she could see buildings that started in the lots just at and past the intersection. The other side of the street here had been turned into a small office park.
Now that she was out of the car, she could also see the humanoid figures that were slowly encroaching. The one just ahead was now within twenty feet, but there were a handful of others in view, all fixated on Candice and Jessica. She stepped painfully to the side, feeling Candice moving with her like she was tethered, and saw the zombie at the back of the car was just starting to abandon its work on the rear window. Its face lifted, and she shuddered as she saw it make a chewing motion, staring at her. It took a staggering step toward them.
“Mommy–” Candice said, her voice high and thin.
“This way.” Jessica said, starting for the buildings. Every step was agony, and after a dozen feet she was limping heavily. Her knee throbbed painfully, and then it started feeling like it was going to buckle. And Candice kept bumping into it, almost clinging to Jessica as she hovered to her left. “Candice, get on my right side.” Jessica said through gritted teeth, glancing around to see where the zombies were.
“I’m scared.” Candice said, and Jessica thought she sounded it too. If her voice shifted another few steps up the vocal scale she’d be about ready to shatter glass with words alone. Jessica shifted the bat and gripped the end as she leaned on it like a cane. When she took another step it still hurt, but the bat helped some. It gave her support when the muscles in her leg rippled and spasmed, let her use her arm to hold herself upright without falling.
“I’m scared too.” Jessica gasped. She kept limping, toward the office park. The parking spaces in front of the series of two story buildings were all empty. She supposed that meant everyone had left before things got really bad, having gone home. Which, as far as she was concerned, was probably a good thing. It should make for fewer zombies here, which was good.
Jessica looked around, noting another couple of zombies visible in the furthest reaches of the office park’s lots, too far away to be immediately threatening. Some of them didn’t even look like they’d noticed Jessica and Candice yet. Turning her head, she almost stumbled when the bat skittered unsteadily on the pavement, and she nearly went down. A hiss of pain escaped her lips even as she tried to clamp them together to contain it; her knee felt like it was on fire.
“Can–Candice.” Jessica got out as she managed to keep her feet. “Look. Behind us. Keep an . . . eye on what’s . . . behind us.” She drew a deep breath, trying to focus. “Let me know if anything gets closer than twenty feet.”
“I don’t know how far that is.” Candice said in a small voice, the same voice she used when she was in trouble.
Jessica smiled despite the pain in her leg and pointed at the painted crosswalk to their left, at the main entrance of the office park. “See that? That’s about twenty feet away.”
“Okay.”
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“Good girl.” Jessica said as they reached the curb. She shuffled her feet to use her right leg to step up over the curb. The heavily landscaped grass was like a thick and spongy carpet. It gave the bat a bit better of a grip than the hard pavement, and she tried to quicken her pace as best she could. As she hobbled toward the beginning of the lot, she scanned the buildings ahead, trying to decide what to do.
The buildings were all free standing, looking almost like they could be miniature apartment complexes or maybe college dormitories. Save for the signage and the glass panel double doors, they definitely had the look of townhouses more than conventional commercial buildings. They were the only kind of shelter she could possibly see reaching, so she kept moving. She needed to get off her feet sooner than later; if her leg folded up, that was almost certainly the end. She couldn’t do that to Candice.
“How close are they?” Jessica said after she stepped down into the lot without falling.
“We’re a little faster than they are.” Candice said. “More than twenty feet.”
“Good.” Jessica said, angling for the closest of the buildings. She didn’t know what was inside them, and she imagined it probably didn’t matter, so take the closest. She wasn’t sure how long she could stay on her feet. The pain was getting bad. She could feel the muscles in her calf and thigh starting to quiver regularly as they tried to compensate for whatever was going on in her knee.
As she made straight for the front door, a thought occurred to her. She reached for her purse with her right hand, twisting it across her body so she could reach inside. Fumbling around, not daring to take her eyes off her surroundings for fear of losing her balance as her knee continued to pulse in agony, she dug through the contents. The lockbox was in the way, but as she got her hand beneath it, she felt around frantically until her fingers finally closed on a small cylinder.
When she got it out and held it up so she could see, she nodded. Using her teeth, she got the cap off and spat it out to the side. When she reached the building she leaned the bat against the wall next to the door and shifted her weight onto her right leg. Twisting the cylinder, she watched the lipstick poke forth, then tried to write on the wall with it.
In her haste she pressed too hard with the first couple of strokes and tore a chunk off the top of the lipstick. Twisting some more out, she used a lighter touch, and found it went on okay as she wrote. The contrast could have been brighter but her usual makeup preferences were fairly subdued so this would have to do. It still showed up pretty well against the building’s brick though, especially when she finished her scribbling by going over the letters again to make them thicker.
‘Jessica Talbot Inside. Help!’
Twisting the lipstick back down, she jammed it in her jeans pocket and looked behind her. The zombies were headed this way, she counted seven in view, but the closest was only just about to reach the parking lot. She looked at the door and pulled experimentally on the handle, but it just rattled as it resisted her tug.
“Figures.” Jessica muttered, considering her options. Taking up the bat, she limped back a step. “Candice, get behind me.” she said. “Face away from the door.”
The girl moved away from the door, and Jessica hefted the bat in both hands. Closing her eyes, she swung at the doors as she looked away, fearful of the possibility of flying shards. She felt her balance shifting as the bat went forward, and her knee flared with fresh agony as it was called upon to support her. She heard glass shattering, and she almost dropped the bat when it seemed to pause for just an instant, then continue forward. It threatened to pull her off her feet.
Opening her eyes, she saw the glass was gone, lying in shards scattered across the entryway. Jessica limped forward, breathing heavily, and peered inside. The entry was dark, lit only by what moonlight could reach inside and a faint and dull red glow that came from a corridor on the left. She edged through the broken door, glass crunching beneath her loafers, then glanced back outside.
The first zombie was into the parking lot now, staggering determinedly toward them. Jessica tried to estimate based on how fast it was moving and came up with maybe thirty seconds before it could reach the door. Not bad, but not good either. “Candice.”
The girl’s head turned, she’d been facing away from the door as instructed. That had put her looking at the zombies. When she faced Jessica again, she looked like she was about to cry. Jessica could actually see her trembling, shaking like she was cold. She steeled herself, trying to armor her heart against the need to offer comfort. There wasn’t much time. “Come on sweetie.” was the best she could manage as she gestured for Candice to join her.
Candice slipped through the door and followed as Jessica limped across the carpet. She checked the corridor and found, as she’d hoped, the glow was a ‘Exit’ sign hanging over a closed door. The red light was enough for her to make out the door itself, and the graphical sign at chest level depicting stairs. When she tried the knob, it opened without a problem, revealing a stairwell lit by the faint gleam of more red lighting.
Taking out the lipstick again, she wrote ‘Upstairs, help!’ on the door as quickly as she could, then put it back in her pocket. “Stay right behind me. Make sure the door is fully closed.” Jessica said as she limped forward and put her hand on the stair rail. This was probably going to hurt, but she was unwilling to risk the elevators, even if they were still working. And she didn’t want to stay on the ground floor. Something made her instinctively want to get upstairs. It just seemed the safer option.
Gripping the railing tightly, Jessica took the first step on her right leg, then paused and took a deep breath. As she tried to step up with her left, she pulled on the railing to try and use her arm to help as much as it could. It wasn’t enough. Pain exploded through her leg, and she stumbled to her knees. When her left knee hit the stair tread, the explosion turned into a nuclear detonation. The bat clattered away, lost from her grip as she clung to the stair railing and screamed.
She realized her eyes were closed when she managed to turn the scream of agony into a panting that threatened hyperventilation, and was able to hear Candice crying. Opening her eyes, she saw Candice standing next to her, looking frightened and as if she wanted to help but wasn’t sure how. Tears were streaming down the girl’s cheeks, glinting hellishly in the red emergency lighting.
“Okay. It’s okay.” Jessica ground out, trying to relax her jaw against the pain fueled urge to keep her teeth clenched. She pulled with her arms and used her right leg only as she attempted to stand. She managed to regain her feet, foot really, since almost any weight on her left hurt so much. “Where’s the bat?” she half whispered, trying to keep from screaming.
Candice looked around, saw it lying on the floor next to the door, and picked it up. “Here.” She said in a very small voice, holding it out.
Jessica shook her head. “Carry it for me. Is the door closed?”
“Yes.” Candice said, still sounding like she was littler than she was. “I checked it twice.”
“Good girl.” Jessica panted. She considered how she wanted to handle the stairs, then shuffled painfully over to the other side, which gave her a railing on her left. She leaned heavily on the railing, supporting her weight with her left arm as she mounted the next step. Her right leg was sufficient in conjunction with the railing for her to lift herself up. She began to take the stairs one at a time, using her right leg only.
She’d made it two thirds of the way up when she heard a thump on the door at the bottom. “Jesus.” she muttered. “Don’t they ever give up?” Now that she was basically not using her left leg at all, the pain was subsiding from an active and insistent presence to more of a background sensation. It still hurt, but it wasn’t as sharp, and she was able to block it out better when it wasn’t so front and center.
Jessica didn’t want a repeat of what had happened at the bottom of the stairs though, she couldn’t risk it. So she kept doggedly at the stairs, taking them one at a time, feeling
the seconds tick past as she labored up each step far more slowly than she would have liked. She finally reached the landing at the top and paused with her hand on the door knob, listening.
The thumping from below was steady, but it sounded solid, not hollow, and was unaccompanied by any sounds of actual destruction. Just a steady thumping as the zombie, or zombies, beat on it. She hoped the door would hold, though it should be good enough to last a long while.
Even for a fairly small building like this, it was obviously zoned commercial, and that meant the minimum that should have been permitted for the emergency stairwells should be a twenty minute exposure to fire. That meant decent metal or thick treated wooden doors, which surely would withstand even several zombies for a reasonable amount of time.
Opening the door cautiously, she peered out. An empty hallway, a short one, with standard industrial style carpet. “Candice, I need the bat back.” When the girl gave it to her, Jessica got it propped up under her like before, then limped heavily out into the hallway. Again, the only light was the red exit sign above her, marking the door for occupants in the event of an emergency. The hallway ended to her right almost immediately, with a pair of doors on opposite sides marked as restrooms.
The other way clearly led out to the main area of the building. Jessica went in that direction, wincing every time her left leg had to take even a little of her weight. The end of the bat was digging into her hand as she leaned on it, and she took great care to make very sure of how she shifted and placed her weight on the bat for fear of it slipping out from beneath her. There wasn’t a convenient railing here, and if she went down she wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to get back up.
When she left the small side corridor, she stood for a moment as she tried to get her bearings. Closing her eyes, she thought back to entering the building, turning into the stairwell corridor, and now here. That should put the front side of the building . . . that way.
