I then heard the sound of moans in the distance. Looking towards the library, I saw that the gunfire, firecrackers, and music had successfully attracted the freaks. Dozens of them were now approaching me in the distance.
I ran back to the van and just as I got there saw a freak approaching it from behind. I pulled the cap off a bottle of lighter fluid I had brought with me, and splashed it in the freak’s face. The freak growled and snarled at me as I tried to figure out how to ignite him. I saw Jennifer get out of the van and rush towards the freak with a length of pipe. She whacked the freak’s head with it, knocking it to the ground. I paused for a moment and then held my lighter to the bloody shirt the freak was wearing. The freak started screaming as it began to burn.
We ran back to the van, and I jumped into the driver’s seat. The little dog was barking loudly as we drove back down the side road to loop back. I tried to drive as fast as possible without risking an accident. I didn’t want any of the freaks following us back to the library.
“Be careful!” Ms. Suzy shouted. “Don’t wreck the van!”
I looked at the rear view mirror and saw that there were no freaks following us, so I slowed down.
As we reached the end of the side road we could see the front gate of the library. It was almost devoid of freaks, most of who were now headed towards the distraction we had set.
We sat there in the van for a few minutes waiting for the last few freaks to follow the herd away from the library. We could see the library better now. There was indeed a bus inside of the gate. Also, there were a couple of passenger vans.
“I’m getting out,” I announced. “I’m going to try and get inside the library.”
“Then I’m coming with you,” Jennifer said.
“There are still a couple freaks up there,” said Katie. “If you shoot them the rest of the freaks may come back.”
“Look at them,” I said. “They’re sitting on the ground barely moving. We can walk right past them.”
We drove a little closer to the library and parked. Jennifer, Ms. Suzy, and I got out. Katie remained in the van.
“We will try to be back soon,” I told Katie. “If we’re not back in an hour head back to the grocery store.”
She rolled up the passenger window and we carefully made our way to the library. By the time we made it to the front gate people started coming out of the entrance. They were being loaded into the bus and the vans. A man came to the gate and opened it.
“Are any of you infected?” the man wearing an Atlanta Braves cap asked.
“No, we aren’t. I’m looking for my mother, Arlene Harper. She works here. Have you seen her?”
“Yes, I remember her. Come inside. We don’t have much time,” he said.
All of a sudden I heard Ms. Suzy shout, “Rebecca! Rebecca!”
Her daughter and two grandchildren were in the line of people preparing to board the bus. In an instant, she rushed towards them.
She embraced her family members, as I continued to walk towards the entrance. Once inside I looked around. There were still a few people picking up their bags and getting ready to board the bus. I didn’t see my mother anywhere.
“Hurry up!” I heard a woman say. “We don’t have much time.”
I walked up to the woman and noticed she was in police uniform. I asked her about my mother.
“Have you seen Ms. Arlene?” I asked. “She’s my mother and I’m trying to find her.”
“Your mom’s safe, but she’s not here. She left on the last bus.”
The officer told me that according to what they had heard on the radio, the relocation center outside of Dublin was still a safe zone. It was in the middle of nowhere, and there were few freaks in the area.
“Do you have transportation?” She asked me.
“Yes, we have a van,” I said.
“Then you need to follow our caravan,” she told me.
I remembered that our plan was to go back to the grocery store if our family members were not here. Ms. Suzy had found her daughter and grandchildren, but I hadn’t been reunited with my mother. I knew that Katie wouldn’t want to travel to Dublin, and I was not about to force her to go.
“I may not be going there. At least not yet,” I responded. “We have a safe place at Grocery World. It’s only a few miles down the road. I’ll need to drop someone off there.”
As we continued to talk, I learned that the route they were taking would pass by Grocery World. I had to tell Ms. Suzy and Jennifer what was happening. Walking back outside, I saw Jennifer standing next to Ms. Suzy and her family.
“I’m not going with you two back to the store,” she said. “My daughter wants to go to Dublin on the bus. I have to go with her.”
In a few short days Ms. Suzy had become more than a co-worker to me. She now seemed like family. It upset me that she wouldn’t be traveling with us.
“Look, the bus is going to pass Grocery World on the way to Dublin,” I said. “If we can’t convince Katie to come with us to Dublin, we’ll drop her off, load up some more supplies, and then get back on the road. We should get there a couple hours after you do, at most.”
Ms. Suzy embraced me, and I responded with a quick hug.
“Be careful,” I said. “Dublin is supposed to be safe, but we don’t know for sure. The last they heard it was still operational.”
“Try to find my mom when you get there. Make sure you tell her that I’m on the way,” I requested.
“Sure. You can count on it,” she said.
The last occupants of the library were now loading up on the bus.
While Jennifer hugged Ms. Suzy, I heard the faint sound of a dog barking in the distance.I walked closer to the gate, and I could tell that the sound was coming from the direction of our van.
“Jennifer!” I called out. “Something is going on at the van!”
I pulled my revolver out of my pocket as we exited the gate. We rushed across the street and saw that the dog was still in the van, but was barking loudly. He was propped up on his hind legs looking outside the driver’s side window. Not far away, there was a small cafe with a door open.
“Could they have got in there?” Jennifer asked me.
“I don’t know.” I responded. “Could they have gone in there to find food?”
“Maybe they went in there to find a restroom.”
“We have to go in there.”
“We will have to make it fast,” said Jennifer looking behind us. “Look -- there’s a bunch of freaks coming our way.”
I turned and saw that some of the freaks that we had lured away from the library slowly heading towards us. They would be upon us in only a couple minutes.
“I’m going in,” I told Jennifer. “Here, take my revolver. If I am not out before those freaks make it here, head back to Grocery World.”
“I’m not going to leave you!” she shouted.
There was no time to argue. I opened the door to the van, grabbed my long knife, and ran inside of the cafe.
Although some light was beaming through the front windows of the cafe, the rear of the restaurant was dark. I scanned the room and saw a few motionless bodies on the floor, but Katie and the old woman were nowhere to be found.
I continued to the back of the restaurant. “Katie! Katie! Where are you?”
“We’re in here,” I heard a voice say from inside of the ladies room.
I slowly pushed open the door and saw the old woman on the floor, covered in blood. She appeared to be dead. A freak with a cracked skull was lying over her body.
Katie was sitting on the floor against the back wall of the room with her eyes wide open.
“We have to get out of here,” I told her.
I reached down to offer my hand to help her up, and she shook her head. She then raised her arm. A large bite mark was clearly present.
“Katie,” I said with my heart sinking.
I didn’t know what to say. A bite was a death sentence.
“Can you wa
lk? We have to go. We will try to treat that bite,” I said.
I knew that there was nothing that could be done for the bite, but I didn’t feel like I could leave her there.
“I’m staying here,” she said.
“No, you’re not. You’re coming with us,” I urged.
“I know I’m dead,” she said. “It is only a matter of time now.”
“Listen, we can dose you up on antibiotics in the van and see if that helps,” I told her. “There is a herd of freaks headed towards the van as we speak. We have to get moving!”
I saw a tear in her eye as she turned her head away from me.
“You may be infected but I’m not going to let you die alone,” I said.
I reached down to try and lift her up, and she slapped my face.
“Get away from me!” she screamed.
I realized that the freaks had probably made their way to the van. I didn’t have time for this.
“This is your last chance. Please come with us. We will take care of you,” I said.
She didn’t respond.
We then both heard the sound of a gunshot.
“That’s Jennifer out there,” I said. “She’s fighting to buy us time to get out of here. If you don’t get up right now, she’s as good as dead,” I said firmly.
I quickly slapped her across the face, hard. She looked at me with her eyes even wider.
“Our friend is going to be eaten alive if you don’t stop being a little coward!” I yelled.
“GET UP NOW!”
She finally started to stand up. I grabbed her and we rushed out of the ladies restroom. We headed towards the front entrance of the cafe, but came to a complete stop at what we saw. A young infected woman was walking towards us. Her body looked like it had been riddled with gunshots. One of the blasts, apparently from a shotgun, had produced a giant hole in her abdomen -- so large that we could see light from outside coming through it. Amazingly, her spinal column was still intact, which enabled her to keep walking.
I handed my knife to Katie, picked up a chair, and threw it at the freak. The young infected woman fell to the ground. I then picked up another chair and crushed her skull with it.
“Come on!” I yelled at Katie.
We walked out the door when I saw that the van was being approached in all directions by freaks.
“Stay behind me,” I told Katie. “Hand me the knife. We’re going to have to do this fast.”
We ran up to behind one of the freaks. With a single swing of my large, machete sized knife, I cut its head off. Jennifer saw me through her window. She was out of ammunition.
She looked ahead and hit the gas. The van zoomed forward knocking down two freaks. After driving forward for a short time she circled around towards us. However, there were now about a large number of freaks between us and the van.
I looked back and saw Katie was still with me. She was looking very pale. Her arm was still bleeding, and I didn’t know how much blood she’d lost.
“Just a little bit longer and we will be in the van,” I told her. “Just follow me.”
I continued to kill the freaks, zombies, monsters, or whatever the creatures were that were blocking our path. My knife was dull at this point, but I continued to slash away.
The van was now only a short distance away when I heard a scream from behind me. A freak had grabbed Katie and had her on the ground. He was biting into her side. I struck the creature with my blade and it collapsed. However, I was too late.
Blood was pouring out of Katie’s side. She was shaking violently. She was trying to say something, so I quickly knelt down beside her.
“Don’t let me turn, kill me,” she said.
Jennifer honked the horn on the van which alerted me to the fact that more freaks were approaching.
I looked back at Katie. She was a smart and beautiful woman. She deserved better than to turn into a freak. However, she was still alive, and I couldn’t bear killing her -- especially while she was still alive.
“Do it,” she repeated.
I didn’t have much time. The freaks were almost upon us.
Suddenly, she fell unconscious. I didn’t know if she was breathing or not. However, I had no choice. I took my knife and plunged it deep into her head. I left the blade in her and ran towards the van.
Several freaks were still in the way of the van, but I managed to dodge them.
Jennifer opened the passenger side door and I scrambled inside.
“Go!” I said.
“Did you find the old lady?” Jennifer asked.
“Just go!” I repeated.
A moment later we were on the way to Grocery World. The caravan had left the library while I had been in the cafe. It was now just Jennifer, the little dog, and I.
For several minutes we said nothing.
“We should just get some gas somewhere and go straight to Dublin,” Jennifer said. “We don’t need to get any other supplies. We have food in the van.”
I took the box of ammo out of my backpack and started to load the revolver.
“Okay,” I said. “But we need dog food.”
Chapter 9
It began to rain again by the time we passed Grocery World. A few miles later we found a gas station on a back road that was mostly devoid of freaks. We siphoned fuel from a few cars and filled up the gas tank. Thankfully, the store had dog food; we loaded up the van with several bags of it. We also decided to load up as much human food as possible. For all we knew, they could be running low at the relocation center.
As we drove further away from the city we began to talk. Jennifer told me not to feel bad about what happened with Katie. She said it was not my fault.
I looked at her for a long time as we drove towards Dublin. The sight of her face was the only thing that kept the images of freaks out of my mind. She looked back at me a few times and tried to smile. But I knew that on the inside she was upset too.
At some point, the woman’s little dog walked up to me. I picked it up and held it in my arms. The poor dog was a nervous wreck. Its owner was gone and it didn’t know how to act or what to do. I had failed the old woman, so the least I could do was adopt her dog. Sadly, she never told us its name.
“I’m sorry we didn’t find your sister,” I told Jennifer. “Maybe she drove herself to the relocation center.”
“Maybe,” she said.
The roads were mostly clear with few abandoned vehicles. There were actually a few other vehicles driving on the road. This encouraged us, but every time we saw a freak walking along the road we realized the situation was still extremely bad.
We were careful to take the long way around the small towns we would have to pass by on the way to Dublin. It added time to our trip, but we didn’t want to encounter any more large groups of freaks.
After a while I switched places with Jennifer, and I drove for a while. She took a bottle of water and a rag and started to wipe her face and arms. I could tell she was exhausted. I was too.
I had begun to grow a beard in the past few days. If they had running water at the relocation center, I needed to shave.
Up ahead I saw a vehicle on the side of the road. It had flipped over and was on its side. As we neared it, I realized the vehicle was the coach that was used to evacuate the grocery store.
“Stop!” Jennifer ordered. “We have to check and see if anyone is alive.”
We walked towards the vehicle. Suddenly, a face appeared through the rear window. It was Mr. Humphries. He was infected.
Jennifer quickly ran back to the van. I stood there with my revolver in my hand.
I approached the van and peered through the window. It didn’t seem like anyone was alive inside. I took a step back and without hesitation I lifted my gun and fired. The glass shattered and Mr. Humphries collapsed.
I had just shot my boss.
I then peered through the opening and called out, “Is anyone alive in there?”
No sound came from the coach.
I walked back to the van and got inside. It was Jennifer’s turn to drive.
“Should we stop somewhere and try to find a place to stay for the night?” she said as we continued driving.
“It depends if we can find a safe place,” I said.
She went silent. She stayed that way for some time.
Thirty minutes later we realized that we had taken a wrong turn. We had turned south on a road instead of turning north. According to the map, we were near a small town named Egypt.
A pop then came from underneath the van. We stopped and I got out of the van.
We had a flat tire, and no spare.
I got back in and told Jennifer.
“What are we going to do?” she asked me with a look of desperation on her face.
It was then we heard a gunshot.
It came from the direction of a large field.
In the back of that field there was a church. It looked like a hundred cars were parked around it.
“Drive towards the church,” I told Jennifer.
“Do you think it’s safe?” she asked.
“We will have to find out,” I responded.
Church Bells
A flat tire was all that we needed. Of course, when you really need a spare you don’t have one. My senses were on full alert. Here we were, trying to find some refuge from the freaks that had tormented us for the last few weeks, and now we could be stranded in the open countryside in a very vulnerable position.
“Keep driving, Jennifer – but go slow!” I said. “Let’s see if we can make it to the church over there on this flat. We’ll need to try not to tear up the tire. We’ll get stuck if all we have left to drive on is the rim.”
“Ok, I think we can make it,” said Jennifer with her eyes fixed on road ahead, and both hands gripping the steering wheel. I kept quiet, not wanting to disturb her concentration. Ever so slowly we were getting closer to the church that we could see on the other side of the large field.
Why were there so many cars surrounding it?
We continued to hear gunshots as Jennifer slowly drove our blood splattered, white utility van towards the church. We turned onto a long dirt driveway that led to the parking lot. The gunshots were getting louder now, and each echoing blast vibrated the loose interior paneling of our vehicle. Trying to ignore the rattling from both the gunfire and the flat tire we were driving on, I continued gazing out of the passenger window to try and figure out what was going on at this the house of worship – it certainly wasn’t worship.
Don't Dare Call Them Zombies : Books 1-4 Page 8
