“Wait,” Robert said quickly, but she disconnected.
“What happened?” Sarah asked.
“She’s in Pasadena,” Robert said. His hand covered his brow. “And she’s going to try and get to us here.”
-----
Mandy put the phone away and assessed her current situation. She had found her way into the Pasadena High School gymnasium and climbed on top of a set of rolled-up bleachers to an equipment closet. Out of the eight that followed her inside, two of the flesh-eaters made it to the equipment room and pounded on the door mercilessly. She used her phone as a source of light to find anything she could use as a weapon like Robert suggested.
Her father had always told the twenty-one-year-old that she was the smartest girl in California, but now she had to use that intelligence to make it out alive.
Mandy couldn’t find anything that she felt could do any damage to those flesh-eaters. She tried to stay as quiet as possible and the pounding on the door by two flesh-eaters ceased gradually.
After some time, Mandy peeked out of the room to find the flesh-eaters had wondered off. She snuck back up on the bleachers and back outside the gym without being seen.
In the lobby, three flesh-eaters wandered aimlessly. Mandy took a basketball that sat on a cart right inside the gym door and tossed it to the opposite end of the lobby. The three followed the sound and she sprinted out of the school. Mandy looked around the school grounds for anyone else in her group, but everyone had been scattered and killed.
Dozens of the fallen wandered around outside. Mandy had to climb along a brick wall so she wasn’t seen. Mandy tried to get her bearings by using the navigator app on her phone. She tried to remember what Robert told her to take, because this was not going to be an easy trip.
‘Why didn’t I go to those shelters like everyone else,” Mandy thought. She recalled her initial instinct not to. She looked down at a group of flesh-eaters, and her instinct hadn’t changed. ‘Maybe you had the right idea after all, but not for these sorry folks.’
She got passed the throng of undead and found the opposite of the wall was clear. She jumped down and ran across the road.
She needed to arm herself with something, anything. She looked over the line of houses across from the school and chose one to search. The neighborhood was so quiet, and the nearest flesh-eater was across the street and moved slowly away from her. Mandy snuck to the back of the house and tested a door to the garage. It opened to allow her free access to whatever she could use.
In the two-car garage was an old classic car that she would have loved to cross the country with.
She found a nice long-handled patio knife that would be perfect to destroy those things with. Robert had told her that a strike to the head would put a stop to the flesh-eaters. She stopped suddenly when she visualized her group getting splintered and most of them being slaughtered by those creatures. The man who appointed himself as the leader led them right into the throng of the undead.
If it weren’t for Robert giving her the courage to find a way or the motivation to make an escape, she would have joined her group just as horribly.
No, Mandy wasn’t ready to go. Not like the rest.
Mandy broke into the house, trying to find the keys to the classic car, and almost immediately found a key holder. She tried different sets, and finally found the right one after the tenth attempt. She also robbed the house of food, water, medical supplies and blankets. She barely needed anything else, and decided to forgo any other stops. The car was nearly full with fuel, and she wanted out of this place.
With the graveyard known as Los Angeles and Pasadena behind her, Mandy was well underway for the city of Detroit. She decided to go east toward Flagstaff on Interstate 40. When she was near the Mojave National Preserve, she came upon an overturned truck. In the back of the truck were a bunch of animal cages and tanks.
A flesh-eater was trying to get to something within a cage. Mandy got out of the car with her patio blade firmly in her hand, and she quietly went around behind the freakish thing.
“Hey, Freak show! Come and get me!” Mandy said.
The undead man spun halfway around before the patio knife sliced into his head. This was Mandy’s first kill, and it was good to be the one finally doing the killing.
“You cannot, and will not take me down,” Mandy said to the corpse with a growl.
‘Right, Mandy,’ she thought. ‘Why don’t you see how long you last after you bring more on you, as you scream at a corpse?’
Mandy went to investigate what the thing was after, and she discovered a small pup of some sort that hid deep down within the cages. She had to work at clearing away bent metal to free the frightened thing. Mandy occasionally looked around her to see if anymore flesh-eaters were in the area.
She reached in for the pup with a soothing, quiet voice, and she picked up the squirrely little thing. Mandy looked it over to see if it had any injuries, but it was fine. She looked over what the truck was, and she saw the logo on the tailgate. ‘Wild Times’ was plastered on the truck as if the owner was proud of being cruel to animals. Mandy remembered a news report a few years back on the company’s reputation for abusing wild animals that employees were sent to find for casinos and zoos for the south western states.
“What are you?” Mandy asked the small pup. “That’s ok. I know you can’t tell me. Let’s not stay here too long, huh?”
Mandy placed the pup into the back seat of her car with a small bowl, and filled it with water. The pup began drinking immediately. Mandy went to search for some food, and went through the truck’s compartments. Inside the cab was the driver, who had died during the crash.
She didn’t find much that she thought the pup would like, so she would have to find a place to get food for her new companion. The little guy was all the company she needed. Her last group had been slaughtered within forty-eight hours of whatever this hell was she was living in.
That night, Mandy decided to stay in Needles. The town was barren and silent, and Mandy hated the surreal reality of what she was experiencing. Not one soul or soulless person walked in Needles, California, except for her.
She found an abandoned PetSmart and released all of the animals left behind. She grabbed as much puppy food as she could pack into her trunk with her own things, and she decided to sleep in the car along Topock Bay. It was a breezy night, and comfortable enough. After feeding the pup, she took it out to let it do its thing. Mandy instantly adored the fuzz ball, but she realized she had a lot of work to do with it.
Mandy had to teach it to trust her, and that she wouldn’t hurt it. She guessed the little thing was maybe four-months-old. It knew what to do on its own, and when it was finished, it sat and stared at her.
“I guess that’s your way of saying we have an agreement,” Mandy told the pup.
The thing could have taken off, but it didn’t. It allowed her to pick it up and she got back into the car.
Mandy thought about her decision to make the trip to Detroit. She knew hardly anything about the people there. It was nearly nine o’clock when she called the number Robert Newton had given her.
A woman’s voice answered.
“Hello, this is Sarah.”
“Hi, this is Mandy Ford, from Pasadena.” Mandy said quietly. “I’m sorry if I woke you, but I just wanted to let you all know I made it out. I’m ok, and I’m on my way.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. Do you want me to get Rob?”
“No, please don’t. I’m sorry for waking you.”
“Don’t worry about it. We don’t know when we’ll lose the signals. Do you have everything you need? Are you with anyone else?” Sarah asked.
“It’s just me. My group was massacred. I found a puppy though. He’ll be my company.”
“Where are you?” Sarah asked.
“I’m just south of Needles, and I’m going to toward Flagstaff.”
“My brother-in-law is out there trying to make his way
to Detroit, too. If I can get a hold of him, I could get him to wait for you. He might be around Flagstaff right now.”
“Thank you, Sarah. Are you ok up there?”
“We’re going to make it. So are you!”
“We definitely will. Thank you, again. I’m going to hang up. I’m exhausted. Goodnight.”
Sarah wished her a goodnight in return and they disconnected. Mandy adjusted herself to be able to sleep better, and looked at the little pup that stared back at her.
“Goodnight Brewster,” Mandy said softly.
Back on the interstate, a convoy of twenty military vehicles rolled past. If they had seen Mandy, she wouldn’t have even had a moment to ask for help. They were heading back to Fort Irwin to try and live out their lives after massacring thousands in Tucson.
Chapter 4: The Flight to Flagstaff
Pillars of smoke rose by the hundreds across the Phoenix skyline and Evan took in the scene while Doug sped out of the city. Nothing made sense anymore. How did this happen in such a short period of time?
Before the military had a chance to settle the crowds down within the shelters, desperation and fear tore them apart. The undead from the tent city came upon one of the shelters and a feeding frenzy overtook the nearly two hundred thousand refugees. It was the same as the events that unfolded in Farmington. A system error somehow placed the camps as being cleared for the entire state.
The vastly outnumbered and overwhelmed National Guardsmen assigned to the Phoenix shelters began shooting down the living and undead alike. It was much too late when the guardsmen received word on how to destroy the reanimated masses and they eventually fell along with those who sought refuge. Phoenix devoured itself and no one was willing, or capable, to stop it.
Both Evan and Eliot watched a massive billowing fireball rise into the air a half-mile away. Evan tried to imagine what caused it.
Simon insisted that everything was all a bad dream and they would all wake up soon. Eliot only wished that his little brother was right.
Further up near Happy Valley, escapees found themselves in a complex traffic jam. A large crowd of people decided to risk going into the city on foot. Doug began honking his horn, and flipped on the Police SUV’s sirens to get them to stop. He got out, calling the refugees to him. The crowd gathered as he had hoped to hear what the cop had to say.
“Hey everyone, listen up!” Doug shouted to get their complete attention. “I want to recommend that all of you stay away from the city. It’s gone, and there’s no one to help. Save yourselves and your loved ones and go somewhere safe. Stay away from large cities and learn how to destroy these things.”
“How?” a woman asked.
“With our experience, you strike them in the head with something, a gunshot, or a blunt object,” Evan instructed.
The group of people had listened to Doug. A vast majority of them joined together to move on toward the northwest. Doug borrowed Evan’s phone which surprisingly held a signal. He let his captain know about the people he had diverted away from the city. John Mottiski located the survivors two days later and the people built a small society after they cleared out Prescott, Arizona.
A half-hour later, the small caravan came to a pile-up a few miles outside Black Canyon City. It was eerily quiet, with no trace of a living soul. Edward carefully weaved his way through the jumbled mess of vehicles, and led the SUV through safely while Evan kept close attention to anything that moved.
They had gotten through the mess and began to move a bit faster when a fist began to pound on the rear window of the SUV. Doug screeched to a halt and all of the passengers looked back to see a young boy looking frantically back in at them.
"Hey! Hey! Please help me!" the boy cried desperately.
Evan and Doug both got out. The boy came around to meet Evan. They both studied each other briefly to make sure they weren’t making a fatal mistake.
"Please, you have to help me! My parents and sister! They're trapped!" the young boy explained. His face was covered in dust, with tear tracks imprinted in the dirt that revealed this was not an act.
"Ok son. Where are they?" Evan asked the boy, but the kid took off running back toward the pile -up.
"Nikki, you and the kids stay in the truck. Evan, let’s check this out," Doug beckoned.
“What’s going on?” Edward called out after he turned around and drove back to the SUV.
"Come on!" the boy yelled back at them frantically.
Evan and Doug ran after the boy while checking the area for any unwanted visitors. Little was moving in the area except for a few of the undead far down the road. They were too far off to tell which direction they were heading. Evan and Doug caught up to the boy, who was halfway inside an overturned Dodge hybrid. Both Evan and Doug peered in to find two other passengers. The driver was crushed halfway outside the windshield and the frame of the roof.
The other passenger was a teenaged female who hung awkwardly in her seat. She had minor wounds on her face and her arm may have been broken.
"Where's mom?" the boy asked. "Mary, what happened to mom?"
"I-I don't know. She just crawled out. She-she looked different," the girl answered.
Evan and Doug looked at each other, and then popped up to look around for the pairs’ mother. Doug took out his handgun and scouted the area. Evan examined how to get the girl out safely.
"Hello, miss,” Evan said calmly to the girl. “My name is Evan. I am going to try and get you out of here. Do you think you can get that seatbelt off?"
"I think I can, but I didn’t want to move. My mom, she ignored me as she got out," the girl responded with fear in her voice.
“What’s your name?” Evan asked with a glance at the boy, who looked lost.
“Mary Reid,” the teenaged girl replied.
Mary released her seatbelt while holding herself up with her free hand. Once the belt was off, she slowly lowered herself onto her shoulders and rolled her way to her hands and knees. Evan reached out for her. The window on her side was broken open to give her another way out if needed.
“What about your brother?” Evan asked.
"His name is Matt-Matthew," She answered.
"We're gonna get you out of here, Mary. Both you and Matthew," Evan promised. He reached out for her slowly to direct her toward him.
"Evan! You'd better hurry! We're gonna have company in about two minutes. I think their mother is coming back, and she has a shit load of friends!" Doug called back.
Mary crawled out the other window, and screamed.
-----
The next morning, the early morning heat warned of an oppressively hot day.
Nearly an hour after the survivors had gathered and got something to eat, the runner teams were off. Stephanie ushered Tracy and April back inside after telling Edmond where her family lived at in Dearborn Heights. Scott sealed down the fence and went inside with Scott.
Sarah took Southfield Freeway, with Edgar right behind her in his cargo van. Her plan was to take the main roads around each side of Southfield, with hope that they would find someone alive. There was absolutely no one east of 39 other than hundreds of the risen. A few times, the roads had gotten thick with them that Sarah simply plowed through them. One of the shamblers the runner team had encountered wore the robes of a catholic priest.
Many of the undead that followed the team forgot why they were moving and eventually had become distracted by other prey.
“You’re pretty quiet,” Sarah said to Craig.
“Day two of this, and I still don’t have a clue what the hell we’re suppose to do,” Craig said with doubt in his voice. “I don’t even want to know how or why this happened. I just want it to end.”
“I know, but this is real Craig,” Robert said.
“At least April is safe, and your daughter,” Craig said with relief.
The runners had turned south on Lahser Road, and drove until Sarah came to an accident involving an ambulance and a Cadillac where a body lay halfwa
y off the Cadillac’s hood. She carefully coasted the Durango around the accident, trying not to disturb any potential shamblers. The back of the ambulance was open with multiple bodies lying on the ground.
“What the hell happened here? That guy’s head is smashed in, and that one doesn’t even have a head,” Robert told Sarah.
Altogether, Craig counted seven bodies, including the man on the hood of the Cadillac.
“That means there was someone that may be a danger,” Sarah remarked.
“Wonder who it could be,” Craig pondered.
Sarah had turned onto Fenkell Street and screeched to a stop.
“Maybe they know,” Sarah said as she pointed out to two men who were piling up bodies.
One of the men was middle-aged with a handgun holstered on his belt, and the other was an elderly man.
“Edgar, up ahead. We have people,” Robert called on his radio.
“I see them,” Edgar responded.
Sarah pulled the Durango in front of the store. She was hastily met by the two men. Craig followed after he studied them. He watched their actions, expressions and any small questionable moves. Edgar pulled his cargo van behind the Durango and soon joined them.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” the middle-aged man said jubilantly. “It looks as though the rescue party has arrived!”
“Hello, nice to see some people actually breathing out here,” Sarah responded with a calm tone. “My name is Sarah Carter. This is Craig Jones, Robert Newton and Edgar White. We’ve come to get you to safety.”
“I’ve been in this neighborhood before. I don’t remember this shop. It’s really nice,” Sarah complimented as she looked around the shop.
“We renovated this from a couple run-down buildings and rebuilt it into this. I came from here and I’m a person that can’t just sit back and let people suffer. I have money that won’t be going with me when I leave this world. I might as well use it for something worthwhile.”
“I don’t want to sound demanding, but could we take a few things for our zone?” Edgar asked. The shopkeeper nodded at Edgar’s request.
Detroit Reanimated Page 8
