by R. J. Spears
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Del said.
“Shut up,” she replied.
“Halt where you are!” A voice boomed across the field, obviously carried by some sort of amplification.
Jo could see that Jones stood still, trapped in a no man’s land. The light beam blasted down onto him, turning him from an obsidian silhouette into a bright, ghost-like statue. He changed the plan and turned back toward the trees. Just as quickly as he had stopped, he put his body back in motion. Only this time, there was no stealth in his movements. He was moving at top speed back toward the trees, sprinting full-out a second later.
That’s when the first shot was fired.
Chapter 42
Running For it
Being a guy who likes surviving, I sprinted out of the neighborhood as the fires started jumping from house-to-house. My lungs protested this effort as they had just been filled with smoke, but I told them to shut the hell up.
If only it worked that way. After three blocks of all-out running, my respiratory system got the final say as I staggered across a front lawn of a house and fell just in front of a nasty looking and out of control rose bush. About twenty seconds after my fall, my stomach decided to deposit its contents onto the grass. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it had to be done.
It took another full minute for my system to recover, and that wasn’t a full recovery. This was just enough of a reboot to get me on my feet and stumbling along. The judges weren’t going to give me high marks, but I was heading northward and towards the house where I hoped Brother Ed, Kara, Naveen, and Linda and Chelsea still were.
I knew there was no way I was going to make it in the twenty minutes Brother Ed had allotted me, but I was sure he would give me a little wiggle room. When I looked to the west, I saw that the sun was about to set. It hung on to the edge of the world like a bright orange ornament. Something inside me wanted desperately to be out of town before it fell off the edge. Another very logical part of me knew the chances of that were remote.
The distance between the burning houses and the house where we had holed up for the past few days was less than a half a mile, but getting there was feeling like a Bataan death march. My lungs burned from being caught in the smoke, and my legs felt wobbly. My eyes were so scratchy from the all that exposure to the smoke I wanted to remove them individually and clean them however I could. I can’t imagine what I looked like. I guessed I looked like someone in black face, only I had a black body from soot that covered me. If my hands and arms were any indication, I’m sure I looked a little toasty.
Not knowing if Kilgore had a back-up vehicle or not, I stayed off the main road into town and passed by a sizable man-made pond on a side road that I surmised was put in place to be a local fishing hole. A part of me considered taking a dip to clean myself off, but I knew that would only slow me down, and the clock was ticking down.
I cut east, half-running and half-stumbling, passing by a bank that had seen better days. Sometime early after the Outbreak, someone must have thought money would still be worth something, and they had looted the place. Bully for them, I say. I hoped they made a killing in the market.
My next milestone was a convenience store/gas station. I knew my chances of finding anything useful still left inside was as remote as winning the non-existent lottery, but I detoured inside.
To my utter surprise, I found two bottles of water lodged under a shelf. One of them went down my parched throat and the other I splashed on my face. What washed off of it was pretty ugly, but at least they wouldn’t think I was charred when I returned. When I caught my reflection in a piece of glass inside, I saw a man who looked like he had just fought a dozen forest fires and lost twelve of them.
A little buzzer went off inside my head, and I knew there was no more delaying the next part of my journey. And that’s what I was doing. Despite the absolute imperative of knowing I had a limited window, deep down, my conscience didn’t want to go “home.” Home meant telling a woman her husband was dead. Home meant I had to face the fact that it had happened on my watch.
But survival instincts kicked in and set me out of the convenience store and on my way across the main drag, while taking a look southward. The burning houses were painting the dimming sky a bright orange, the flames licking upward like hungry tongues. I couldn’t fully tell, but it looked like the entire block was burning down, and there was little doubt in my mind that the whole neighborhood was destined to burn.
That was not my concern. I had places to be whether I wanted to be there or not.
I passed through the two and a half blocks to our temporary home in town, and my heart sank when I saw that the truck was no longer in the driveway.
“Brother Ed,” I said under my breath, and it came out more like a curse word than a name. That son of a bitch did what he said he would and left me behind. Of course, I had told him to leave, but that didn’t mean I really meant it.
The place was dark with no sense of life and seemed to emanate this psychic signal to me that stated, “Nobody is home.”
I rushed across the street to confirm their departure, and my heart both rose and fell when I burst through the front door. Linda was sitting on the couch looking as lost as I had ever seen a person. Chelsea lay with her head in Linda’s lap, looking as if she were asleep. I envied her and wished I were asleep or in a coma because the next few minutes were going to be ugly.
Linda was up and moving toward me barely aware that she had let Chelsea’s head flop onto the couch. “Did you find him?” she asked, and there was a forlorn quality to her question that seemed to let me know she knew the answer since I had arrived alone. Still, I could also see the desperate hope in her eyes, asking me to lie -- to tell her that everything was okay, even though we both knew that wasn’t the case.
“Linda,” I said, trying to muster the courage to say what needed to be said, “can you please sit down?” I saw Chelsea start to sit up behind Linda.
“No!” she yelled. “Don’t tell me to sit down. I’ve been sitting here all fucking day.”
I saw Chelsea flinch at Linda’s outburst.
“I want to know where my husband is!”
And I didn’t want to tell her that, but I knew there was no avoiding the truth.
“Linda, I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to say it. Brent is dead.”
It was as if someone had turned down the power on a robot because her legs lost their strength, and her shoulders fell as she swooned into me. I put out my hands to grab her, but as soon as they hit her shoulders, it was as if a bolt of electricity has passed through her body.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t you touch me!” She jerked two steps away from me.
The words hit me like a slap.
“If you had listened to Jason, we would have been on the road and out of here. And Brent would be alive!”
I couldn’t argue with her and didn’t try.
“You...you,” she said, holding her fist out as if she was getting ready to punch me. After a moment, her entire body began to shake, and again, the strength went out of her as she stumbled back against the couch. All throughout her outburst, Chelsea looked on, eyes-wide, without saying a word.
Strangely, I knew I wouldn’t have done anything to stop her if she had punched me because a part of me knew I deserved it. I had to do what I wanted, and I stayed, waiting for Kara to get better. I didn’t listen. I wouldn’t listen. Although it was indirect, it was my decision to stay that got Brent kidnapped and then killed.
These facts seeped into my body like ice cold water, infusing every part of me. A numbness swept over me and, for a moment, the room seemed to dim and brighten in alternate seconds. My mind felt separate from my body, starting to drift away.
To break out of this descent, I said the only words I could say, “I’m sorry.”
They weren’t enough and never would be, but they were the best I could do.
She slumped to the couch, put her face in her h
ands, and began to sob. It was the soul wracking sobs of someone who knew they would never get over the pain that had been inflicted on them. I wanted to join her, but knew that wouldn’t do anyone any good. All I could do was stand and watch, unable to move, feeling this obligation to stay because I was responsible for this woman’s grief.
When we left Marlow’s compound in Chillicothe, they would have been better off going out on their own, but Brent felt a sense of responsibility to us because we had broken them out. He had felt that pull all doctors must have felt to stay with the patient, and Kara was his.
So, I watched her and felt like shit.
Linda choked out this question between sobs, “How did he die?”
This wasn’t something I wanted to go into and certainly not in any detail. They didn’t need any of that, and it wouldn’t serve any good purpose.
“He went down fighting,” I said. I hoped that was vague and, possibly, heroic enough. I decided to soften it with a lie. “It looked quick and painless.”
This led to more tears. After a couple of minutes, Chelsea put out a tentative hand and placed it on Linda’s back. Linda jumped but just a little. Chelsea slowly patted her mother’s back, calming her in that way that she must have been comforted as a child. It must have worked because Linda’s sobbing did decrease, and she looked up at me, her face tracked with tears, then she turned to take in Chelsea.
“Oh my God, you lost your daddy,” Linda said, like it was a new revelation, and this brought on more tears, only this time from both of them. Linda’s crying was as out of control as it was a minute ago, and Chelsea’s tears were mostly silent. Still, it was a terrible thing to watch as they tried to hold onto anything they could, and it seemed that anything was each other.
But reality is a real bitch, and we were on a timetable, and it wasn’t one we could change or ignore. After already feeling like total shit, it was my job to let them know we had to get moving.
“Linda, I hate to do this, but we have to get out of here,” I said. “And we need to do it now. There’s a man not too far south of here that wants us dead, and he has soldiers with him. I disabled his truck but --”
Linda was up and off the couch almost faster than I could see.
“If you think we’re going anywhere with you, you’re out of your mind!” she yelled, getting only a few inches from my face. Where grief had painted her face before, she was clearly in rage mode, and it forced me to take a half-step away from her.
“You already got my husband killed,” she said, still raging. “Are we next? Well, I can tell you that we will not be next. No fucking way. You can run north on your Holy Crusade, but we’re staying right here.”
The anger rolled off her like a physical force, buffeting me back another half step.
“You can’t stay here,” I said, stepping toward her, trying to make up lost ground. “They will find you, and they will kill you.”
“Why should I listen to you?!” she shouted back at me.
If I were her, I wouldn’t listen to me, but I had to make her listen. I just didn’t know how. I felt like a man tossed into the middle of the ocean without a life raft. I looked past her and found it.
“You have to come with me to save her,” I said pointing to Chelsea.
Linda slowly turned, and I saw a new expression dawn on her face. The harsh reality of their situation hit her like a truck. Brent was dead, and they were on their own. But that didn’t mean that they would come with me or even listen to me.
“You have to believe me,” I said. “They are coming, and they will find you if you stay here.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, some of the heat coming back into her voice.
“I just know. They are coming, and they will find you.”
I saw her about to rev up again, but Chelsea reached up and grabbed her mother’s arm. “Mom, I don’t know if we can trust Joel or not, but I don’t want to stay because he could be right.”
“Please listen to her, Linda,” I said, trying to capitalize on what Chelsea said. “You need to come with me.”
The hardness came back to Linda’s face. “You need to hear me, Joel. We aren’t going anywhere with you. No way. No how.”
I put my hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. I’m okay with that.” I really wasn’t because I thought I could protect them, but maybe that was my ego getting the best of me. Look how Brent fared under my protection. “Please, please, please, you have to leave and do it now.”
Chelsea didn’t need any more convincing. “Where should we go?”
That was a good question. If Kilgore’s bloodhound was tracking our auras or some other voodoo bullshit, then the best thing they could do was to go in the opposite direction from me and the others, but while we were heading north, I didn’t want them going south. Kilgore was coming from that direction.
“Head east,” I said. “Leave now.” I paused for a moment. “When did Brother Ed and the other’s leave?”
Linda didn’t look like she wanted to answer me.
Chelsea spoke up. “About five minutes ago. Maybe ten.”
So, Brother Ed had given me some wiggle room to return but had pulled the plug on me when I pushed well past my return time. I didn’t blame him because he was only following my orders but still. Oh well. I wanted to ask how he got Kara to leave without me, but I figured I had used up any goodwill with my earlier questions.
“Do you need help packing or getting out of here?” I asked.
Again, Linda refused to answer.
“No,” Chelsea said, “our stuff is ready to go in the back room.”
This was the most I had ever heard from Chelsea. After being traumatized by the mistreatment at Marlow’s hands, she had been so quiet that she seemed nearly mute to me. It was good to see that she was coming out of her shell. Linda was going to need a partner if she was to survive.
There wasn’t a lot more to say, but I still searched for something. “Well, good luck,” was the best I could do and that seemed pretty weak to me.
Linda didn’t need any more urging, turned, and left the room, but Chelsea remained, staring at me, but also taking glances into the hallway that Linda had disappeared into.
I saw a question on Chelsea’s face.
“Is there something you want to tell me or something you need?” I asked.
She took a last look down the hallway, then took a short step toward me. She spoke in a hushed voice with her eyes looking toward the ground. “I know it’s not your fault my dad is dead.” Her voice caught, and she paused to compose herself. “My mom might not get over it, but I know you did your best.”
She nearly jumped into me and wrapped her arms around me, giving me a quick hug.
“Good luck, Joel,” she said as she pulled back. “Brother Ed left you a bike around the back of the house. He said he’d stay at the produce farm for a half hour, then he said he was leaving with or without you.” A rustling sound came from down the hall.
“Chelsea, it’s time to go.” Linda’s voice came out of the recesses of the house.
Chelsea looked at me, her eyes red with tears, and said, “I’ve got to go. Thank Kara and Naveen for taking care of me after…” She trailed off. “It really helped me.” For the first time, she looked me directly in my eyes and said, “Bye.”
She turned away from me and disappeared down the hallway. I stood and listened for about a minute, hearing them shuffling things around in the back of the house. A door opened and closed, then slammed shut, and I knew I would probably never see them again. Again, it was like having a piece of myself cut off. How many more people would I have to lose just to survive?
I paused and considered all the casualties of our life in the zombie apocalypse and felt the overwhelming weight of all the people we had lost. Greg, Travis, Brandon, Brent, and so many more. It was soul crushing to try to take them all in as their faces flashed in my mind like a gruesome slideshow. So, I did what I always did and what I had
to and pushed them to the back of my mind and stuffed them into that little black box that I hoped I would never open again.
Just after this necessary mental exercise, I said a quick prayer for Linda and Chelsea, then I looked around the house that had been our safe haven during the past few days. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had provided us a safe harbor in the storm when we needed it.
I sort of regretted what I had to do next, but it was the only way I could think of that might block Kilgore’s blood hound, and I wasn’t even sure it would work.
Five minutes later, I was standing in the backyard holding the bicycle’s handles in my hands as flames appeared in the floor-to-ceiling windows of the family room on the back of the house. The fire leapt from a couch sitting against the big windows and caught onto the curtains, slowly climbing up them eagerly, consuming anything that might burn. I looked past the family room and saw that the hallway leading from the front of the house to the back was burning in earnest, fire dancing down the walls.
The place was going to go up fast, and I hoped it acted as a distraction for Kilgore and his crew. I also hoped the fire covered any traces of which direction we had gone, mostly hoping that Kilgore’s bloodhound wouldn’t try to track Linda and Chelsea. They had lost enough already and had only been a part of our “holy mission” because they had been pulled into our group by happenstance.
Just to be safe, I pushed the bike in a wide circle around the house, leaving my scent or aura or whatever that damn thing tracked ready to be discovered. The fire would no doubt be a beacon for Kilgore and his men, and I hoped they wasted plenty of time checking it out.
Once I made it to the street in front of the house, I mounted the bike and remembered how much I hated riding a bike, but there I was, forced to ride once again because my life depended on it. It would only be a matter of time before Kilgore and his men found another means of transportation and came after us, so I pushed off and started to pedal northward.
