“Quick! Barricade the door!” he yelled.
He slammed it shut behind him, pressing his full weight against it. The door bucked against his shoulder, and he gritted his teeth, doing his best to hold it. Sandy grabbed the couch and began sliding it in place.
But she was too late. The door was already about to give way.
Dan jumped back as a flood of creatures poured from the entrance. He raised his pistol and fired several rounds into the mass, but the numbers were too strong. Before he knew it he was fleeing to the edge of the roof, Sandy behind him.
He peered over the edge, reeling at the sight of the thirty-foot drop and the station wagon below. By his count there were five bullets left in the chamber of his gun—not nearly enough to ward off the horde of creatures in front of them.
“Are there any other weapons up here?” he shouted.
“No!”
The girl behind him was frantic, and she dug her nails into the back of his shirt, as if Dan were the last anchor to her sanity.
He scoured the roof, looking for an escape route. Jumping was out of the question; that was for sure. Other than that, the only other way out that he could see was back through the door they’d come in.
“Dammit!” he yelled.
The creatures were almost upon them, ten feet and closing, and he fired off two shots, felling the two closest to them. No sooner had they fallen than two more emerged to take their place, biting and clawing the air in front of them.
He fixed his eyes on one in particular, which appeared to have been a woman with long dark hair and blue eyes. The creature’s face held the same shape and curves as Julie’s, and before he knew it, he’d replaced the image with that of his dead wife’s.
His heart swelled with despair.
Would he be joining her soon?
Get ahold of yourself, Dan.
The sound of a car door slamming jolted him back to reality.
He looked back over the roof’s edge, just in time to see his daughter racing from the station wagon and into the bank.
“Quinn! No!” he shouted.
But he was too late.
His daughter had already entered the building.
5
Meredith faltered back down the hallway, unable to believe what she was seeing. The man coming toward her was pale and disheveled, his eyes rabid and roving. He looked nothing like Ben. His hands raked the air, fingers bloody, and he emitted a low hiss through clenched teeth.
If he recognized Meredith, he showed no outward signs of it. This was not the neighbor she’d known for five years.
This was a different person entirely.
Even still, could she shoot him?
She aimed the rifle at his mid-section, her hands shaking, and wondered if she’d have the courage to pull the trigger.
To be fair, Meredith had known about the infection. She’d seen the details on the news, and she’d even seen footage of the infected. Knowing that things could escalate, that her town could be next, she’d done her best to prepare for the worst. But as she quickly realized, seeing something on the television and seeing it right in front of you were two different things.
There was no way to prepare for something like this.
Ben—or whatever Ben had become—advanced toward her without hesitation, paying little mind to the gun she was carrying, and she backed up several steps until she was next to the stairwell. Her foot slid from the landing onto the first step.
Ben’s eyes had stopped roaming, and his gaze locked on her face.
“Ben!” she screamed. “It’s me, Meredith!”
But her words were useless. She may as well have been speaking in a foreign language.
She heard a bang from downstairs and her heart leapt in her chest.
“Sheila? Where are you?” she screamed. But there was no answer from the old woman.
Ben took a swing at her, and she moved to the side, narrowly avoiding him. She moved down another stair and clenched the trigger of the rifle. If she were to run, the man would be upon her in no time; given his size, he’d overtake her in seconds.
Meredith raised her gun; swallowed the lump in her throat.
I’m sorry, Ben.
She squeezed the trigger. The resultant blast knocked her back a step, and she watched as the man stumbled back into the hallway. He hunched over, head tilted to the side, but he did not retreat.
She’d struck him in the arm, and the wound gushed a red spray: a mixture of blood and something else she couldn’t identify. Despite the injury, he made no sound, no outward indication that he felt any pain. Instead, he took another plodding step toward her.
Meredith ran.
She took the steps two at a time, her feet sliding across the carpet, listening to Ben chasing after her. She heard a crash, as if he’d hit the wall, then a series of thuds as his feet hit the stairs.
When she reached the ground floor, she veered right into the kitchen. There was no sign of Sheila, but the phone was lying on the floor. Next to it was a puddle of blood.
“Oh God,” Meredith whispered.
Despite her concern, Meredith had no time for hesitation. She heard another enormous crash behind her—probably Ben hitting the first floor landing—and darted through the kitchen and out the open back door.
At the rear of the property was an enormous field. At one time it had been used for growing crops, but with Sheila’s husband deceased, it had succumbed to overgrowth. To Meredith’s right, fifty feet away, was a barn.
She darted forth without hesitation, her feet pummeling the earth. Although she didn’t dare turn around, she could sense Ben’s presence behind her. The hissing had increased in volume and his footfalls thudded against the grass.
The sun blazed overhead, illuminating the field in a golden film. Meredith squinted from the glare. There was still no sign of Sheila. Her hope was that the woman had made it to the barn; that she was waiting for her.
When she was twenty feet from the barn doors, she noticed that they were hanging open. Had Sheila left them ajar? Was the woman in there, bleeding and injured?
Her mind scrambled for answers while her feet traipsed the ground.
She’d almost reached the entrance when she felt something brush the back of her neck. Startled, she tried to pick up speed, but she was too late.
Ben had caught up, and he grabbed ahold of her shirt and flung her to the ground. Meredith pitched forward and onto the dirt, landing on the rifle. The blow knocked the wind out of her, and she struggled to roll over.
Ben was latching on to her legs. She kicked behind her, striking Ben in the face. His grasp relented, and she grabbed hold of the rifle underneath her.
This time she was able to turn around.
She rolled onto her back, propped the gun in front of her, and took sight of her attacker. Ben was still advancing, even though it looked like she’d broken his nose. The same substance that had bled from his arm now erupted from his face, and his eyes glowed a milky white.
Despite his injuries, he showed no signs of slowing down. He wasn’t going to stop until she was dead.
Meredith pulled the trigger, watching the top of his head explode.
His eyes rolled backward, his body crumpled, and Ben fell onto his face.
She stared at him for another minute—this man that had once been her neighbor and friend—and felt a sob rise up in her throat.
How would she explain this to the man’s wife? How would she go on living after what she’d done?
Tears sprung to her eyes, and she dropped the rifle in the grass. She’d just killed her neighbor. She was a murderer.
But he wasn’t Ben anymore.
Meredith stared at the top of his head, at his pallid, gray arms, and tried to convince herself that she’d done the right thing. Before she could come to any resolution, she heard a commotion coming from the barn.
Sheila.
It wasn’t over yet. The woman needed her help. She forced herself to her feet.
>
Muffled cries wafted from the barn, and she heard a series of scuffs and bangs. From the sounds of it Sheila was in trouble. Meredith retrieved the rifle and dashed the ten feet to the doors, then kicked them open with her foot.
Her stomach instantly dropped.
Lying on her back, stomach torn open, was Sheila Guthright. Sitting on top of her was Ben’s wife Marcy.
6
“Marcy! Get the hell off of her!” Meredith shouted.
The woman that had once been Marcy snarled, her hands wrapped around the old woman’s intestines.
“Now!”
Meredith aimed the gun, her finger on the trigger. Her face was wet with tears, and she fought to control her emotions. In just a few minutes, she’d been forced to kill one of her closest neighbors.
And now she was poised to kill another.
Marcy hissed at her, holding up her blood-laced fingers as if to taunt Meredith. She lowered her hands back to Sheila’s stomach, ready to continue her parade of gore, but before she could, Meredith fired.
The gunshot echoed through the barn.
Marcy fell sideways, collapsing like a stone.
Meredith dropped the rifle to the dirt and rushed to the old woman’s aid. Sheila opened her mouth, emitting a trickle of blood. Her stomach had been torn open, her insides torn and upended.
“Stay still,” Meredith instructed.
Tears streamed down her face. Without being a doctor, she knew that the woman was mortally wounded. The nearest hospital was about fifty miles away. Even if they could make it, she doubted the woman would survive.
But she’d try to nonetheless.
“I’ll be right back, Sheila. I promise.”
Meredith raced out of the barn, past the bodies of Marcy and Ben, across the field. Her throat was tight and constricted, her pulse still raced, but this time for a different reason.
Two of her neighbors were dead, and another was dying.
The kitchen was even worse than she had left it. The chairs had been knocked over, the door hung off its hinges. Ben had torn through it like a whirlwind, destroying everything in his path to get to her.
She’d been extremely lucky.
She just wished she’d reached Sheila earlier, before Marcy had—
Meredith pushed the thought from her mind and picked up the phone. She clicked the button off, then on again. The receiver spit a dial tone. She tapped the numbers 9-1-1 and waited for the phone to connect.
But it didn’t.
It rang and rang.
That’s impossible, she thought. How could nobody be there?
But she knew the reason, and try as she might, she was unable to ignore it. She hung up, dialed again, same result. Frantic now, she tried the phone numbers of her closest neighbors. No matter whom she called, she was unable to get a response.
The fear inside her grew.
How could things have happened so fast?
She looked at her hands as if expecting herself to suddenly transform, but her fingers remained fleshy and white. She’d been careful not to consume anything other than what was on her farm. Had Ben and Marcy done the same? She thought they had, but she couldn’t be sure.
Meredith left the phone behind and raced back out the kitchen door. Once outside, she glanced at the driveway. Her car was still adjacent to the house, a hundred feet away.
She changed course from the barn to her car. She could still make out the body of Ben Parsons on the ground, and as she ran, she had the sudden premonition that the man would sit up and chase her. But he remained still.
When she reached her truck, she jumped in, started the engine, and drove up to the barn’s entrance. If Meredith couldn’t get ahold of an ambulance, she’d drive Sheila to the hospital herself.
She darted back into the barn.
Sheila’s eyes were half-closed and her breathing was shallow.
“Stay with me, Sheila!” she shouted.
She glanced at the woman’s stomach, where blood was still spilling from inside, creating a puddle on the dirt beside her. Meredith had never seen so much in her life. She gritted her teeth and looked for a towel.
I need to stop the bleeding. Put pressure on it. Then I can move her.
The rational part of her mind told her that her efforts would be useless, that no matter what she did, the woman was already on a one-way trip to death’s door. But Meredith ignored the thoughts and continued, refusing to give up.
Finding nothing in the barn, she raced back for the house, intent on retrieving a clean towel to apply to the wound. She crashed through the kitchen and into the bathroom, whipped open the closet. Inside were several clean towels. She tucked them under her armpit and darted back for the barn.
When she got to Sheila’s side, her heart dropped even further. The old woman’s eyes were rolled back in her head and she’d stopped breathing.
Meredith placed her fingers on the woman’s neck, but there was no sign of life, no pulse. She placed her hands on the woman’s chest, right above the gaping wound, and started chest compressions. Every few seconds she held her ear to the woman’s mouth, hoping to resuscitate her.
Blood soaked her hands, and the woman’s frail body seemed to cave underneath her touch. After a few seconds she stopped.
There was no use. Try as she might, there was nothing she could do. Sheila Guthright was dead.
Meredith covered her face with her hands and sobbed into the empty barn.
7
Dan raised his pistol at the creatures on the roof, ready to expend his last few rounds of ammunition. Sandy crouched behind him. If he had to guess, there were about ten of the things in front of him: no matter how good his aim was, he wouldn’t be able to hit them all. His only option was to incapacitate as many as he could and try to create an opening.
He trained his gun on the closest creature—a man with an unkempt bloodied beard and flannel shirt—and squeezed off a round into its head. The thing staggered back, bumping into two others behind it and collapsing to the pavement. Dan swiveled to his left, shooting a woman-creature with long dark hair, and then fired two more rounds into two things behind it.
He continued to fire until his gun clicked empty and he was out of ammunition. He’d managed to fell about six of the creatures. There were still four remaining, and they charged at him with mouths agape.
Among them were two males and two females; all were equidistant from where he stood.
He lashed out with his foot, catching one of the males in the ankle, sending it toppling downward, then struck another male in the face with his fist. The creature’s cheek was cold and hard, and the impact jarred his knuckles.
In spite of the pain, he kept on. The things had pressed Sandy and him backward so they were only a few feet from the edge of the roof: if they weren’t mauled first, they were destined to fall.
He needed to create a diversion, an opening.
“Get ready to run!” he shouted to Sandy.
One of the creatures lunged at Dan—a woman in a floral-print dress—and he grabbed it by the fabric and flung it from the roof. Of the three creatures remaining, only one was on its feet.
“Go!” he yelled to Sandy.
The girl darted from behind him, making a beeline for the entrance.
The last female latched onto his arm.
Dan wrenched himself away and took a step closer to the roof. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the pavement looming thirty feet below. He attempted to sidestep, but the two things on the ground had recovered, and the three creatures had walled him in.
There was nowhere to go.
He covered his head with his hands, trying to push his way between them, but none budged. Hot breath filled the air above, drawing closer, and he thrashed his arms to no avail.
Was this the end? After all they’d been through, would this be his demise?
He’d almost given up when a familiar voice rang out across the rooftop.
“Dad! Duck!”
Dan dropped to the ground. Gunshots rocked the air above him, and he pressed himself against the asphalt. One by one the creatures collapsed on top of him, crushing him in a tangle of limbs. He wrenched his body from side to side, doing his best to free himself.
This time he was able to fling them off.
He emerged from the heap and stared at his daughter’s frail form across the rooftop.
In her hands was the pistol he’d given her.
“Quinn!”
She lowered the gun. Sandy was standing behind her. Both of them appeared unharmed.
He sprang across the rooftop, covering the gap between them, and held his daughter close. She handed him the weapon.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
“For what?”
“Leaving the car.”
“Not at all. Thank God you did,” he said. “I’m not sure what I would’ve done otherwise.”
He glanced over at Sandy, who was still shaking. He opened his arms and embraced her as well.
“Now let’s all get the hell out of here.”
Three pairs of footsteps clapped the stairwell as the survivors made their way down them, hands linked in a human chain. The bank had returned to silence.
When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Dan paused, halting them with an upturned hand. Beneath them were the bodies of the creatures he’d shot earlier. He scanned the lifeless limbs, certain that one would spring to life, but all remained still.
He cracked the door.
The main floor of the bank was dark and dismal, empty, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Chances were that the commotion had roused other things in the area and they’d be coming soon.
“Come on,” he hissed.
He led the pair through the bank, stepping over the paperwork and debris he’d traversed just minutes earlier. To his right were the glass offices and windows. He kept one eye trained on the outside.
When they were halfway across the bank, he saw movement outside.
Dan paused mid-step.
“What is it?” Quinn whispered.
He put his finger to his lips, waited. The movement was coming from a bakery across the street. Inside the building, he could see several smashed coolers, a table and chairs, and a counter. Everything beyond that was black. He strained his eyes, but none of the shadows changed shape and nothing moved.
Contamination (Book 4): Escape Page 4
