by M. Van
We followed Decks down an alley between two buildings. With a loud clank, the door behind us caved. The narrow space between the long, rectangular buildings opened into a parking lot where parked vehicles covered the lot. Long-term parking meant a lot of vehicles and hopefully not that many zombies, although I could see movement between the rows of cars.
At a pace, we followed Decks. If I weren’t so out of breath, I would have asked why he wouldn’t just choose a vehicle, but then he spun around a corner of a large building that I assumed to be a hangar. Elizabeth seemed to have regained herself because she ran full speed at his side.
Mars grabbed my arm and hauled me after them. My feet stomped on the vast concrete as we ran across the open lot dodging cars. I heard the moans all around me. Strangely jerking bodies registered in my brain as I tried to keep pace behind Mars. As planned, we had found one of the less-crowded parking lots, but that didn’t mean it had been deserted. Because of my illness, I couldn’t maintain his strong pace. The sinking sun still radiated heat, plastering my shirt to my sweat-soaked body.
Decks and Elizabeth were at least fifty yards ahead of us. The formerly comatose patient moved as if she ran a marathon every other day. My legs felt like lead while my lungs burned inside my chest. In my peripheral vision, I could see movement from beyond the cars but ignored it. I was too busy trying to keep up with Mars.
I weaved around a car when the little wind left in my lungs was knocked out of me and my body slammed onto the concrete. White flashed across my eyes as a long-haired zombie jumped on top of me. Long strands of sticky, dark hair, clumped together with dried blood, ran across my face. I jammed my elbow into its Metallica T-shirt to keep it from sinking its teeth into my neck. I squirmed against its weight. When that didn’t work, I screamed in frustration, and the zombie froze. Its milky white eyes swirled inside its head as its nose rose to the sky and sniffed. With what seemed like a distaste, it released its grip. Mars rammed his boot into its skull. The thing skidded across the concrete. When it was ready to pounce again, it snapped its head and hissed at Mars. Two shots in the head put an end to that.
I gasped for air as I focused on Mars’s face until he aimed his rifle at me. His expression hardened, his mouth set in a thin line. My heart stopped. I held my breath while my arms went up in surrender. I gaped at him in shock.
“Were you bit?” he asked. His voice strained. With trembling fingers, I inspected my arms and ran a hand over my neck, as if I wouldn’t have felt the zombie’s teeth. I shook my head. I held a hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun and saw the reluctance on his face. It took only a beat of my heart for him to shrug, and he reached his hand out to pull me to my feet.
“No time to rest then,” he said. I glanced at the zombies closing in on us. Multiple bodies squeezed between the rows of parked cars and pushed themselves through the narrow spaces like toothpaste pressed out of a tube. Mars placed his arm around my waist and started dragging me along.
It didn’t take us long to catch up with Decks, who had found a four-door pickup truck in a hideous maroon color. The vehicle looked huge, not something you would see passing through the streets of Rotterdam. You wouldn’t even be able to find parking for that thing where I came from. Elizabeth sat in the front passenger seat while Decks fiddled underneath the dashboard. My breath came in ragged waves while I pushed down bile. I wanted to ask why this truck had to be all the way out here, but I couldn’t get the words past my mouth.
“We have got to go, Captain,” Mars said. Decks grunted from below the dash.
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“Gun,” Mars said, looking down at me, and he held his hand up. My eyes wide, I examined my empty hands.
“Shit, I must have lost it.”
“Here,” Decks growled and handed Mars a gun. Mars checked the clip and then handed it to me. He grabbed his rifle, took a firm stand by my side, and started picking his targets.
“Anytime you’re ready,” he said to me. I glanced at the onslaught of zombies with their torn flesh and gaping mouths. This might be a big truck, but we wouldn’t stand a chance if Decks couldn’t get it moving.
The crack of Mars’s rifle made me jump. Without hesitation, he dropped zombies with keen precision. I aimed the gun and fired several shots, but I didn’t see one zombie go down.
“Breathe,” Mars said. “Take your time, and shoot what you can hit.” I glanced at him and then at my shaking hands. Those hands wouldn’t even hit something at point-blank range. In spite of the sun burning my almost-naked scalp, a shiver ran up my spine. Only two rows of cars separated about twenty bloodthirsty creatures from us.
“Almost there,” Decks shouted from underneath the dashboard. A loud bang jerked my head up. Hands clawed at the hood of the car before a shot rang out and the body flung backward.
“Get in,” Mars yelled as he fired several rounds. I climbed into the truck. Elizabeth nodded to me from the front seat, but the dread in her eyes made me turn to the window. Not that glancing outside made me feel any better.
The engine sprang to life, and Decks whooped. Mars stepped in behind me. His rifle clicked empty before he closed the door. A body rammed it in the same second, and I yelped. The zombie slammed its fists against the window, and several others pinned it down, crushing its bloodied face into the glass. A crack crawled up the window as Decks slammed the truck into gear and hit the gas. He swerved around cars, and I understood why we had to run this far. It meant fewer things that blocked the road to worry about. We sped along the fence in search of a way out. The car bounced when it hit a young man in shorts. Bones crunched as the wheels squashed its body. I shuddered at the thought. All our eyes locked on the road. It seemed no one even dared to breathe.
The silence in the cabin unnerved me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned against the backseat and closed my eyes. My breathing remained erratic, and I focused on slowing down my heart. At his touch, I opened my eyes to see Mars take my hand in his.
“It’ll be okay,” he said. He squeezed my hand and followed that with a reassuring smile.
How could he stay so calm? I couldn’t return the smile, and I just gazed at him. I didn’t even know this man, and he had risked his life to save mine. I should mention there was nothing to save, that he shouldn’t risk his life for me, but I lacked the courage to open my mouth.
My eyes fell on the road when the truck jerked to the left. We were on some type of maintenance road within the borders of JFK from where we could see the short-term parking lot. It was chaos. Zombies and people alike rushed in an almost unrecognizable haze through the narrow lanes between vehicles, cars crashed, and screams could be heard.
“Decks, watch out!” I shouted. A beat-up old Volvo crashed through the fence, ready to ram our flank. Decks jerked the wheel to fling the car flying to the right. The momentum threw me into Mars, who in his turn slammed into the passenger door. It flung open, and Mars skidded halfway out.
Screaming his name, I grabbed a leg along with a fistful of his body armor.
“Hang on,” I shouted. My butt scooted over the leather seat, because he was too heavy for me. I jammed my foot into the doorframe and heaved with all the strength left in my body. Mars’s face strained with the effort as his hand held a firm grip on the seatbelt. Gravity took hold, as the car changed direction, flinging us across the backseat. Mars slammed into me, and the door closed on its own. Luckily, my door remained closed. I coughed when Mars eased off.
“Jeez, you knocked the wind out of me,” I said through coughs. He smiled that generous smile.
“Thanks,” he said. His breathing had slightly increased, but he didn’t seem to have broken a sweat.
“I guess we’re even,” I replied. With a grim expression, Mars’s gaze drifted to the short-term parking lot.
“I think I still owe you for not being down there,” he said barely audibly.
Beyond that, we didn’t have much trouble exiting the airport, and Decks seemed
comfortable behind the wheel. I knew our luck would run out at some point. I was sure that when we reached the bigger roads, it wouldn’t be long before the madness would start. Images of pile-ups and road rage started to fill my mind. I read the sign, Belt PKWY, at the side of the road, but had no idea where we were.
“What’s the plan?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“There is an Army National Guard base not that far off. We’ll make sure you’re in good hands in one of the safe zones,” Decks said. He glanced at Mars through the rearview mirror before he stepped on the break and jerked the steering wheel to the left. I slammed into the door and decided to find my seatbelt. I braced myself and watched Elizabeth click her own belt.
“Elizabeth, you okay?” I asked not sure if I wanted to know.
“Not at all,” she said with a high-pitched voice. She let out a squeak when Decks made another evasive maneuver. There was a loud thwack when the truck crushed two zombies under its front wheels. My stomach lurched at the sheer panic on some faces and the animalistic rage on others as we passed the short-term parking lot. Cars crashed as people tried to flee, and zombies ran the streets. I sank into my seat and watched Decks in the rearview mirror.
“What happened to these people?” I asked. I figured it was a reasonable question and tried to keep the fear out of my voice. I had asked Mars before, but apparently, he had avoided my question without me registering it.
“Like I said, they’re infected,” Decks replied. His eyes fell on Mars, with a hardened expression. I tried to find meaning in that look, but Mars avoided my gaze.
Decks slowed down. He used the truck’s bull bar to shove a small hatchback to the side of the road. Elizabeth shifted in her seat. The poor woman looked devastated. She placed her hand on top of mine, where it rested on the shoulder of the front seat. I closed my eyes and tried to take comfort in her gesture.
| 5
The truck’s tires screeched when it hit Interstate 678. The sun descended toward the horizon, signaling the end of a long day. We took this interstate when Emily and I first arrived in New York. Emily was sitting next to me in the cab when we traveled in the same direction, except in the opposite lanes. That was ten days ago. Things seemed fine, but even cooped up at our hotel, it felt wrong. Although it wasn’t until buses started to come down the streets packed with people, heading God knows where, that tension rose to uncharted territories. Combined with the news of riots in several parts of the city, it had made me glad to be getting out. I had noticed the military vehicles and roadblocks on our way to the airport but hadn’t paid much attention to them. This was America, of course, and considering what this town had had to endure over the years, this could have been standard procedure. The shit at the airport, though, had left the eerie feeling in my gut that someone had known this was about to happen. Why else would they have confined us to our hotel if there hadn’t been a hint of what was going on? But why hadn’t there been more news about it?
Decks had gotten us on I-678 by waving his military credentials. The soldiers at the checkpoint blocking the lane that led onto I-678 told him they had cleared most of the main roads. I heard Decks trying to request a helicopter and apparently failing. He lowered his voice when he noticed me stare.
The pit stop at the checkpoint gave us a chance to catch our breath. The soldiers stationed there were kind enough to spare some of their ration packs. Past the checkpoint, I-678 seemed very quiet to me. Abandoned cars stood by the road, but nothing resembled the chaos I would have expected. Usually—in the movies, that is—once the first zombie had shown its face on the screen, all hell had broken loose, but that didn’t seem to be the case here.
Choppers hovered over us high up in the sky. Every so often, we could hear the rapid fire of heavy machine guns. I wasn’t sure if it was wise to ask, but the silence in the car was getting to me, and I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
“How come you got the roads cleared so quickly?” I asked. Decks sighed, and I watched him make eye contact with Mars through the rearview mirror. I had been prodding them with questions that Mars had met with polite evasion, but I had a feeling Decks was losing his patience with me.
“We were at the airport to shut it down, but we got there too late,” he said. “We had some problems with our primary targets.” I felt my mouth fall open.
“The island has been cut off since 0900 hours this morning, and ever since then, the main focus shifted from evacuation to containing the outbreak,” Mars continued, and I glared at him.
“So you did know this was coming,” I said more as a statement than a question. Of course, they knew it was coming. They had safe zones in place, for God’s sake. Mars nodded but kept his eyes on the road.
“How bad is it?” I asked. Decks glanced at me over his shoulder before he turned his eyes to the road. He paused, and in the rearview mirror, I could see him think. Maybe he took pity on us, because he started to explain.
“We had it under control, at least for this island. They had already transferred all troops stationed here to secure Manhattan or protect safe zones. We’ve secured primary targets, but finding ways to tackle the problem has proven …” Decks’s voice trailed off as his gaze found mine in the rearview mirror. For a second, his painfully dejected eyes bore into mine before he closed them and said, “Challenging.”
“I’m never going home again,” Elizabeth’s accented voice chimed through Decks’s words. No one answered her. I placed my hand on her shoulder but didn’t have a clue what to say, although I was in the exact same situation.
“So, now what?” I asked, still disconcerted by Decks’s expression.
“We pray our troops can contain the safe zones and ride it out. This place is virtually an island, and if we can contain the spread, we should be all right,” Decks answered.
“Pray,” I said with a sarcastic undertone, because if that was their backup plan, we’d be severely screwed.
“God willing, we will prevail,” Decks replied and gave me a hard look through the mirror.
“We’re fucked,” I said with a sigh and slumped into my seat. I closed my eyes and felt Mars’s hand on my knee. Comforted by his gesture, my breathing relaxed. Then Elizabeth screamed. The seatbelt ripped painfully into my stomach when the truck made an emergency stop. My body jerked into the passenger door. The scent of burning rubber filled my nose, and I heard loud pops. My heart sank at the sound of automatic gunfire further down the road.
The truck swerved, and I saw Mars hang out the window, firing short bursts. I looked out the back. My mind had trouble processing what it was seeing. A wall of blood-soaked, mutilated figures hurtled behind us. Their arms flailed, their mouths gaped, and worst of all, Mars wasn’t shooting at them. Ahead of us, awkwardly moving bodies slid and tumbled down the incline of I-678. Mars tried to take them out with his rifle before they could block our path. The smooth ride was over.
“We’re so screwed,” I muttered when Mars slid back inside the truck.
“Got to move faster, Cap,” he said as he reloaded his rifle.
“We’re almost at the exit. Keep them off us for a couple of more minutes,” Decks relayed.
Ahead, in the distance, I saw headlights. For a moment, I considered the gun clenched in my hand before I opened the passenger window. Mars watched me with approving interest when I unlocked my seatbelt.
“Try for the head,” he said with a reassuring nod. I cocked an eyebrow, but refrained myself from uttering duh. With a grin, he leaned out the window. The gun shook in my hand, and I tightened my grip. I loaded the chamber while I took another glance out back. A group of at least a dozen zombies joined the mob from the side of the road. I swallowed as I leaned out the window. The wind felt brisk on my nearly naked skull. The sun eased behind the buildings, boasting what would be a remarkable golden-red afterglow.
Ahead, a zombie crossed the road into our path. It slammed into the truck, and I ducked inside in time to see it flung past the window.
Taking a
deep breath, I raised my upper body out of the window again. I held the gun to the roof of the vehicle for support to improve my aim. I released the trigger. Nothing seemed to happen. I re-aimed as a figure leaped out from behind a heap of crashed cars. It latched onto the truck bed as we passed it. I swirled around, took aim, and fired. The bullet didn’t hit its head, which I was going for, but it must have hit something because the former human hurtled to the ground and rolled on the asphalt as we drove away. A bunch of the zombies following us stumbled over the fallen body and each other. I couldn’t help a grin and caught Mars eying me over the roof of the truck.
“Birds and stones,” he said loudly over the rushing wind.
I shook my head in disapproval and said, “Two flies with one blow as we say in Holland.” With a grin, he raised his weapon. The rest of the zombies fell out of range for a useful shot from my gun, and I turned to look ahead.
“Mars, get in,” I shouted at the sight of a group of zombies climbing down the shoulder and the wall of guns further down the road. Military vehicles blocked our passage. Soldiers stood between the barricades, their guns seemingly aimed at us. Mars looked over to me, then forward, and nodded. I slipped into the truck and clicked the seatbelt in place. The truck veered left and then right, followed by a loud bang, and all of a sudden, I felt weightless. Another crash followed. The seatbelt cut into my waist. We were still moving when I opened my eyes. I was facing asphalt on the other side of my window. The truck had tipped over, and metal ground the tarred soil. The asphalt too close to my face, I tried to push myself up, but Mars’s weight pressed me down. Glass scattered, and sparks flew where the metal scraped along the road. I prodded my arm against the roof to try and lift my head and keep it from being grated like a block of cheese. Screaming might have been involved because my throat felt sore when we came to a stop.
