Stage 6 (Book 1)

by Dylan James

  I then said loudly, “Ian back away from the door.”

  The Infected whipped around, and began to run towards me. I covered my face with my hand and pulled the trigger, blowing it to pieces. The door opened and Ian ran out, and seeing Karen immediately bent down and hugged her.

  He looked up at me, “Jack, this is the second time you’ve killed a family member of mine. I couldn’t do it though, so I’m glad you came along. That thing was eating my grandmother when I got here. It chased me into that room and I waited there for help.”

  I pulled a shell from my back pocket and reloaded.

  “We have to get out of here, Ian. The truck will be circling around again and we have to be out there to meet it. It will be here any second, so I say we just run out there now.”

  Ian gripped his pistol tightly, a reflex of his I’ve noticed when he’s getting ready for action.

  He held Karen in front of him, “Ok Karen, we’re going to have to run now ok?”

  I moved towards the door, peered out the window to see most of the Infected circling the house to get in through windows. I heard a growl from off in the distance near the back door, and figured it was now or never. I opened the door and ran. I shot three of the Infected as they tried to grab me, and I heard Ian’s pistol go off twice. We ran out to the middle of the street and looked around, but they were nowhere in sight. Quickly I shouted for Ian and Karen to follow me, and I started running towards where they would appear at the end of their loop. We fired as little as possible as we ran down the street and got to the intersection. Along the way I could see several houses holding survivors, some of them looking sadly at us. I could tell they thought we were going to die out here. We reached the intersection, and looked around in horror as Infected came from every direction, attracted by the sound of our gunfire. We were surrounded. Ian held Karen to his side, and stood back to back with me. Our guns were blazing as we shot down Infected after Infected as they attempted to take us. With our adrenaline pumped, the Infected seemed to be moving in slow motion and we could tell exactly what they would do next. We ducked around them, and kept firing, in a graceful dance of death. But they just kept coming, and I clicked my gun’s trigger uselessly as it ran out of ammo. I reached for more ammo from my back pocket, while using the shot gun as a club to bash an Infected to the ground. I managed to reload two shells while Ian covered me before he too ran out of ammo.

  As we stood back to back, his voice shook as he told me, “Jack. Please, just kill us. I don’t want to be eaten alive, or even worse become one of those things. Let’s just die quickly, from our own bullets.”

  I grimly replied, “I can’t do that Ian. It’s not in my nature, I’ll never give up while there’s any hope.”

  He threw his head back and looked into Karen’s eyes as more Infected began to overwhelm my useless beatings.

  He said, “Karen, I love you. Just close your eyes and it will be over soon.”

  Although I didn’t want to give up, I could see nothing we could do. Then suddenly a rapid series of gunshots rang out and the Infected dropped near us. After each shot rang out, one Infected fell with a bullet through the head. The accuracy was amazing, although to be fair it was very easy to predict their movement. The weapons fire continued until we could see no more Infected coming for quite a distance. We looked around for our savior, to see someone waving at us out of his back yard. We could see an open steel door in the ground, and I surmised that he had a bomb shelter back there.

  He saluted us and yelled, “Long live America!”

  We ran over to him and he rejected my handshake.

  He simply said, “You all are lucky I’m here. Be more careful.”

  Then our truck, driven by Lucy came screeching around the corner. She waved at us and stopped for us to come by, with Hunter barking ferociously at us. I was infuriated that once again she was ignoring my rules never stop but glad that we had rescue coming.

  I said quickly, “Whoever you are, let us return the favor. We are going to camp Mabry for protection, we can drive you there.”

  He replied, “Mabry? I doubt that there’s anything you’re expecting there, but... I guess we can’t stay here forever. Hold on a second.”

  I yelled after his retreating form, “We don’t have a second! Come on!”

  As he kept going towards the bomb shelter I thought wait, hold on, he said we. I hopped into the truck, and told Lucy to wait for a few more seconds, and that we’d probably have at least two people coming. We could see Infected moving towards us from behind, and knew we only had a minute at best before we were surrounded again. Just as I was about to tell Lucy to leave, the mysterious man appeared from the bomb shelter with two bags strapped to his back, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, and a mysterious form carried in his arms. I yelled at him to hurry, and he started running towards the truck.

  I told Ian and Karen, “Get in the back of the truck to make room, and when he gets in you’ll have to take his stuff and store it back there.”

  They rolled into the back over the seats, and we opened the side door. He came diving into the truck and yelled go. I could see an Infected a few meters off of his exposed legs. I used my last shotgun shell to blast the Infected back, as Lucy punched the gas and the man pulled his legs in simultaneously. I reached over and shut the side door as we raced off into the distance.

  I told Lucy to head for her relative’s house, and she replied quickly, “No let’s just go to the fort.”

  Confused I began to ask why and she just shook her head and said again, “Let’s just go to the fort I’m fine.”

  I nodded my head, and she turned in a direction I presume was towards camp Mabry. I looked in the back and saw to my shock the bundle the man was carrying was a baby.

  I offered my hand again, and said “Well, how about that? Can I have your names now?”

  He shook my hand in a vice-like grip, “The name’s Steve. This here is my daughter Veronica.”

  The others all introduced themselves, and I told him the key points of what had happened to us.

  When I was finished he said, “Well it sounds like you all have had quite an adventure. It’s not the same for me. I was a Navy Seal for twenty three years, so I had some friends in the army. A few days ago I heard from one of my buddies that this whole virus thing was a much bigger deal than people were saying. Then I saw the broadcast on T.V. and I figured we’d just get in the bomb shelter for a few weeks. I’m still not sure we’re doing the right thing by coming with you guys.”

  Lucy looked in the rearview mirror and asked, “I see your baby is only a few weeks old, where’s the mom?”

  I could see that Lucy desperately wanted to take her mind off of what was happening and talk about the baby, so I told her to slow the car. We performed an awkward switch of drivers, and in a few seconds I was driving towards Mabry and she was in the back.

  She repeated her question, and he stood still for a few seconds, and then replied, “She died at childbirth. She’s only been gone for less than a month.”

  Then surprisingly he laughed, and I looked back to see the little baby weakly pushing away Hunter’s tongue as he tried to lick her.

  I yelled, “Bad dog! Ian bring him in the back with you guys, he’ll have more room to move around.”

  They lifted him into the back, along with Steve’s supplies. Steve unslung his rifle from his back and Ian looked admiringly at it.

  He asked Steve “What is that?”

  Steve replied happily, “This is the M-16 assault rifle. Technically I’m not really supposed to have one of these, but I’m sure glad I do.”

  We drove in silence for a few minutes before reaching the freeway leading into Austin and what we saw there shocked us. Because our neighborhood was ravaged by the Infected, I was surprised to see that the roads here were flooded with cars. People desperate to get out of town I guessed, but regardless traffic was unbearably slow and in the span of four hours we only went about ten miles. I took the ti
me to grab some more shells from my ammo box, determined not to run out of ammo like that again.

  Everybody spent the time desperately listening to their radios, scanning the stations listening for anything other than static. While it gave us confidence and security to know that that there was more of us free of disease than the government had led us to believe, it was also fearful to drive that slow knowing that at any moment there could be an attack.

  And indeed, several times cars would abruptly stop and we’d hear screams. We could see struggles going on in the cars, and knew that one of the passengers of drivers had been Infected previously and had just now shown its symptoms. Whether it was because Infected were occupied with their new food or they simply did not know how to get out of the vehicles, there was no immediate threat from them. Occasionally I would catch eye contact with another car’s passengers and smile weakly at them. Often they returned the smile, and I felt a sense of togetherness, that we were all allied against this threat. For the most part since there was no Infected to be seen except every once in a while in a car, the traffic was orderly and there were no dangers at all. But then there was also a large group of people that would not stand to wait in traffic, and drove on the sides and grass and stuff. Those kinds of people were the reasons that wrecks were all around us surrounding the roads, and occasionally blocking them. It’s one thing to drive carelessly as part of your nature I thought, but when everybody’s life is at stake couldn’t they act a little bit less selfishly? Everybody was just as scared as you, and we’re all in order working together to get through this. Eventually we reached a point where the traffic began to speed up to ten-fifteen miles an hour, and we started making real progress.

  We neared the direction of the camp, and turned to an abrupt stop as we scanned the area in horror. All the other people in traffic, or at least a large part of them were also heading for camp Mabry. There were cars littered for miles around the place, and people desperately trying to climb fences and get in. We couldn’t tell if they were Infected or not, but the soldiers evidently didn’t care and were shooting them all. From several holes and places in the fence that were ripped away and abandoned cars slightly within the camp I guessed that those same selfish people on the highway had decided to try and ram their car through the fence. The cars were littered with bullet holes, and there was now soldiers standing at the holes guarding several repair men trying to fix it.

  There was a large sign that had been put out that said “Turn left at intersection for processing into camp” Underneath it however, said

  “ALL FULL! ANY NEW PERSONELL WILL BE TURNED AWAY UNLESS A DOCTOR, SOLDIER OR ENGINEER. NO EXCEPTIONS.”

  We looked at the sign sadly for a few seconds. I asked Steve, “Well you are a soldier right? You could get in at least.”

  After studying the camp for a few seconds he said, “Yeah probably, but the military is very clear in their orders. And it also says no exceptions, such as children.” He looked down at his baby daughter Victoria and looked back up, “There’s no way I’m leaving her. Besides look at it; it’s filled with problems already, I don’t think this place will survive more than a few days at the most.”

  I asked, “Well... what do we do then?”

  That question rang out and played around in our minds for a good twenty minutes while I pulled the car out of the line and drove slowly around the city inspecting the area.

  Traffic was bad in the city, almost as bad as on the highway, but here the presence of the Infected was definitely known to all. They swarmed the streets, attacking anybody out in the open. Most kept from the cars though, giving them a wide berth. Possibly they didn’t recognize them as a food source. We also saw birds falling from the skies, and squirrels and other small creatures running wildly around.

  I then made my choice. It was obvious after all.

  “We’re going to have to get out of Texas.”

  Steve shook his head and replied, “Not going to work, man. The containment may have failed around Austin, but they got the whole army out there blocking the state border. There’s no way we’ll get through them, they shoot anybody they see on sight.”

  Exasperated I raised my voice, “Well does it matter!? Either we stay here and wait to die, or we find a way out. Look at this madness! It’s only going to get worse and I’d rather take my chances getting past the army and getting shot in the head than getting eaten alive by the Infected.”

  Lucy and my mom looked shocked at the notion of both, but were nodding their heads in agreement. Karen and Ian were motionless, along with Steve but I could sense his disapproval.

  Nevertheless, I then said, “Alright Steve. I’ll check the maps and with your help hopefully we can figure out what area might be the least guarded.”

  After ten minutes or so of quickly checking our maps in the dashboard, and Steve guessing the best place to go, we began to move.

  Our destination was freedom, our route was Interstate 35. We were going to head along the main road until we reached Dallas, upon which instead of continuing along any of the main roads we would head in-between any inhabited places and stay as far away from possible soldiers maintaining the quarantine.

  It was just as hectic coming out of the city as into it, but after a few hours of driving the traffic slowly began to dwindle in size allowing us to speed up just a bit. However, because the Infected were wandering all over the roads, they served as quite dangerous obstacles and they forced me to drive slow enough around them so if we hit them it wouldn’t hurt the car and fast enough they wouldn’t try to tackle it.

  This and the already bad traffic were made worse by the fact that every few miles there was something blocking the roads. Sometimes it was something like a mattress fallen out of a moving truck or something equally easy to get around, but often it was the result of a massive car wreck. Sometimes the traffic slowed down so much, that we were within arm’s reach of the Infected on either side. Mysteriously they never bothered us, and very rarely would we ever see them attack a vehicle.

  Because of all these problems, we drove at a wildly fluctuating speed averaging only twenty five mph. My comrades, as I now liked to think of them kept up a great conversation the whole time, often speculating on our chances of getting out. Steve was not optimistic, and Karen remained noncommittal but Ian, Lucy, and my mom were now all for the plan.

  We arrived at Dallas at about eight o’clock at night, to see it in even worse condition than Austin had been. Buildings were literally on fire around us, collapsing from within. Knowing that the Infected could never cause this, I realized that the majority of the damage was caused by perfectly healthy individuals in a panic from the outbreak. This city probably fell to ruin because of the “every man for himself” philosophy that we instinctively adapted in danger.

  As we drove through the city, often on the sidewalk because of the pileups blocking the road, we realized the danger this city posed to us when a rather large piece of some building broke off and very nearly crushed us. Weirdly, in the city there was far less cars than on the highway. Everybody wanted to go somewhere, but upon arriving most realized where they came from was better.

  Everywhere we looked there were Infected roaming the buildings and streets, and suddenly when rounding a corner we came upon a terrifying scene of survival. There were three people standing on top of an overturned truck in the middle of the road, fighting off a horde of Infected surrounding them. One had a shovel and was in the midst of carving a neat slice out of the nearest Infected skull; another was using a fire extinguisher like a flamethrower (which had little effect on the Infected other than to repel them), and the last had a small handgun that was obviously low on ammo.

  Karen immediately came out of her day-long silence to yell rather shockingly, “We have to help them!”

  Surprised, I stopped the truck, and my eyes met with the survivor holding the gun. I could sense in that moment, that he had seen other cars stop as well, only to leave and pretend they had not seem him. />
  I knew right then, I couldn’t let this go on.

  I had to help somebody; I had to risk myself for these strangers just to keep from going mad. I knew what was right; it was just harder to figure out than before. In my normal life I could always tell myself I’d sacrifice myself for my family, or people who needed me. But when it comes down to it there is no comparison between imaginative heroics and real action.

  In that moment, every part of my body was telling me to back up and go the other way, to save myself. But I remembered when we were in a similar desperate situation, and Steve had saved us, and I remembered the amazing happiness and relief that came with being saved. Steve saw my hands tighten on the wheel and he muttered some expletive under his breath.

  He turned around and said, “Lucy, grab Victoria and hold her tightly we might be in for a quick ride here. Ian, pass me my rifle.”

  I waited until Steve was ready, my fingers trembling on the wheel. I could see these people weren’t going to last much longer.

  Steve rolled down his window, stuck the rifle out and aimed down the sights.

  He then yelled, “Hey! Get down!”

  They looked confused in our direction and then the man with the gun pushed them all down on the car. Steve opened fire. Steve fired a series of rapid shots, putting a quick three bullet spread into the chest and head of each Infected. In less than fifteen seconds the crowd of Infected was cut down to less than half of its original size, and the remainder began to sprint towards us. Steve dropped each one as it ran towards us, and it all looked to be going quite well. Then I saw the commotion we were attracting: hordes of Infected were running towards us from all directions.

  I yelled, “Hold on! We got more incoming!” And I slammed my foot down on the gas screeching the tires.

  I pulled up to the side of the overturned car and my Mom opened the side door and said, “Get in quick!”