Z Strain

by SJ Morris

  “I know what you mean, believe me. Kam, you ready to go?”I asked quietly.

  “Yep, let’s move out!”He said a little too loudly as he started pushing the bike towards the hill we had come down.

  Then, we heard it, loud moans coming from the trees that were now behind us; a lot of them.

  Without turning around, I knew we were in a shit-load of trouble.

  Dana stifled a scream by covering her mouth with her hand while pushing as hard as she could to get her bike to the path we had slid down.

  I made sure to stay in the back, so I could fight if needed and give Kamil and Dana some additional time to get away.

  It was a lot easier coming down than it was going back up. Dana and Kamil each took a knee in the mud a few times, in order to not fall completely down the mud-slick hill. They were almost to the top when I finally decided to turn around to see how many were coming for us.

  What I saw made my heart stop. There must have been hundreds of them, breaking the tree-line, coming right for us.

  Luckily, the bridge’s overpass created somewhat of a bottleneck that would keep the numbers of infected closest to us down a little, but still, there were more than I was expecting. It was like what I saw with Chris, Tom, and the others when we were stopped on the road to find Jake. Except, this time, I didn’t have the safety of the Jeep, nor the marksmanship of Chris and Tom, taking them out.

  We needed to get away and get away quick.

  Having this many infected trailing behind us was not going to be good at all.

  “We need to pick up the pace guys. Don’t turn and look, just take my word for it and go... Now!”I yelled.

  Dana knew better than to turn and look. Kamil, however, couldn’t restrain his curiosity. He turned and when he saw them, he froze. He looked at me and back at them with the mark of sheer terror in his eyes.

  “Go Kamil!”

  It was all I could muster to say to him in that moment. We had hundreds of hungry infected headed right for us. We needed to get to the road and put as much distance between them and us as possible.

  Fortunately, my words shook him from his fear, it seemed, because he turned back to the hill and dug in deep. He made it past Dana and to the top of the hill in seconds. He leaned his bike against the bridge's guardrail and helped Dana up, before helping me.

  We looked around and I saw the infected underneath us were having more trouble than we were, trying to get up the muddy hill, and most of the infected that were pawing to get to us had not yet figured out that they could go around the other side of the bridge to get up to the road.

  We took that small advantage, jumped on our newly acquired bikes, and pedaled as quickly as we could.

  There was a 90-degree bend in the road that turned left, in the same direction the infected had come from, which made me leery about following it, but we needed to get away, so I sped up to try and scout ahead a little.

  Dana was trying to stay on pace with Kamil since he had more weight to pull and was slower. It also didn’t help that he kept turning his head every few seconds to see if the infected had made it over the bridge.

  Just before I hit the bend, I slowed to a crawl and listened.

  What I heard both frightened and angered me.

  The noises were distant but they were definitely, coming from in front of me, and it sounded like Madison Square Garden had just been let out after the Rangers winning the Stanley Cup.

  There must have been thousands of them!

  Kamil and Dana caught up to me and stopped.

  Once they saw the look on my face and heard what I did, Dana started to cry softly.

  Kamil reached out to her and whispered something in her ear that I couldn’t make out, but whatever it was, managed to put a smile on her face, and in that moment, that was what counted.

  “So, what do we do?”Kamil said, wiping sweat from his brow.

  “The only thing we can do, really, is backtrack to before the bridge and take the first right.”

  “But, won’t that take us away from Route 206?”

  “Yes, it will, but as of right now, it sounds like every person that was on or near 206 at the time of the outbreak is headed in our direction and they aren’t coming to say hello. In order to stay alive, we’ve got to get away from this horde, now! We have to find a place to hide out until they pass through.”

  “What if they don’t pass through, though? What if where we’re hiding and they find us?”

  “I’ve seen it before Kamil. when they’re in big groups like that, they just keep going like follow the leader, unless you give them a reason to hang around. I guess, in big groups like that, it’s hard for them to track by smell alone. I think if we’re quiet and stay out of sight, they’ll just keep going. I won’t let them get us.”

  “Well, if that’s what we’re doing, we’d better hurry up, before that huge group gets up to the bridge and we box ourselves in.”

  With that, we turned around and headed back towards the bridge, and the hundreds of infected we knew where there.

  It might sound stupid, but I’d rather face the devil I know, instead of the devil I don’t, especially in this situation.

  We reached the bridge again, fairly quickly and the first of the infected were just making it to the top of the roadway. It seemed as if they were only making it up the hill by the sheer numbers of infected that were pushing from behind, or they would never have made it up the muddy hill. The three of us, flying past on our bikes, put the undead in a frenzy. The moans grew louder and louder.

  “Don’t look back, just keep going. Follow me!”

  I turned down the first street on what was now my left and pedaled as fast as I could. I turned back to be sure that Kamil and Dana were close behind me and thankfully, they were. When we cleared the tree-covered road I found us heading towards a huge, empty field with a lonely farmhouse nestled in the middle of it.

  There was no way, if we got to the farmhouse, that it would be left standing after the infected stampeded through the open field, not with the numbers I anticipated were coming.

  We had to keep going; So we did.

  We rode for a long time, without stopping or turning around to check if there was anything behind us, but eventually, we had to stop for a drink.

  Biking might have been more difficult than walking, but it was so much easier and quicker than running.

  We stopped and each got a healthy drink of water.

  Then, we stood still to listen.

  After a few minutes, I heard it again. The sounds of what could only be thousands of infected, making their way through the forest, on the road, through the mud, and any other place they could navigate to get to us.

  They were still coming and we needed a place to hide…Fast!

  We needed somewhere stable and preferably on higher ground, but I would take any old brick building at this point.

  Kamil and Dana finally heard what I did and quickly put their water bottles away.

  Everyone present knew what dire straits we were in and we all started pedaling, quicker than ever before, with the threat of the infected still steadily closing in.

  Chapter 22

  We had been riding so long that it was now starting to get dark.

  I knew, by this point, we had put a good amount of distance between the infected and us, but I didn’t want to stop and listen again until we found a safe place to stay for the night.

  I needed to make sure we had enough distance between us and the massive horde I knew was following behind us because we needed to be sure we had time to clear any building of infected if we were to find one.

  Then, just when it seemed like none of us could go any further without collapsing from exhaustion, I saw it; Chuck’s Feed Barn was our saving grace!

  It was a big, one-story, brick building.

  There were only a few windows in front, that were fairly high, as far as windows went, and could be easily secured, but there was a large garage door. That would be
a problem.

  However, it didn’t take long for me to spot a huge dump truck next to the building. Somehow, we needed to get the dump truck parked right in front of the bay doors and that should keep the undead away from the vulnerable area. I worked it all out in my head and pointed the building out to Kamil and Dana, who had never looked so relieved.

  Knowing we didn’t have a lot of time to clear the building and that I also had a lot of preparations to make in order to fortify Chuck’s before our guests arrived, I took the quickest route to check for infected inside.

  I barely stopped my bike and jumped off.

  I ran up to the front door that had‘Office’painted in gold letters across the glass and pounded on it, screaming nonsense.

  Kamil and Dana look stupefied at first, but they soon followed suit, banging on the garage and front door with me.

  After a few seconds of letting out some anger screams, we all stood silently, listening to anything we might have attracted; inside or out.

  I heard nothing but had a weird feeling about just walking in. Just as I was about to say‘fuck it’and barge in, stake in hand, I heard the telltale click of a gun being chambered above my head.

  “Who the hell are you people and what the hell are you doing, making all this racket out here? Are you trying to get every crazy in the area over here to eat us?”Barked a white-haired, old man, from the flat rooftop above us, his gun pointed right at us.

  “No, Sir. My name is Abby, and this is Kamil and Dana. We’re trying to find a place to hide out for the night and wanted to be quick about finding out if there were any infected inside...Sir.”I had to at least try and end it on a respectable note.

  This old guy seemed like he meant business with his Colt 45. I may not know the name of every gun, but I certainly knew that cannon, especially when it was pointed right at me.

  “Well, I don’t have much in the way of food or water to share with y’all, but you don’t seem like crazy, marauding thieves, so as long as you ask nicely I’ll let you in.”

  “Oh thank you, Sir.”Said Dana,“May we please come in? We have food and water to share with you, if you need it, in return for your generous hospitality.”

  I was astonished that Dana said anything because she was always pretty quiet, but I couldn’t have asked nicer myself if I put honey on it.

  The old man lowered his gun, as he un-cocked it, and couldn’t help but smile at her pretty face and sweet demeanor.

  “Well, now Dana, you and your friends are more than welcome. I’ll be right down to unlock the front door.”

  “Well done, Dana,”I whispered.“Now, we need to tell him quickly what’s coming. I have a few ideas to fortify the building…That should keep us safe. I am worried about the sheer numbers of infected coming our way, that the building won’t remain standing, but it seems like a solidly built, brick building, so we should be okay. I need to make sure we protect the garage bay doors and the front or any side entrance that’s not brick. We have to keep the infected away from those areas because they will be our weaknesses...”

  Before I could finish, the old man appeared at the door with the Colt tucked into his worn jeans, that were held up by bright red suspenders. He opened the door and held out a greased-stained, workingman’s hand to me.

  “The name’s Chuck. Now that we’ve got the greetings out of the way, hurry up and come inside. I cannot tell you how nice it is to finally see people that are alive and talking.”

  “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to cut you off Chuck, but there are a few things, that with your permission, I would like to do in order to secure the building,”I said quickly.

  “What do you mean, secure the building? The doors are all locked and the crazies haven’t figured out how to open‘em just yet.”

  “Well, Chuck, a few here and there are manageable, but I’m fairly certain that in the next hour or so, there will be thousands of the crazies, as you call them, stomping through this area. We need to do something to keep them away from any weak points in the building, like the garage bay and any other doors or windows.”

  “Thousands... What are you talking about, thousands?”

  “We were headed on our way to Route 206. When we got close, we heard them, lots and lots of them. We’ve been riding for hours to get away from them, but they’re still coming in this direction. We have to be ready for them.”Chuck stood, looking at me with a blank stare, as he processed what I just told him.“Chuck, we need to get going on this now. Where are the keys to the dump truck that’s next to the garage?”

  “They’re in the back office...What are you going to do?”

  “I need to park the dump truck right up against the garage bay doors to keep the crazies away from it. If they all push up against it at once, which they will when the horde gets here, they will break that door down without even trying. What other heavy machinery do you have around that we could use to park in front of doors and windows?”

  “Well, I got my tractor in the back and a backhoe, too.”

  Chuck seemed to be putting everything together in his head. It took him a bit, but he understood I was serious and the situation we were about to be in was serious, too. We all got to it. Since Chuck was the only one who knew how to drive these machines, I went out with him to navigate where he should park everything. Kamil and Dana went inside to stack all the shelves in front of any windows and put whatever else they could find in front of those shelves that could offer additional support.

  Chuck and I got the dump truck in front of the bay door and it was just big enough to cover at least three feet on each side of the doorway, so should the horde push the truck into the building, we still had some protection where the truck wasn’t pushing against the metal garage door.

  Then, we parked the tractor in front of the main door and front window.

  Next, we got the bucket-loader to cover the back, double doors and put the bucket up to the roof. Chuck was a little uneasy about having to climb from the ground, up the bucket arm, onto the roof, but we had already sealed all the entrances, and there was no way for him to get in, except for going up.

  I helped him climb up, even though he was fairly reluctant to accept help from me.

  I don’t think Chuck wanted to face the fact that he was no spring chicken anymore.

  Either that or he’d been alone so long, he didn’t know how to accept help from anyone, anymore.

  Regardless, I got his wrinkly butt to the roof, where we looked out, over the twilight summer sky, and just stood there.

  It was so peaceful up there, on the roof.

  The stars were shining brightly and there wasn’t a man-made sound to be heard; only the chirp of the birds, settling for sleep and the crickets, singing their nightly songs pierced the night air. Kamil and Dana joined us on the roof shortly after we finished, and the four of us just stood there, for a good, long while.

  Chuck broke out a pack of Marlboro Red’s and started to puff away. I used to be a smoker a very long time ago and now that I wasn’t anymore, I couldn’t stand the smell of cigarettes.

  Hypocrite, I know.

  I walked closer to the edge of the roof to get away from the smell, and just as I did, another smell hit me like a sack of flour to the face. The awful rotten stench of the infected was being carried by the wind.

  I looked over at Kamil and he looked up at me. He and Dana both covered their faces at about the same time, trying to ward off the smell.

  I looked over at Chuck and he had the biggest smile on his face.

  “Why are you so happy there, Chuck?”

  “Well, my dear Abby, I’ve been worried for months that I was going to die alone in my store and haven’t. Now that y’all have come along, I got some good people to share my time with. I can’t help but smile at the irony in it, that y’all show upand there’s the biggest possibility since this shit all started, that I am going to die.”

  “Chuck, we made preparations. As long as we stay out of sight and keep quiet, I’m
sure the horde is going to walk right on by. Everything we did was to make sure they can’t get in on accident because we’re not going to give them any reason to want to stick around and try and get in here. After all, we just met. I would like some time to get to know you better!”I said with a smile on my face.

  “I’m glad that you’re optimistic my dear, but I’ve been alive long enough to know when shit is getting bad and by the smell of it, it’s about to get really bad.”He said as he put out his cigarette out on the sole of his boot.

  “Speaking of smells, we don’t want to attract the crazies, so how about not lighting another one of those bad boy Reds you got there? They might smell it and come looking. We want to take every precaution here.”

  “Got it, sweetie, no more smokes for me until the crazies are out of sight and smell range. It’ll be my victory dance tomorrow.”

  “See, now you’re optimistic! Let’s get some water and some granola bars, since we can’t cook. Then, let’s focus on getting some shut-eye before our guests arrive.”

  We headed inside to do just that.

  We agreed to sleep in four-hour shifts. If something came up, that meant we were in danger, we were to wake everyone up and head to the roof.

  We packed‘go’bags and placed them at the foot of the stairs to the roof, just in case. I knew that everyone was thinking it was kind of silly to do, because with the number of infected that were on the way here it, would be virtually impossible to get away, bag or no bag.

  Yet, we were banking on optimism working wonders.

  If worse came to worse, a plan, regardless of how futile it might be, could be the only thing we had left to hang on to.

  Kamil asked to take the first shift on watch and I was more than happy to give it to him. I didn’t think I was going to get more of an hour before the infected showed up and no one was going to be getting any sleep when that happened.

  Chuck, Dana, and I lay on the floor in the office with all the extra blankets Chuck could find and we were asleep, virtually instantly.