by J. R. Rain
Try as he might, he couldn’t help thinking about the water cure, or more accurately, the drowning cure.
“I’d say let’s just get the hell out of here,” he told Joe and Mike, as they stepped together toward the dugout entrance. “But we still have something to take care of.”
His brother nodded. “Someone, you mean.” He stepped forward a little more and pointed up to the Press Room. “Bet your ass he’s up there, planning something more.”
“We don’t know if he’s still in there.”
“Oh, he’s not going anywhere.” Anna’s voice was dark. “I don’t think he can walk.”
“Jesus... what did you do?”
“I stabbed him in the back of the knee, with a pen.”
“I think I underestimated your grit, kid.”
Anna didn’t grin. Instead her red eyes flared. “Well, don’t. Not ever again.”
Jack shuddered at the sight of his daughter literally turning before him, then gritted his teeth. “Okay. Let’s get this done.”
“What’s the plan?” Joe asked.
“I’m going up to the Press Box. Alone.”
* * *
Anna wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind was clouded, muddled. Her mouth was on fire. She was so thirsty and so hungry. So damned hungry!
As she watched her father leave the dugout and begin crossing the field, it suddenly occurred to her—too late—that there was a side stairway, through the dugout, up to the Press Box. It was how she had reached the field and ambushed the infected.
“Daddy, wait!” she yelled.
But too late. The first explosion rocked the stadium.
* * *
The weapon was no bigger than a machine gun. In fact, it kind of looked like an AK-47. In reality, it was a grenade launcher, and Cole had removed it from his bag of tricks.
He had already shot out the Press Room windows and was now perched there, with the grenade launcher on his shoulder, when he sighted one of the Carter boys exiting the dugout. He didn’t care which one.
He took careful aim and pulled the trigger.
The explosion was deafening. Beautifully deafening. He watched the Carter boy fly off his feet, hurled back in a rain of grass and dirty and zombie parts.
Now there was the little girl running, the girl who would soon be a crazy.
Cole grinned and pulled the trigger.
* * *
“Daddy!” screamed Anna.
The explosion had knocked all of them off their feet. Worst off was Jack, who had been blown back a dozen or so feet. Anna, perhaps due to her enhanced strength and speed, was already on her feet and moving.
She didn’t see the third one land just twenty feet to her right, but heard it. Then she saw her Uncle Joe running after her. He was closing in on Anna. She would think later that maybe he knew he only had a few seconds to stop her... to live. Anna halted momentarily, terrified by her father’s inert form, when Joe leaped on top of her from behind, knocking her to the ground.
He turned her face away and covered her protectively with his body. The look of fierce love in his eyes told her one last time how he felt about her... his beloved niece.
Chapter Twenty-five
Carla rolled Jack over.
“Jack!” she shouted.
At first, he didn’t respond, and when he saw her in a daze, he couldn’t respond. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear anything as his eardrums were still vibrating from the grenade’s explosion. She was desperately trying to get him up. He was disoriented.
“Anna...” Jack couldn’t hear his own words, but Carla pointed. His eyes followed. Jared was there, helping his hysterical daughter to stand up. He was trying to drag her back to the dugout. They were both crying.
Carla didn’t give him any more time to look. He hadn’t yet recognized his brother’s body, nobody would have.
Jack forced himself to stand up. Carla threw his arm around her shoulder and hurriedly carried him back to cover.
* * *
During all the turmoil, nobody noticed Brice slipping away. Fully armed, he made his way up the aisle stairs, crouching low, concentrating on being invisible. In the hallway, he found the main stairs to the next level up... to where the asshole was hiding. Anger fueled him, and Brice took out his wrath on the mindless Zombies foolish enough to get in his way.
The constant song blasting drove him nuts. This ends now. Brice had thought his fighting days were over a long time ago, but the act of killing was like riding a bicycle. He turned on the war rage in his brain like a light-switch.
He heard the second and third explosions, but didn’t stop or falter. He couldn’t change whatever had just happened down below. All he could do was put an end to it.
He reached the second level, the Press Room right in front of him, and the door on the right not far away. He headed for it but suddenly stopped. From the far side, to his left, drifted the smoke of a cigarette.
* * *
Cole was actually savoring the pandemonium and the cigarette, his ego as high as it had ever been in his life. He had created this entertaining scenario, and despite the pain in his leg, was bound and determined to enjoy this orchestrated pandemonium, complete with loud music, mindless crazies, killing, and things blowing up.
He checked the time. He had about an hour to get as far away from here as possible. Before the real explosion occurred.
He would, of course, need another vehicle. After all, the SUV he arrived in had a little surprise in it.
As he took another puff, he felt a series of sharp stabs in the back of his head. Something had gone terribly wrong, and the sudden change of plans became clear as he glimpsed blood and brain matter dousing his cigarette. Then everything went black... forever.
* * *
Only Carla saw him fall. She hadn’t noticed him up near the Press Box window, as all her attention had been on getting everyone to safety. She glanced up in time to see Cole’s head blow apart and then his taking a swan dive into the seats below.
By the time she had aided Jack in sitting down, with Anna cuddled next to him, the insufferable Jungle song abruptly stopped. The silence that followed surprised them all. The confused mass of zombies grew docile, as if not knowing what to do. Sweet silence was the trump card the group needed.
Always the cop keeping track, Carla quickly counted persons present. Including Julie, there should have been eight. Joe was gone, and she pushed that incident from her mind. There were only six. Who was missing...
“Where’s Brice?” she asked.
Everyone looked around, shaking their heads.
“He was here, right here...,” the rest of the group murmured.
Meanwhile, Carla put two and two together. “He’s the one,” she said out loud.
“What?” Jared asked. “He’s the one who what?”
Carla didn’t answer, as Jack was sitting up.
“Where’s Joe?” he asked, worriedly.
The man she had come to love was a mess, bleeding from several significant wounds and covered in the blood of others... the blood of the infected.
“Jack... I’m sorry,” she said, compassionately.
He looked at her wearing a look of disbelief, and a tense, quiet moment passed between them. She didn’t have to say anything, at least not right then. He knew.
“My daughter?” Jack asked, laying back in the grass.
“Anna’s alive.”
“And Cole?”
“Dead,” said Carla. “Brice killed him. I saw Cole’s headless corpse fall from the Press Room’s window.”
Jack nodded painfully. Then he tried to stand, but she wouldn’t let him.
“You must rest, Jack.”
“We’re surrounded by zombies,” Jack said. “There is no rest. Besides....”
“Besides what?”
“We have a nuclear bomb to find.”
“You think he hid it here?” she asked, alarm seeping through her calm tone.
“Yeah... yea
h, I do. I know he hid it here. It’s why he led as many infected L.A. victims as he could to this place. It’s why he led us here, too.”
“Where in the hell do you think he put it, Jack? The stadium is huge.”
They both turned to look out into the baseball field. The SUV, parked in the center of the stadium. Hell, parked on second base.
“Mike and Jared,” Jack said. “Cover us.”
* * *
Jack and Carla found it.
A shiny suitcase covered in blankets. They had the back hatch open as zombie after zombie fell nearby. Their friends would keep them safe, as long as the flow of bullets picking off the enemy held up.
“Please tell me you know how to dismantle a nuclear bomb,” she said, worriedly.
“No, I don’t,” he confessed. “But I know how to dismantle a standard detonator.”
It was obvious that what they were looking at was the equivalent of a “dirty bomb.” And this dirty bomb, he saw, was detonated with C-4. It also had a countdown on it.
A countdown that was activated.
They weren’t down to their last few seconds, not like in the movies. Except he knew the boys and Julie only had so many bullets and the undead were swarming. Not to mention, a stray bullet could heat the bridge wire just enough to set it off.
Normally, a device like this would be armed with numerous safeguards and would also require and sustainable energy source to carry through the activation. Wiring it like Cole had done, which seemed far too amateurish than what he had anticipated, made the situation so much more volatile.
“As you can see, Cole hooked up a motorcycle battery that’s hotwired to the bridge wire—totally insane to do this,” Jack advised. “But, knowing who we’re dealing with explains a lot. Bottom line? It’s gonna be a guessing game as to which wire is bringing the heat to the bridge wire, and if we run out of ammo from the dugout, our zombie pals could inadvertently trip the sensors and it could bypass the timer.”
“And we would all go Kaboom?” she surmised.
“Yes, Kaboom for us and the whole damned metropolitan area,” advised Jack, glumly. “So, it’s gonna be eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Okay?”
Carla hesitated before answering, and Jack waited patiently. After all, the fate of possibly millions hung in the balance.
“Okay.” She released a low sigh while nodding for him to pick the right wire to cut.
Jack turned his eyes heavenward and offered a prayer for guidance. Then he picked the one wire he figured a brilliant nutcase like Cole would go for, and snipped it.
Click.
Chapter Twenty-six
Hi, Jack Carter here.
It’s been a couple of months since we left Dodger Stadium for the last time. Things are different now. I smile when I see an elephant in the hills, clearing out underbrush and bringing up a mouthful of vegetation with her trunk. I think of elephants as our fire marshals. Before the next dry season comes, we’ll need to sink a water tank and keep it filled for the zoo animals that have made the hills in L.A. their home.
Aside from the occasional Sumatran tiger sighting, things have settled down a little, although we are still adapting to a new life of self-preservation and protection.
When it came down to it, I didn’t have the courage to cure my daughter. Sorrow filled my heart from losing my brother, and I laid in bed while Carla and Mike did what was necessary for the water cure. Brice and Jared had stayed with me during the process.
It had to have been horrible for my daughter. She showed more courage than anyone I’d ever seen, fighting for both her own life and sanity. She made it through the ordeal—the water cure as she called it—and today, I can see that she is full of joy, eager to face the new world we are all becoming accustomed to. My Anna shines now. She shines at the clear days, and the rain, and the stars, and especially, at Jared. He returns her gaze with an easy smile, a protectiveness that I’m coming to trust.
There is still hope, too. We have used the observatory computers and labs sparingly, and the place is generator powered, for now. And we’ve come in contact with others who are beating this, just as we are. Perhaps in time, and maybe with Mike’s skills as a trained pilot, we can connect with them.
Maybe we should have let the nuke go off. Maybe it would have slowed the spread of the infection. Or not. But we made a judgment call. A call to live. A call to fight.
We spend our time mostly divided between the observatory and the Los Feliz home, although Brice and I venture to the zoo every day to care for the animals who still take refuge there, too afraid to leave their only home. Brice loves the animals, and now I understand why he has spent the last three decades providing for those in need. Sometimes, we hear a wildcat at night—most have probably moved up into the local mountains, but not all. We still carry arms whenever we venture out, especially up at the Hill, or as we have come to call it, Zombie Mountain.
I know Anna is hoping for new wildlife. She watches and waits to hear the meowing or young growl of a litter and has made gentle friends of the meerkats, who seem to like peering at us from around the observatory grounds and come close to her when she chirps at them.
Almost every night, the house in Los Feliz is full. Carla has moved in, as has Mike, Jared and Brice. Carla and Anna team up together, against us men. They monopolize the bathroom with their female grooming sessions and occasional laughter and girl talk. But it’s all right. Something normal, and we cling to those last vestiges of normalcy in this violent, crazy world.
Carla and I still keep our security beats, roaming the zoo and observatory for miscreants, and of course, for the infected that remain quite numerous. They may not ever go away. But we have each other, which is enough for now.
Much of my free time is spent gardening now, preparing for a spring planting. After all, we need food, good fresh food, and a lot of it to keep us healthy and strong.
Carla has surprised me with her knowledge of growing crops. We brought a bulldozer up to the observatory. We dug up the grounds, and with her direction, we spread out fertilizer to ready the ground for planting. The rainy season helped, and when the sun goes down over the neatly planted rows, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Like we are starting something important... something good. Not exactly the Garden of Eden, to be sure, but we are making it up as we go along, what we all want it to be.
Along with the game hunting Mike and Jared have taken on, this will sustain us as a group, I do believe.
And would you believe that Julie is Mike’s girl now? They bicker like an old married couple, and then hold hands. In late afternoons they often take long walks with a blanket, a picnic basket, along with guns and ammo.
At the moment, I’m watching Jared pitch a baseball for Anna to hit, in a park near the observatory. She strikes out a lot, but never gives up swinging at every ball. She’s a fighter and so is he. They are close, and perfect for each other.
Not far from here lies the grave of my brother. I can see the fresh flowers from where I’m sitting, that Carla, Anna, Jared and I brought out here yesterday. Sometimes, I forget he’s not here, and find myself talking to him. I like to believe he hears me, and the gratitude I will always hold in my heart toward him. I will never forget that he gave his life for Anna’s. Never.
Well, Carla is calling me from the cop radio she still insists on using. Dinner is almost ready. It’s her turn to cook tonight; roasted wild pig and a salad of wild greens. My birthday dinner. I better gather the kids and let them know it’s time to go.
Besides, it looks like fog is beginning to creep up the hill.
The End
This is also the end of the Walking Plague Trilogy.
We hoped you enjoyed our tale.
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Also available:
The Bleeder
A Short Story Single
by J.R. Rain
(read on for a sample)
Leo Dershowitz stood in front of his painting and frowned. It wasn’t quite
right. He had a firm image in his head of what he wanted and this wasn’t it. The color was wrong. And the shading was off. Yeah, that was it. The shading.
The problem was that the clear image in his head was fading, becoming hazy around its edges, amorphous.
Which meant only one thing.
He must be scabbing over again. He hated when that happened.
Leo looked down at his right arm, which hung over a white plastic bucket, inside of which was splattered with blood. His blood. Sure enough, the gash in his forearm was threatening to close. The steady flow of blood was nearly being cut off by a thick, congealing scab.
Using a very clean surgical knife, Leo deftly flicked away the scab, which broke off and fell with a splash into the bucket, itself partly filled with a finger or two of his own hemoglobin. Now, once again, sweet blood pumped freely from the gash just below his elbow, flowing rapidly over the many horizontal scars that lined the inside of his arm. Leo always thought the scars looked like piano keys.
Even though he had performed many such blood-letting rituals before, the site of so much blood at once gripped him briefly with nausea and an old fear. The fear of dying.
What if I bleed too much this time? What if I pass out and never awaken?
Leo knew the answer: If he passed out while bleeding, there was a very good chance he would never awaken. That he would bleed to death.
Then don’t pass out.
Good idea.
But Leo had learned long ago to ignore such inhibiting fears. He had to ignore them. Because the moment he began to bleed, the moment the life-force flowed from his wounds, a magnificent vision would appear. A vision that hovered tantalizingly in his mind’s eye. Clear as day. A vision that only lasted for as long as Leo would bleed.
