by John O'Brien
All other thoughts leave as his brain calms, although his rapidly beating heart betrays the tension he holds. He’s made his decision, his mind and body now running on instinct alone. The bag of tricks that he’s gathered throughout his years is fully open. He doesn’t feel the chill morning air as he brings his sidearm to bear on the nearest infected.
The loud report of the gunshot rings off the nearby building, echoing down long alleyways. The infected comes to a halt, just standing. Its eyes cross as if trying to look at the hole in its forehead, the skin rumpled around the wound. Tissue, bone, hair, and blood splatters those behind as the bullet exits. Like a puppet with its strings cut, the infected falls to the ground on its knees, then folds slowly over to hit the concrete face first.
A waft of smoke rolls out of the barrel as Brown brings it into line with the next one, pulling the trigger before the first one hits its knees. Another sharp crack sends a round spiraling into the infected’s throat, blood spraying outward. Brown darts to the side, realizing that the distance is getting too close. Besides being overwhelmed, he also doesn’t want anything to splatter on him.
The second infected goes down clutching at its throat, blood flowing between its fingers. The assailants continue forward, seeking to quickly close the distance. Brown backpedals, firing another round. A third spins and plummets to the ground, then a fourth. The remaining three are joined by two of the cadets who had just been bitten.
Brown continues firing, putting rounds into the midst of the group rather than taking careful aim. Even if the shots aren’t killing anyone, he hopes that they will slow the onrush. One infected seems to implode around its chest as a 9mm round strikes its sternum, shattering both the bone and bullet. Its arms, shoulders, and head extend forward, blood erupting from the nose and mouth. The cadet, with a fresh wound on his neck, is knocked backward into two others.
Moving back at an angle to keep the remaining infected from charging in a straight line, Brown continues to hammer rounds into their bodies. The distance was too close to start with for the maneuver to be completely effective, and two remaining have drawn closer yet. The chance of blood splashing on him if he fires is too great.
Dropping the handgun onto the grass beside the walkway, Brown stands still. The infected, seeing a stationary target, charge across the short distance, their screams ringing loud in his ears. They reach out with their arms, their bloodshot eyes filled with both eagerness and rage. At the last moment, Brown jumps to the side, sweeping his arm to knock one of the infected’s reaching limbs out of the way. He steps into his attack, delivering a crushing blow from his giant fist into the infected’s throat. The creature stumbles to the side, its hands clutching at its ruined windpipe. Gurgling gasps escape from its mouth as it tumbles to the ground.
The last infected changes direction, leaping over its fatally wounded compadre. Brown grabs the infected by the front of its shirt and belt buckle, and ducks. Using the momentum of his attacker, Brown waits until the infected is nearly over him, its mouth open and reaching downward to bite him. He then extends his powerful legs and turns, using the infected’s momentum. Instead of throwing the infected, he uses the force to bring the attacker back to the ground, forcefully slamming its back onto the concrete.
A loud crack sounds as the head crashes onto the hard surface. Brown releases his grip just prior to the impact, turning to quickly gather his handgun. The last infected is convulsing where it fell. Brown puts a single round into its head, blood splashing and pooling across the light gray surface. He swiftly focuses his attention on the one he punched in the throat, its face turning a shade of blue as it struggles to gather a breath. Another gunshot echoes off the building walls as Brown puts an end to its thrashing.
As if a fog lifted, Brown becomes more aware of his surroundings. Bodies lie on or near the walkway in a curving line, their placement indicating the path of the skirmish. Walking among them, he puts a single round into any that seem to have an ounce of remaining life. The last, the female cadet who was the first to be taken down, is still unconscious from hitting her head. Warily, Brown kneels down. Her once neatly tied bun has come undone, brown hair falling to the sides.
Knowing that it isn’t the safest thing to do, he can’t seem to help himself. He brushes the hair to the side. Several of the strands are stuck to a wound where teeth marks have taken a small chunk out of her cheek. He stares at the soft skin around the bite mark, blood trickling down, the faint stirs of dust rising around her mouth from exhalations, the scrape and growing contusion on her chin. A young woman who was a living cadet just moments ago.
Screams rise over the campus. Even though the fight didn’t last long, the once distant shrieks are drawing closer. Running his fingers once through the cadet’s hair in a protective manner, the lower part of Brown’s vision blurs with tears.
“I’m sorry, little one,” he murmurs, rising.
The crack of the gunshot rings across the field, reverberating its finality off the thick walls of the nearby structures.
Realizing that he’s still outside of a locked building, he strolls to the closed doors. Peering through the glass, he sees that the student who managed to escape hasn’t moved from his position. Brown hears the words coming breathily from the cadet.
“Oh shit…oh shit…oh shit.”
Small drips of blood trickle down the glass, splatters from the rounds that struck the first of the infected. Brown pounds on the door, making sure he doesn’t come into contact with the drying contaminated liquid.
“If you’re done with your chanting, would you mind opening this fucking door?” Brown calls.
The cadet jumps, then turns and sees him, rolling around until he’s sitting with his arms providing support behind. He stares at his darkened form silhouetted against the bright light behind.
“Quick would be appreciated, but feel free to take your fucking time. I’ll just stand out here enjoying an ice cream cone until you feel that you’re ready.”
The cadet scrambles to his feet, rushing forward to press on the bar. Brown opens the door just enough to slide his large frame through, waiting long enough for the door to click shut. He knows that the noise of the fight will draw more infected into the area, but he hopes that the lack of any prey immediately in sight will send them wandering away. He doesn’t know what their limitations are as far as reasoning, but he can’t recall them begin overly logical during their escape from Pineville. They definitely seemed more reactionary than analytical.
Brown guides the shocked cadet to the rotunda, only motioning with his fingers to his lips that quiet is needed. He doesn’t know what degree of shock the cadet is in, so he limits any conversation. Hayward and Clarke are pressed against the inner wall when he arrives.
“What was that all about?” Clarke asks, eyeing the other cadet.
“We’ll talk about it later.” Brown starts.
“I know, stories for the campfire,” Hayward quips.
“That’s correct. We’re going to have a lot of company arriving shortly; we need to make ourselves scarce,” Brown states.
As the four of them scale the curving steps, Brown glances toward the front doors and back down the hall. If the infected are even slightly capable of deductive reasoning, the glass panes aren’t going to hold them back for long. Many of the houses in Pineville had their windows and doors broken, indicating that the infected could surpass those obstacles if the desire drove them.
His one comfort is that he’s reasonably sure that the interior is clear. If any were inside, they would have shown themselves at the first shot fired. If they were trapped in a room, he would be hearing their screams. As it is, there are only the muffled ones coming from all directions outside.
In his office, he directs all of them to spots along the inner wall. He doesn’t dare lower the blinds in case one of the infected catches sight of the motion. The building was constructed with a quiet place to study in mind, meaning that sound won’t carry far. If the infected wer
e to break in on the ground floor, Brown might not be able to hear the crashing sound of their forced entry three floors below. Instead, he listens for the sound of infected footfalls coming from the nearby stairs.
The rescued cadet sits against the wall, his head hanging. Light streams through the window, the blue autumn sky in stark contrast to the tension inside the tiny office. Brown has never felt more tired. The thought of spending yet another boring day followed by intense adrenaline-filled action leaves him drained. He feels that they should be doing something, but knows that their best bet is to remain hidden until the infected drift away or go into their coma-like states.
The cadet, his name tag reading HANDLEY, raises his head and looks to Brown.
“The others? Did they…did they make it?”
“No, son. They didn’t,” Brown states, not knowing how to break it gently. He’s never been good at that sort of things.
“Aww, shit,” the cadet remarks. “Crap, sorry sergeant. I didn’t mean to swear…dammit.”
“I think you’re going to find that the campus codes have pretty much been dispensed with at this point. Those out there may sink their teeth into you, but not for swearing,” Brown jokes.
Clarke groans at the attempted humor.
“Are they, you know, one of them?” Handley asks.
“No. They’re with whatever maker they believed in.”
“Well, there’s that at least. I didn’t really know them well but, shit! What is going on? I came out of the dorm to spend the day off studying on the lawn. The next thing I knew, there was screaming everywhere. I watched as cadets and staff ran around attacking a few others, leaving them either dead or dying. I…I should have helped, but didn’t know what to do. I mean, there were officers involved, so I just took off. I found myself in the hills, so I just kind of stayed there. Ran into those other three, but they found us somehow. Thanks, by the way. I really thought I was a goner,” Handley explains.
Brown sits to explain what he thinks happened, indicating that no one is to be trusted and that they’re to remain hidden. He leaves out the part where he, Hayward, and Clarke were actually in Pineville, because, well, you never know.
“Like these two already understand, you do what I say and when I say it. No hesitation. Right now, we’re going to lay low. If you have to use the bathroom, there’s one down the hall. No flushing, though. We have fountains and faucets if we need water, but no food. Keep any curiosity you have in your pants and stay away from windows. Is that clear?” Brown says.
“Um, yeah, Sergeant Brown, makes sense to me.”
“The last thing: Throw any etiquette out the window. From this moment on until things recover, if they do, I’m God to you. I don’t expect bows of worship, but you’re not a cadet anymore. And Sarge will be good enough.”
“I can deal with that, Sarge,” Handley says, as Hayward and Clarke introduce themselves.
“Don’t mind him. He may seem like a bear, but he’s a bear that cares,” Clarke states and turns to Brown. “See, that’s how it’s done.”
“Fuck off.”
“See, he cares,” Clarke says.
“Any more of that shit and I’ll carry you to the window and chuck you from it,” Brown comments.
“See, you’re improving already,” Clarke says, ducking under Brown’s glare.
“I have a question. Why haven’t we been affected? I mean, when we were at…” Hayward begins but stops at a sharp look from Brown. “What I’m trying to say is that we’ve figured out this is probably airborne and has been around for a while, right? Why hasn’t it affected us? Do you think we might be immune?”
“I don’t know. The masks maybe, but they aren’t the greatest. And after all, everyone here was wearing one. So I’d go more toward the immunity aspect. This spread is different than…” Brown catches himself.
“Than what?” Handley asks.
The other three keep quiet, seeking many interesting things about the office to occupy them. Hayward finds that the stapler on the desk is the most interesting thing in the world. Clarke ponders the knot on one of her bootlaces.
Yeah, don’t make it so obvious you’re hiding something, Brown thinks, looking at the two cadets. Nicely done. You two are naturals at this.
But Brown realizes that his near slip was the cause.
“Okay, kid, fuck it. Seeing that we’re in this together, you might as well know. We know a little about this because the three of us were in Pineville. The shit that is happening is nearly identical to what happened there, although there’s a bit of difference with how it started,” Brown says.
“You mean this is a terrorist attack?” Handley questions, his eyes going wide.
“I wouldn’t jump on that bandwagon. Besides, does it really matter at this point? It’s here and happening. We can worry about why later. If this comes by way of the flu, we’re talking worldwide. So, let’s keep our focus on the here and now.”
“Um, okay. Seems to me that we should know who our enemies are, that’s all,” Handley comments.
“What are you thinking, that we should march down to the UN and file a complaint? Maybe contact the world court? This isn’t a class, son. Our world, our personal world, has been drastically narrowed down to what we can see and what happens in the next few minutes. If it doesn’t immediately affect our survival, I don’t care what happened in the past. At this moment, and for the foreseeable future, our enemy is every single infected one out there,” Brown states, waving a hand to encompass everything outside of the office.
“Fair enough, Sarge. I can deal with that.”
“Glad to have your approval.”
The day progresses slowly, the sun taking its time wending across the heavens. Conversations taper off, becoming sporadic episodes. Time is spent sitting on the floor with backs to the walls, broken only by the need to use the facilities or get drinks. Brown silently curses himself for not packing a bag with survival gear. He thought about it several times, each time thinking that something like Pineville was a once in a lifetime thing. Even though he likes to be prepared, he spent too much energy thinking about his retirement. Never did he imagine that things would escalate like this.
Occasionally, he rises to peek out of the window, each time seeing at least one group of infected. The screams had dwindled down to just a few here and there. The fact that he doesn’t observe any of them gathering in a hibernation state is interesting. Considering how the infection began, Brown begins to understand that this may not be the exact same thing he encountered in Pineville, that the agent they’re dealing with had mutated in some way. He’s not sure exactly what that means, nor is he sure if it remains airborne after transitioning to its current state. There’s a chance that they are immune in some capacity, but until he’s sure, all possible precautions are necessary.
Each tick of the clock on the wall grates into his brain. The second hand seems to slow and grows louder, until it fills the office with its perpetual sound. Continued observations of the infected out of the window show that either something is keeping the infected alert, or the contagion isn’t behaving the same as in Pineville. The numbers he’s seeing don’t indicate that the infected are flowing outward to seek others.
Perhaps there aren’t any other survivors.
Pondering the situation, Brown comes to the understanding that this didn’t start in the same way as before; that there was no central point of infection spreading outward. That suggests that this had to have happened everywhere at once, so the infected have nothing to draw them away. He concludes that if this is indeed happening everywhere, they’ll be hard-pressed to get out of the populated area of the east.
Eventually, Brown begins to wonder what he’s actually waiting for. If the infected aren’t moving and they aren’t folding into their hibernation states, then that negates any reason for them to hold out.
Well, other than not getting eaten.
The buildings cast long shadows from the evening sun. Brown eyes the top
s of the trees surrounding the campus, their autumn leaves providing a multitude of colors. Past the surrounding wooded hills lies their only real hope for transportation. Being close to the edge of the campus, they won’t have to make their way through the midst of the roaming horde. The only thing Brown knows at the moment is that they need to get away from here ASAP.
There’s no way we’ll survive for any length of time here. We have water until the electricity goes, but food will become an issue before long.
Brown pulls the computer monitor and keyboard off the desk, placing it on the floor. Pulling up Google Maps, his heart sinks as he observes how surrounded they truly are. Nearly every road goes through a large metropolis. Some highways circumvent the towns; in a vehicle, they may have a chance to scoot past before their presence becomes known. Cross-country travel is out due to the dense woods.
And then there’s getting fuel. If the electricity holds, then they should be able to use the pumps at remote gas stations. If not, then they’ll have to siphon. Regardless of the method, they’ll have to refuel every three hundred miles. Brown enlarges the map until Colorado is included in the view. It looks like it’s on the other side of the world.
Piece of cake. Escape from five thousand or so infected, then drive right back through them. Make our way past the crowded east and reach Colorado in three hundred mile segments. All the while dragging three cadets along with me. What am I worried about? How could this not work?
Brown closes up the screen. He’d print a detailed map, but is afraid the printer will make too much noise.
That thing is probably older than me.
If he needs more maps, he’ll use his phone, which he removes from the drawer and stashes in his pocket. As the setting sun bathes the area in orange hues, Brown asks the cadets to send messages to all of their contacts to see if this is as widespread as he fears. As the orange overtones give way to the blues of dusk, the world slowly loses its color and vibrancy. Not a single reply is received; all calls end up in voice messages. They power off their devices as the world transitions to the dark of night.
