A Spring of Sorrow

by Arthur Mongelli

  He was vaguely aware of the sounds of someone screaming as he fell toward the ground. He landed heavily on his side with his arm extended high over his head. That was the stroke of luck that saved his life in the fall, the raised arm kept his head from striking the ground directly. It was only when the wind blew from his lungs and the scream cut off abruptly that he realized it had been him screaming.

  *

  As soon as Grayson's voice came booming down from above, Mark grabbed Amber and ushered her deeper into the woods, moving as quickly and silently as possible away from the sound of his voice. He pulled her behind the bole of a tree just as the head of a soldier at the top of the hill above came into view. Loose dirt and rock noisily careened down the incline towards them as the soldier panned his rifle about, standing at the edge of the precipice fifteen feet above them and barely thirty feet away.

  “You're making this worse on yourselves, Mark.”

  He could hear the aggravation in Grayson's voice and fear rippled down his spine. If it had been just him out here, he might have considered going out there and throwing himself at Grayson's mercy. Though if the man had any, Mark had yet to see it. The singular fear that tugged most insistently at him was the fear that he couldn't protect Amber from Grayson and his plans. The thought of the conversation he overheard nagged at him constantly. He shuddered at the mere presence of the thoughts as they came unbidden into his mind and pushed them away with anger. He knew that he couldn't fail Amber, he wouldn't fail her, even if it cost him his life.

  Mark heard the headset of the soldier atop the embankment squawking and a moment later he started slowly picking his way down the scree covered slope, moving towards them. The man hadn't yet seen the two of them tucked neatly behind a tree in the shadows of the forest, but he was moving ever closer. As he descended from the rise, Mark knew that they wouldn't be able to remain hidden for much longer. He ushered her behind him and the two started to creep deeper into the gloom of the early morning forest.

  Twenty seconds passed as they backpedaled slowly. Their eyes were locked firmly on the soldier, as they tried their best to meld into the background. A stick cracking about ten feet behind them was the first indication that something was wrong. Mark whipped his head around to see a form about twenty yards distant, moving towards them. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach on seeing the speed of the form. There were only two things it could be, either it was one of Grayson's men in pursuit or it was one of the fast infected. He grabbed Amber and yanked her to the side, thrusting her ahead of him and attempting to flee from the figure moving at them from the darker forest.

  As he started to move, Mark looked back up the hill to the soldier and locked eyes with the man. He watched as the corners of the soldier's mouth turned up, smiling as he recognized his quarry. Mark quickly looked away, not wanting to see the man lift his weapon or anything that followed. As if ignoring the soldier alone might stop the bullet. He pushed Amber ahead of him in full flight.

  “Now!” someone shouted from behind him.

  A single report from a rifle sounded, followed a moment later by a smattering of other shots. Then, as if the floodgates were opened, heavy machine gun fire exploded from the rise above, splitting the air and the forest around them erupted as the hail of bullets blindly sprayed the tree line. Mark's testicles crawled back into him with fear and he threw himself atop Amber who was stumbling through the trees a few feet ahead of him. The two landed heavily atop the interwoven, heavily knotted tree roots on the ground. Amber groaned in pain and Mark watched as the bullets from the heavy machine gun tore through the foliage a dozen yards in front of them. Tree limbs and pine needles dropped from the sky overhead, the latter sounding like light rain as it cascaded onto the forest bed below. Mark's heart dropped as he saw the man coming out of the deeper forest. He was wearing olive drab and was alive, dressed in military fatigues. The form was crouched down and moving surprisingly quick for a man his age. Mark tried desperately to get Amber up and moving but she either wouldn't or couldn't budge from her prone position.

  “Amber get up!” he barked, as the man closed the last twenty feet to them.

  Mark squared up and threw his best hay-maker at the septuagenarian skidding to a stop in front of him. Mark was extremely confused as the soldier slid back out of range of the punch. He knew that there were barely any elderly people at the base. Grayson considered them to be useless, as they couldn't perform manual labor, nor were their eyes and knuckles usually good enough to shoot well. Certainly none of the soldiers were elderly, but here was this man dressed in full olive fatigues.

  “Get the fuck down, y'idiot,” the man barked, lunging in and grabbing Mark by the back of the neck, forcing him to the ground with an iron grip. “Don't you hear that SAW?”

  “Huh?” Mark replied, with his head stuffed between tree roots it was the only thing he could manage.

  He was completely confused by the turn of events. The sound of a single shot echoed through the forest from beyond the older man and the machine gun ceased firing.

  “Get up, both of you, now!” the man barked. “Move, move, move!”

  At the man's insistent urging, both Mark and Amber got to their feet and started running. They were speechless, having no idea who the man was or what was going on. They were also in too much pain and too exhausted to put up much of a fight.

  *

  The loud anguished scream to the south was the first indication that anything had gone wrong. Jen's head snapped around, knowing immediately that the odd warbling scream was coming from Will. She had heard a similar scream come from him once before. The wail was eerily similar to his howl of pain when he blew his knee at the onset of the apocalypse. Without realizing that she had moved, she was over the fence and running to the south, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. Tim had spotted a step-ladder on his way over and with the scream and Jen's departure, he knew that if they had any hope of getting Christine over the fence, they would need it.

  The minor effort of changing direction to move towards the ladder sent a sharp pain down his lower back into his thigh. The dull ache in his lower back was a constant throb, from deep within his body. The shooting pains that came at the moment were a result of his efforts and were excruciatingly painful, white-lightning that seared its way through his brain. It wasn't enough to cause him to swoon, but more than enough to sap his strength and slow him down. With great effort, he dragged the twelve foot stepladder over and opened it, spreading the legs apart weakly. He looked at Laura pleadingly once it was open.

  “Help, Laur,” he panted.

  “What? What's going on? Are you okay?” she asked, the concern obvious in her voice and splayed across her face.

  “Help me move it over next to the fence.” Seeing by the look on her face that it wasn't the answer she was looking for, he continued, “My back, don't worry, just help, please.”

  The two wrestled the open ladder over, shifting it into place next to the fence. Tim ushered Laura and Luna up top and over first. Had he thought about it beforehand, he would have made them wait. As he sat atop the ladder mustering the remainder of his strength, he looked helplessly down at his wife and child, alone on the blacktop, with dozens of undead still in sight around the massive lot. He internally began the debate about leaving the other two inside and joining his family when Christine grabbed his hand, startling him from his thoughts. He turned and painfully helped her over the fence and lowered her to the ground while laying atop the barbed wire. The barbs dug painfully into the soft skin of his stomach, but he ignored them. Then Sophie went over, quickly and nimbly, alighting on the ground and immediately moving to help Christine get started towards the Yukon.

  Laura stood and watched as Tim, still laying atop the wire, struggled and swung his legs over before dropping like a sack of potatoes onto the pavement next to her. He groaned loudly and rolled over, struggling to his feet. Blood soaked through the front of his shirt from the fresh wounds in his stomach where the ba
rbs ripped his flesh away in his careless fall. The sight of one of the undead crawling within five feet of them roused his adrenaline. He groaned loudly as he stood up and started staggering after Laura, Chris and the kids, towards the Yukon. He held his stomach with one hand and his pistol in the other.

  A handful of crippled undead that had lagged behind the main body of the horde turned in pursuit of them as the five slowly crossed the lot. Behind them, the roars of the fast undead split the air, sending ice through their veins. A panicked noise erupted from Tim's lips and at least one of the women let out a quick squeal of fright. They pushed themselves beyond their limits in the final fifty yards to the SUV. The slow motion run came to an end and they piled into the ruined vehicle. Laura took the driver’s seat, helping Tim into the back with Chris, Sophie and handing him Luna. Thankfully the keys were in the ignition, no one had pocketed them out of residual habits from the old world. Laura twisted the ignition and the dented, shattered vehicle roared to life, one of the belts squealed noisily for a moment before quieting. The tension of the run from the lumberyard had built so high that Laura slammed the shifter into drive and put her foot through the gas pedal to the floorboard, just to feel like they were moving someplace. She aimed the front of the vehicle towards the crowd of undead gathered at the far side of the building.

  “What do I do?” she screamed, locking her eyes on Tim's in the rearview mirror.

  “Try and get close without slowing down too much,” he groaned, leaning heavily away from his left side. “Don't get us surrounded either.”

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Laura chanted quietly as she sent the Yukon hurtling towards the lumberyard.

  Tim sat upright, clutching Luna who was noisily protesting his presence rather than her mother who was in sight but out of reach. He scanned and searched the shifting crowd of undead, looking for Jen. It didn't take long to find her as she moved past the front doors of the building. The undead clamored and clawed at her as she bulldozed her way through the crowd. Like a dervish she moved, shouldering through some, shooting others at point-blank range. Laura slowed and swung the heavy SUV in a wide arc about thirty yards from the woman, as near to Jen's position as she dared in the thickening crowd. She plowed over a few of the less fortunate undead, knocking them down and beneath the heavy vehicle before wheeling around in a loop through the nearly empty parking lot. As she swung the Yukon back towards the crowd, they watched as Jen turned the far corner of the aluminum building. The undead were densely packed in, as they crowded in to get at her. Hundreds of the things all with the singular purpose of feasting on her.

  They could see a tumult of commotion beyond Jen as she rounded the corner, though their sight was blotted out by the sea of heads and arms of the undead.

  “Oh my God!” Sophie shouted.

  They tracked her finger to see what she was shocked about. Beyond the gathered crowd of the undead, atop the raised highway that crossed over the retaining wall and the railroad tracks that the light of day had revealed, came at least twenty of the fast undead. The sight of them lent a sense of urgency that the crowd of hundreds of the others didn't.

  Laura gritted her teeth and spun the vehicle in a short hard arc, bringing it to a stop facing away from the mob. She gently pushed the shifter up two notches until it settled in reverse, the transmission responded with a chunk and shudder. She threw her arm behind the passenger's side headrest and swung her head around, looking past Tim out through the shattered rear window and slammed on the accelerator.

  “Laur?” Tim asked, his voice getting shrill with panic.

  The sound of bodies bouncing off the rear of the heavy SUV would've drowned out any response, had she seen fit to give one. The engine raced in the single reverse gear as the vehicle blasted its way backwards through the mob. Laura had completely lost track of Jen's progress in the crowd. She also recognized that if she let up on the gas that they might get swamped and stuck by the press of the undead. She said a silent prayer and redoubled her pressure on the accelerator, as if it could go down further than the floor. The vehicle was slowed as the percussion of bodies bouncing off the body of the SUV increased in tempo. Suddenly, in the midst of a sea of dead faces Laura spotted Jen, wide eyed, staring back at her through the shattered rear window.

  Time seemed to freeze as the two women locked eyes, the mist of congealing blood shot from the head of one of the undead as it collided with the rear tailgate. The moment seemed to slow and crystallize. The spell broke as both of Laura's feet slammed down on the brake pedal. Her head pressed back into the headrest and Jen threw herself backward, away from the speeding SUV, into the crowd of reaching hands and hungry mouths.

  The shattered glass of a half-dozen windows and the accumulated trash of a weeks’ travel for a group of seven cascaded noisily across the floor of the SUV as its tires screeched to a halt. There was a brief moment of calm and stillness before dozens of clawing reaching arms shot in through every window. One grabbed Laura by the back of her neck, having failed at getting a grip on her close-cropped hair style that she had kept since shortly after the dead started walking. She grabbed the hand and wrestled it free of her neck, drawing her pistol with her other hand. The shot rang loudly as she dropped the thing to the ground outside the Yukon.

  “Jen!” she screamed, craning her neck around, trying to get her bearings. “Get in, Jen!”

  As the words left her mouth, she could see that anyone getting into the vehicle was an impossibility. The assembled crowd of hundreds of undead outside pressed in on the sides of the truck.

  “Laur, you need to get us moving again!” Tim shouted over the moaning that was building to a crescendo all around them. “If we don't get mov-”

  “I fucking know, Tim!” she screamed back at him.

  *

  For over two hours the old man urged Mark and Amber on through the wilderness in near total silence. Mark tried on multiple occasions to engage the man in order to find out his intentions, but was met by a gentle shove on his shoulder each time he slowed. Finally, the man steered them underneath a rocky outcropping surrounded by densely packed conifers. Within two minutes, before Mark and Amber could even begin to catch their breath to ask any questions of the man, the sound of approaching footsteps yanked all their attention from one another and put them on high alert. The old man held a pistol at the ready and made a couple of clucking noises with his mouth. The footsteps stopped immediately. A responding call, a series of ticking noises, put the man at ease. Amber slid behind Mark, who was poised to either attack or run.

  A Native American man and woman came hesitantly through the thicket of brush that Mark could now see was cut and had been intentionally placed there, rather than grown wildly. A moment later a fourth person, a teenager, came through.

  “How are they looking Benny?” the older man asked.

  “Dead or scattered, I didn't stick around long enough to see if they regrouped, though,” the Native American man, replied.

  “Who got the machine gunner?” the old man asked.

  “Hope did,” Benny replied again, his face beaming with pride.

  The woman next to him blushed and looked away as the attention of the group turned to her.

  “Nice shooting, Hope!” the old man in fatigues admired.

  “Thanks, Harold,” she responded, her voice was confident even though her demeanor was meek.

  The teen edged up next to Harold and whispered into his ear. Harold listened intently for a moment and turned to face Mark and Amber.

  “Mark, I take it?” he asked.

  Mark's blood ran cold, he nodded nonetheless.

  “Don't be scared, Son. The head honcho was screaming your name all through the forest. We just need to know something right here and now though, before we get too cozy with one another. Why'd you two leave?”

  It wasn't at all the question that Mark was expecting to be asked. In fact it took a long moment for him to make out exactly what he was being asked.

  “Th
ey. . .” He started before having to pause to swallow a frog in his throat. “The little girl. . .”

  Harold merely nodded and turned away from the couple, back to his people. The four talked briefly in hushed tones before they all stood and Harold turned to them once again.

  “Time to move. If they regroup, they'll be after us so we gotta put some miles down while we can. You all need anything? Food, water, some bactine for your cuts?”

  Mark and Amber looked at one another at that, seeing the bloody mess each other were and smiled. It was a brief, but genuine smile and she snaked her hand into his as he replied.

  “No, let’s get moving.”

  Introductions were made as they started moving, the teenager’s name was Danny. It became evident after a few minutes of walking that Mark and Amber were too tired to both walk and talk. Their breathing came in heaving labored gasps when they tried to contribute to the conversation. The ordeal of the night had taken a heavy toll on the two. Harold tried to be as accommodating as possible to their plight. To this end, he tried to take a five minute break every hour. The pauses were unnerving to him and the rest of the Donner folk and they pushed to get them moving again as soon as possible. Harold was extremely nervous that the soldiers would continue pursuit. He knew that laying ambush was the only reason they had done so well against the troop. They were clearly out numbered and facing far superior firepower. If the soldiers were to chase them down, Harold doubted they had a snowball's chance of surviving.

  Mark and Amber had a lot of questions they wanted to ask, but as they were past the point of exhaustion, they remained quiet and happily allowed themselves to be herded along like cattle. They could get answers later, for now they were satisfied that, whoever these people were, they weren't with Grayson. Mark was still on the edge of paranoia, but he also understood that these people had risked their own necks to help them. They did their best to keep pace with their rescuers until well after dark. Harold finally called for a rest when the moon was high in the sky. The rescuers set about digging a pit that they lit a fire in. Hope and Harold cleaned and tended to Mark and Amber's many wounds while Benny passed around something they called pemmican. Mark and Amber were fast asleep long before Harold and Hope were finished bandaging them up.