He was so pleased with his find that he completely forgot about the nightmare that awaited him outside across the street. He forgot about his missing family. He forgot about everything that didn’t involve opening the next can or swallowing the next salty, delicious bite. He went from one thing to the next and to the next over the course of more than an hour, never pausing or slowing his consumption. He ate so much that he made himself sick.
He vomited twice in the still clean toilet bowl of the men’s bathroom. The nausea likely resulted from his eating too quickly and possibly eating something that was no longer edible. He always hated throwing up. He cried afterward, and even a little during the act itself. The tears, of course, made him miss his mother and her comfort.
Quietly, mostly to himself, he cried in a dark corner of the restaurant’s dining room. He dozed off, still weeping, with his head on one of the plastic table covers. The flies and other bugs, sensing that the intruder had moved on, returned to their own feast on the moldy, rotting remnants of once fresh fruit and vegetables on the prep line.
Alec awoke the next day with a start. He didn’t immediately recognize his surroundings which sent him into a temporary panic. He jolted up, grabbing his rifle, and spun around. In so doing, he knocked a chair from its perch on a table which hit another and another. The resulting crash of furniture helped to remind him of where he was. He stopped circling and went to one of the restaurant’s dark tinted windows.
Just as he feared, the ruckus, however brief, had drawn the attention of those loitering monsters in the parking lot across the street. Their rigid limbs all at once began to quake and shiver as the infection sensed Alec’s presence. Jerking and twisting, the ghouls slithered into the road and then waited. They waited for the next noise, the next smell, the next clue as to where Alec was hiding. He figured rightly that there were far more of those things than just the ten he could see immediately in front of the restaurant. He also figured that it was just a matter of time before the demons located him.
He decided that he didn’t want to wait around to figure out what happened next. He wasn’t much of one for planning though, he just grabbed his backpack and the rifle, and ran out the back door. He cut across some open fields and had to pick his way to the opposite side of a small creek, but soon he was on the go again. He felt better, rested and fed, but his fear was on the rise.
He was back on a main road when he saw a sign with an arrow pointing him toward the hospital. In a matter of minutes, he joined DB and Duke in their truck and then back at their trailer.
The memories of his first days alone and the fears that he would never see his family again exiled his voice. He was afraid that he would never have a reason to speak again, but really it wasn’t as if he was not speaking by choice. His voice had abandoned him.
Of course, that all changed when he finally realized and accepted that the little blonde girl with the pigtails and dirty face was indeed his sister. With tears pouring down his cheeks, Alec knelt down to his sister and, through his emotions, said only, “Jules?”
16.
Alec, kneeling by his sister, blurted out as he pulled her close to him and hugged the breath right out of both of them, “Jules! I never thought.... I can’t believe....Oh God!” His words were washed away by the flood of emotions which swept over everyone in the small camp.
It was nothing short of miraculous. Danny too joined in the embrace, the three of them holding one another as tightly as their arms would allow, their joyous sobs muffled by each other’s shoulders.
Meghan covered her mouth with her hand and refused to fight the tears. Warm and satisfied, her smile emerged from around the barrier of fingers in front of it. Standing next to Neil, she could no longer contain herself. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his chest. She was quiet for several seconds while she reveled in his touch, his smell, and his presence. She was not surprised when her tears changed flavor from those of satisfaction for Danny and Jules to relief for Neil’s return. She shuddered as the feelings completely overtook her. Her legs felt weak, so she leaned even more forcefully against him, hoping to hold the moment.
She peeked over at Emma and her relief was slightly tempered with guilt. She wondered to herself how Emma was doing. Dr. Caldwell’s death was still so fresh and unresolved for all of them, but especially for Emma. Despite the overwhelming happiness that was warming her chest, Meghan couldn’t help but wonder, if even for a moment, how she would be doing if their roles were reversed and it was Neil that they had left back at the gas station instead of Dr. Caldwell. The thought came very close to dousing her good mood, but she fought back the fear with another deep breath filled with Neil’s presence.
For the moment, however, the amazing and unlikely appearance of Alec was enough to put smiles on all of their faces. Maybe, just maybe, there still was that outside possibility that more good news would find them somehow.
Meghan pulled herself away from Neil and gave Emma a long, warm hug as well, ending it with a gentle kiss on her cheek. To Meghan’s surprise, Emma was as warm and reciprocating as a town square statue of some long forgotten historical figure.
Emma did manage to say, “Thanks. It’s good to be back. Did we miss anything exciting?”
Jerry answered, “We heard some shots a bit ago. Got nerves a little frayed for a bit, but...”
“Maybe you should introduce us to your friends,” Meghan said. “I understand this young man is Alec, but how about everyone else?”
Neil stepped aside and, motioning to the people still standing behind him, said, “This is DB, Della, and...well, I don’t know the kids’ names.”
DB nodded to the others while Della just stared at all of them in turn. The awkward silence that followed raised everyone’s discomfort. Della wasn’t seeing people or a warm fire, she was only seeing strangers and a lot of guns.
When she looked at Jerry, he said to her, “Why don’t we go over to the fire? We can talk and you guys can warm up a little.”
Everyone but Della heeded his suggestion. But while everyone else wandered toward the glowing coals of the fire, she stood and watched and waited.
Jerry suggested, “Della, if you’d like—”
“I heard you the first time, Steve.”
Jerry started to correct her when Neil caught him by the sleeve and shook his head. Taking the hint, Jerry turned himself around and opened his palms to the warmth, hoping that perhaps he could make her comfortable enough to join them. But still she waited.
17.
There were many questions, and there were stories to tell and experiences to relive, but knowing what was behind and in front of them on the road was the most pressing concern for all of them.
Neil said, “So, we’re headed for Whittier. What was the road like between here and there?”
DB stirred the small fire with the long, brittle stick in his hand, finally burying enough of the tip in the red coals to have it stand of its own accord. He spoke slowly, “Whittier, huh?”
“Yeah. We heard that maybe the tunnel was closed in time, that maybe the infection didn’t make it there. Lots of people headed that way I guess.”
“Ain’t no real point in going to Whittier. Bunch...maybe hundreds of those things between you and that tunnel.”
“Is the tunnel closed then?”
“What difference does it make? If it is, then you’re shut out. And if it ain’t, well, it won’t be no different than everywhere else. Might as well be the moon where you’re headed. Whittier’s not worth the effort.”
Neil felt his stomach, already growling in protest, start to do rebellious back flips. He thought to himself, now what? DB was obviously coming up from Kenai, and they wouldn’t have left if circumstance hadn’t dictated it. And behind Neil was Girdwood and then Anchorage beyond and both were crawling with the undead. What options did they have?
He found going over the same questions with the same doubts and the same necessities to be nothing but tiresome. M
uch of the positive energy created by finding DB was sapped by the dark thoughts tormenting his mind. Neil kept his thoughts to himself for the time being however. Meghan was, of course, intuitive enough to see the trouble in Neil’s eyes, so she took hold of his cold hand in her warm one.
Jerry asked DB, “Where were you guys headed?”
DB didn’t look away from the fire. He, like many, enjoyed watching a fire tend to its own business. He always found it ironic that it was fire’s basic nature to eat itself to death. Fire consumed everything within its reach until there was nothing left to burn, killing itself with each greedy mouthful. He answered Jerry, “We was just headed. Nowhere in particular. Just trying to stay off of everyone’s radar. Runnin’ into you was a bit of a happy accident.”
Jerry nodded. “Yeah. I know what you mean. The longer I go without seein’ one of those things, the better I feel.”
DB spit into the fire and wiped his chin absently. “Those things ain’t the only bad guys out there.”
Neil was suddenly interested again. “What do you mean by that?”
“Let’s just say not everyone out on the road is as friendly as you all.”
Meghan looked disgusted, “You mean, even with all that’s happened...?”
Claire interjected reproachfully, “See, I told you. Those bastards I ran from back in Anchorage weren’t my imagination. Just cowardly shits taking advantage.”
DB wanted to spit again but thought better of it. No point in being rude after all. “Yeah. I don’t know that I ever seen one of them things do nothin’ bad or aggressive to another one. They just kinda hover and wait. Kinda funny that those things treat each other better than we treat ourselves.”
Claire nodded her agreement and firsthand understanding, while she carefully used her teeth to remove every sticky morsel of granola bar clinging to her fingers. This might be her last meal and she didn’t want to waste a single nibble.
Cradling his forehead in his palm, Jerry commented, “Yeah. A laugh riot.”
DB measured Jerry with his eyes. He would have guessed that Jerry was young, maybe not much beyond twenty-one. Jerry didn’t fit the mold if he was as young as DB suspected now that he had been able to more closely observe him. DB searched the pool of his memory trying to stir his vocabulary. The agitated, undulating caps of adjectives seemed so common and ill-fitting. And then he seized upon a word riding the others: poised. Yes, the man...the boy was poised. DB was satisfied with his quick assessment and moved on.
“There are folks all around. I mean, you know, the kind that don’t eat people. I seen’em around, here and there. Small groups and sometimes just loners. They just lookin’ to stay alive. No different than me or any of us. Mostly, them folks keep to themselves. But there’s others marauding the Peninsula, from Cooper Landing all the way down to Homer. If it ain’t them things out to get you then it’s those bastards followin’ behind to finish you off. Crazies that banded together and just want to stir the pot until it spills onto the floor. Got no regard for nothin’, not even themselves. Drunk or stoned and riding around on motorcycles creating havoc amidst the chaos. About as bad a mix as it could be.
“But that ain’t all. Down outside Soldotna, some of them citizen militia people got organized in a hurry. Hell, this was kind of what some of them had been predicting and preparing for for years. I’m sure that to some of them, this was just Christmas come early. I ain’t had much to do with none of them, but what I seen ain’t been too complimentary.
“Me and Duke and Ricky...I mean Alec, I guess, we was on foot on the highway. This was about a day or so before we found Della and the kids. Well, my truck...let’s just say it wasn’t going to be driving us nowhere. So, like I said, we was walking the highway when I heard something comin’ up the road. It sounded like an NRA parade salutin’ the history of the gunshot. But then I heard the engine sound too. Motorcycles. We dropped out of sight, hopin’ they’d just pass us on by. There wasn’t much in the way of hiding spots to choose from. We was near Kenai Central. Ya know that high school there on the highway? We just got as small and still as we could in the shallow ditch that ran along the side of the road.
“When I peeked back onto the road, I realized there was more to it. There were a couple people on bicycles that were being chased by whoever was on the motorcycles, who were still a little off in the distance but closing fast. It was going to be a short chase. I could tell the bike riders, a man and a woman, were already at their limit and the motorcycles were doin’ nothin’ but gainin’ on ‘em. It was just a matter of minutes...seconds and maybe not even that long.
“The fellas on the motorcycles, when they came into view, were wearin’ uniforms. Like full on military uniforms with the yellow yarn on their shoulders and everything. The militia boys ran them other two folks off the road. They sent ‘em crashin’ ass over tit onto the road. They couldn’t a been more ‘n twenty, maybe twenty-five yards away from where we was hidin’.
“The man from the bike got up first. He looked over his shoulder at the woman who wasn’t movin’. He tried to get away on foot, but his leg was broke. He was facing right at us. I think he may have even seen us, but I can’t be certain. He yelped like a wounded animal when he fell. He tried to crawl but the angle of his broke leg made it impossible to move. It was terrible. One of them uniformed boys walked over to the man and said something like, ‘In the name of the new order of law’ or something, and shot the man in his back. Then the militia boy nudged the man with his boot until he groaned. So the boy shot him again, and laughed when he seen the man’s legs twitch a little. It ain’t never easy to see a man die.
“About then, a big, black Humvee pulled up on the street. More of the uniformed boys piled out and stood around waitin’ for something to happen, but the man in the passenger seat of the SUV stayed where he was. He was the boss, so he didn’t have to get up for no one. At least that’s how it looked to me. He sat in his comfy, padded seat and told everyone else what to do.
“I heard them talk about what happened. I guess the two bike riders were suspected of, get this, looting. The militia, being the new authority in town, was enforcin’ the laws that seemed important I guess and looting is now a capital offense, but when they searched the dead bodies they didn’t find nothin’ on either of them. D’you know what the son of a bitch sitting in the Humvee said then? He zipped up his coat until the metal teeth almost pinched his neck skin and he said, ‘Well, let that serve as a lesson to anyone who might be thinking about looting then.’
“I see a couple of them uniformed boys goin’ through a couple cars on the road and lo and behold they found themselves some beer in a cooler in the back of a truck. Another one of ‘em had a woman’s garter around his forehead. Ya know, the kind of garter that guys get at a wedding and hang around their mirrors. They just rummaged around the cars grabbin’ anything they could get their hands on. Looting? I guess not much changed with the changin’ of the guard. The ins are always sticking it to the rest of us.
“Pretty soon, all the noise them fellas was making got the attention of a bunch of those things. Probably twenty or so of the monsters started to come at them from the high school across the street. Remember how I said them boys had been preparing for all of this? Well, they showed me just how thorough they had trained. It was just a few seconds and a lot of shooting before all those things were piled in the middle of the road. There was more of them off to either side of the road and some more still comin’ from around both sides of the school. I was afraid to look over my shoulder to see if there was any behind us. Hell, I didn’t know what we would do if there were. We had Ricky’s gun but if we shot or even stood up to run, them militia boys woulda’ filled the three of us full o’ holes too.”
It must have been time for a commercial break in the action, because DB paused his story as he stirred the fire again. Darkness was falling all around them, making the small fire glow all the more.
Meghan sighed incredulously. “Jesus.”
Della realized that all the eyes around the campfire were on her and waiting for her to speak again, however, she felt no need to rush into saying anything more. She was not one of those people who felt that every quiet moment needed words or sounds to fill it. Sometimes silence was enough to fill the void in and of itself.
Della’s hands warmed significantly; she held her palms to the back of her neck and felt the comfort trickle both up and down her spine, resisting the urge to shudder with the simple pleasure of shaking away the cold.
In their van on the side of the road, they had decided to forego having a fire for fear that it would attract others to them. Inside the van, the cold was not so extreme at nights, but it was never warm. She accepted things for the way that they were at all times, but there was something to be said for not being cold. She sat silent for a few moments more, realizing that the quiet was waiting for her to break it.
She began, “It was them militia people or the marauders or maybe both that set me and these kids on the path to all y’all. Some damn fools came along to the hotel where we was hidin’ lookin’ for...well, they was looking for whatever they could find.
“I was a housekeeper at the hotel. I was workin’ when the TV in the lobby started to jabber on ‘bout something happenin’ in Anchorage. I ‘spose I saw the same news that DB saw. Them news people were guessing and talking, having experts from the CDC and Homeland Security and who knows what else come on the show to give their two cents worth. Nobody knew what was goin’ on.
Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) Page 8
