The parking lot was at the bottom of a slight downgrade and Jake killed the engine and coasted the last couple of hundred yards, stopping close to the front door. The lot was nearly empty of cars, which he took for a good sign though there were decayed remains of a number of unlucky souls lying about. He left the shotgun in the car, taking only his pistols, and stepped out, drawing the machete. He approached the door and found the padlock missing from the accordion gate protecting the glass doors. The shelves inside looked untouched.
He carefully slid the gate open as quietly as possible, just far enough to slip through. The glass doors, of course, were locked and there wasn't enough space between them to insert his crowbar. Cursing under his breath, Jake knew how much noise he'd have to make to break through the tempered glass and looked around in frustration to see if any of the infected were near. He thought the best thing to do would be to try crashing the Hummer through the doors, but the noise would surely bring unwanted company and if the Hummer was disabled then, or one of the tires were flattened, he'd be in serious trouble.
Then he had a bit of unbelievable luck. Twenty some feet from the door the pitiful decomposing remains of a body lay sprawled in the parking lot. Only a few feet away from the corpse was a large keyring with a dozen or so keys, some of them already rusting from such a long exposure to the weather. Jake retrieved the ring and found the key that fit the doors and, with some effort, unlocked them. As soon as he pulled the doors open, the smell washed over him and he smeared a dab of Vick’s beneath his nose to help mask at least some of it. Once inside, the doors closed behind him, he felt almost giddy. Grabbing a cart, he pushed it to the back of the store and began loading it with boxes of ammo for his rifle and pistols along with a dozen magazines for each as well.
Rounding a display case at the end of an aisle, he bumped the cart into an infected that looked particularly emaciated. The doors being locked, he didn’t expect to find any unwelcome company; a rookie mistake he promised he’d never make again. The thing stumbled and fell to the floor, the ever-attendant cloud of flies scattering for a moment. It tried to get back up but was too weak to manage it and began to crawl toward Jake, jaws working and a sickly groan issuing from its blood-smeared mouth. Jake quickly dispatched it with his machete and searched the store for others, finding nothing more than the bones of another former store employee. He decided that the creature must have been trapped in the store for weeks, feeding off the corpse as long as it lasted and was in the final stages of starvation when he happened upon it. So far, his luck had been unimaginably good.
One of the keys opened a storeroom door at the back of the building and he found more guns and ammunition stacked on shelves inside. He topped off the cart with four more 9mm pistols and four ARs and, as an afterthought, grabbed a compound hunting bow and several boxes of arrows; now that he had a reliable vehicle again, the last thing he worried about was having too many weapons to carry. Smiling, he wheeled the cart to the front of the store, checked the area, then opened the door and pushed his treasure to the Hummer, pulling the glass doors and the metal fence closed behind him. The contents of the cart safely stowed in the vehicle, Jake hopped behind the wheel. The engine turned over immediately this time and he drove happily away, watching in the rear view mirror as the infected turned to stare.
Chapter 4: Alone at Night
It took Vickie nearly another ninety minutes to make her way back to Peterson’s neighborhood; she wished she hadn't bothered. The front door was hanging by one hinge, windows were broken and infected were feasting on the bodies of George, Dan and Jeff and one other that might have been Jenny in the front yard. Sickened, she turned away and walked off toward an overgrown field some distance from the house, picking her way very carefully, making as little noise as she could.
Another hour passed as she skirted around singles and small groups, twice having to run after finding infected approaching from multiple directions. It was getting late, the light was fading and she was terrified at the prospect of being out alone all night. In the dim twilight, she emerged from the overgrowth into a clearing and there, just forty feet from her, stood three infected, facing her way. Vickie froze, unable to move a muscle, but they made no move toward her, didn't even seem to notice her, their heads moving about, eyes searching around them and she realized they couldn't see her in this low light and exhaled sharply in relief. There was nothing wrong with their hearing, though, and they started toward the sound. Vickie sidestepped around them and they followed until she got about fifteen yards away, then they seemed to lose track of her and began to wander aimlessly, arms outstretched, groping about for her. Curiosity got the better of her and she stopped, standing perfectly still and watched as another passed barely twenty feet by her, never once so much as glancing in her direction. She found that if she moved smoothly and silently and kept downwind of them, she could go along unnoticed as long as she kept at least thirty feet away.
The near half-moon broke through a cloud and she was able to find her way to a road. Even now the few infected she passed didn't seem to notice her as long as she moved slowly and quietly and kept a respectable distance. A small house with a detached garage came into view ahead and she made for it. The windows she could see had all been shattered and smears of blood on the porch and steps grimly told her of the probable fate of the owners, but the side door of the garage was unlocked. She cautiously pushed the door open, entering while holding the pipe with both hands, ready to swing it if necessary. It wasn't; the garage was empty. After bolting the door behind her, she found a small stepladder that enabled her to reach the rafters. The owner was storing some planks and plywood across them and she found a box of winter clothing and fashioned a bed there. There was no way, she was sure, that she'd be able to sleep, but she nestled into her makeshift bed and, exhausted, she drifted off almost immediately.
Chapter 5: The Island
As he approached the vicinity of the garage, Jake noticed the infected were around in far greater numbers than he'd seen them there before. Sixty yards from the building, he looked on in dismay. More than a hundred of them milled about the parking lot across the street and he could see that a number of them were feeding. He spotted an unfamiliar car amidst them, straddling the curb, its doors wide open, the struggling body of an infected beneath one front wheel and he could only guess that some unlucky souls had been trapped and paid the ultimate price for their misfortune. Staring at the scene, he saw one of the mobile infected attack the one pinned beneath the car. As the pinned victim howled, others moved in and began to feed on it. Revolted, he turned the car away, knowing he'd have to find another safe house before nightfall. He'd traded a building with weeks of stored food and a fair amount of ammunition for a vehicle with thousands of rounds of ammo but only three power bars and one remaining bottle of water.
Nearly an hour of driving and searching found him no suitable refuge, only houses and buildings ravaged or surrounded by infected, and he drove several miles past the sporting goods store, nervously watching the gas gauge. He was beginning to worry, and to wonder why they were suddenly out in such numbers. Maybe they were on the move looking for new sources of food. The fact that they were now attacking their own certainly suggested that they were getting desperate for nourishment. Once again he saw an incident where the stronger attacked and fed on a weaker, slower comrade. He passed more than a few cars torn apart and splattered with blood and gore by the hordes in their search for food and realized he would need a more secure base than an old garage.
A small fishing boat on a trailer jogged his memory and he recalled how he and his late brother, Theo, had played together by the river when they were kids until Theo lost his footing in the swift current and his grieving family moved to the other end of town. There’d been an island there at a wide spot, perhaps two acres or more, that was connected to one shore by a narrow, wooden bridge, too narrow for a car but just wide enough for a pushcart. On the island had been a couple of makeshift fishing cabi
ns and a small pier. Wishing he'd had the foresight to tie one of the shopping carts to the luggage rack on top of the Hummer, he drove toward the river, six miles further along. Driving off-road the last mile or so, he finally located the island opposite a large grassy field. A two-story brick building now stood in the middle of the island, surrounded by a sturdy, eight foot, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Inside the wire were what looked to be the remnants of several dozen small tents. A heavy wire fence with a metal gate, standing open now, had been erected at the end of the bridge at the near shore.
Jake backed the Hummer close to the gate and exited the vehicle, machete in hand, shotgun slung on his shoulder and his two 9mms in holsters. Standing by the vehicle, he raised his binoculars and studied the island, frequently checking his own surroundings as well. There was no sign of movement on the island and the few infected he saw moving around behind him were far enough away to pose no immediate threat. Taking a deep breath, he moved through the gate onto the bridge and saw it had a simple locking mechanism that could be quickly released from the bridge side. He latched it and walked across the bridge in a crouch, pushing three sets of remains off into the river. Dropping to one knee on the island side he scanned the area, finding the desiccated remains of what appeared to be four people and seventeen dead infected scattered between the shore and the fence. A sturdy gate there too, lay wide open. Battered AR-15s on the ground near several of the corpses made it obvious these people, after running out of ammunition, had put up a hopeless fight before being overwhelmed.
Ignoring the weapons for now, he made his way through the gate and approached the building. A very solid steel door stood open, the tattered remains of a corpse blocking its closure, its smell very pungent in the hot sun. From one of his pockets he extracted his jar of Vicks and smeared some more of the gel under his nose before entering. In the entrance hall, he found nine more corpses, whether infected or defenders he couldn’t tell. Carefully checking the six rooms on the first floor, he discovered four more sets of remains, two more ARs and a couple of .45 autos and one shotgun, all of them empty. Clearing the last room, he found an infected squatting on the floor. When it spotted him, the creature perked up, got clumsily to its feet and staggered toward him, growling and reaching. A swift blow from the machete dispatched the thing and the rest of the first floor was empty.
Steps led to the second floor and he climbed them carefully, alert for danger, but there were no bodies, no infected and no one left alive.
Once the building was cleared, Jake opened the doors and all the windows wide to help clear some of the smell. He went outside and did a circuit around the building, inside the wire. The remains of another eight or so people wearing fatigues were bunched together at the far end of the fenced in area, several dozen mostly devoured infected in an arc around them. That there had been a desperate battle here was plain to see. There had once been at least twenty small, olive drab tents set up in neat rows, but all of them were now down and scattered, some shredded. A row of six, now mostly overturned port-a-pottys were lined up along a side fence. Behind the house was a large LP tank, surrounded by a waist high wooden fence. Next to this, within its own enclosure, was a 20 kilo-watt generator. A third fence partially hid two, large plastic water cubes, one completely full and the other about two thirds so. There was another, smaller brick building with a very large and formidable looking padlock on a heavy steel door. He decided to wait until he thoroughly checked out the main building before tackling the padlock.
Now that he had the time, he examined each room of the main building. There was an entrance hall at the front door, coat racks lining the walls and plastic trays still containing a few pairs of muddy combat boots. A small office with typical office furnishings including desk, computer, printer, two chairs and a filing cabinet was to the left of it. Inside one of the desk drawers, he found two sets of keys for the doors and the two gates, but none that looked like it would fit the padlock. Another room, empty but for a few bare shelves on two walls stood to the other side. A large dining room with two long wooden tables and about a dozen folding chairs, most overturned and a couple broken occupied the center of the building. Cabinets containing metal trays, cups, bowls and flatware lined one of the walls and a projector hung from the ceiling pointed toward the opposite wall, on which was mounted a pull down screen.
A door at the left rear of the dining room opened into a well-equipped kitchen area with a large commercial stove and refrigerator, sinks and butcher-block counters. This was connected to a pantry whose shelves were brimming with cases of MREs and dozens of cans and boxes, so it looked as though his food problems were solved for now. The last room was a storage area with tools, cleaning supplies, oversized washer and dryer and a gas furnace as well as a control panel for starting the generator. Each of the first floor rooms had a steel-shuttered window with an opening some three inches high by two feet wide protected by sliding metal plates, obviously intended as firing slits.
Upstairs was a large, open room with wall lockers, footlockers and six sets of bunk beds, each with a thin mattress tightly rolled up at the head. A common bathroom-shower room was at the far end, and a larger and more comfortably furnished bedroom with its own bathroom was just off the top of the stairway. Fatigue uniforms were in each locker and all had varying insignia denoting ranks from sergeant to captain, with the door of the larger room bearing a colonels rank insignia. Jake doubted this was an actual military unit, instead guessing it was some kind of unofficial, private militia.
In the storage room he found a wheelbarrow and he took it across the bridge and made several trips, bringing his guns and ammunition into the building. By the time he'd stowed everything away and dragged the human and infected remains out of the house and dropped them off the bridge into the river for the current to carry away, it was dark and he was exhausted. Nevertheless, he took the time to close and fasten all the first floor window shutters, leaving the upper floor windows wide open, and to figure out how to start the generator so he could have a hot shower before bedding down in the Colonel's room.
Chapter 6: The Carrolls
The station wagon coughed and backfired twice, releasing a cloud of blue-black smoke, but the engine finally caught and Tom Carroll beckoned the rest of his family to hurry. His wife, Elizabeth, prodded their daughter, Eve, ahead of her. Both, laden with bags full of whatever supplies they could carry, hurried to the vehicle and fairly leapt inside. Tom shifted to drive and sped down the road as the first of the infected appeared, investigating the noise.
“Thank God you found one with the keys still in it,” Liz cried out in relief. “After ours died, I thought we were through!”
“Don’t relax yet, we still need to put a few miles behind us and hope we can find someplace to hole up for the night. How are you doing back there, Eve?”
“I’m fine,” their daughter answered from the back seat, but the quaver in her voice suggested she was far from it.
It seemed only yesterday they’d been an almost typical example of the idealized American family. Tom had a nine-to-five job supporting the family, Liz was content to be a homemaker with a part-time job keeping books for a local veterans association and Eve was a popular, honor roll sophomore student. The infection had been in the news for weeks and they’d followed its progress across Africa, into the Middle East, then into Asia and Europe and, finally to the shores of America itself. Then, on the way home from church one Sunday, a man climbed onto the hood of their car, snarling and clawing at the glass in trying to reach them. Stunned, Tom slowed to a stop and more infected came from both sides, pounding at the windows, none of which, thankfully, was open more than an inch. After a few moments of stunned confusion, Tom hit the gas again and sped toward home, the clinger on the hood losing his grip after a few hundred feet and tumbling onto the pavement.
Upon reaching their driveway, the family discovered the community in a state of panic, some neighbors frantically loading their cars while others foug
ht infected in the streets. Bodies of the dead and dying, many of them being devoured by the infected added to the chaotic and terrifying spectacle. George Macready, longtime friend and next-door neighbor, pointed a gun at Tom as he approached across the lawn, warning him away.
“George! You know me! What’s going on?”
“Get the hell away from me! I don’t know if you have it or not! If you don’t, keep away from other people! Don’t trust anyone! It can happen from one moment to the next! Now get out of here and let me finish loading my car!”
Tom backed away quickly and rejoined his family. They’d seen the exchange and the fear was evident on their faces. Gunfire erupted sporadically from all over the neighborhood along with screams and impassioned pleas for help.
“Liz, you and Eve pack up as much food and water as you can carry with a couple changes of clothing, first aid supplies, anything we might need to survive on our own for a while. I’m going to the gun safe and get those pistols and ammunition. Meet me near the front door, but don’t go outside by yourselves!”
“Daddy” Eve cried out in an uncharacteristic child-like voice. “What’s happening? Is this the end of the world?”
“No, honey, of course not! But we can’t stay here now. Later on, when the authorities get things back under control, we can come back. Hurry now! We have to move!”
The Complete Lethal Infection Trilogy Page 2
