by Q J Martin
Chapter VIII
Logan kneeled down behind the bush and wiped the sweat off his brow. He found himself desperately wishing they were still in the middle of their Minnesota winter. Why couldn’t this whole mess have occurred two and a half months ago, when he could still see his breath every morning? Logan knew it was only going to get worse over the course of the next couple months, if he lived that long.
“Seriously, though,” he said under his breath, “Where did they go?”
Logan was looking out at the empty street before them, completely bereft of activity. They had been walking for over two hours now, and hadn’t even seen the slightest hint of an Infected. Sure, there were houses broken into, blood splatter on the streets, cars wrecked, but there was no sign of any sick or mentally ill individuals anywhere.
The first time Logan had posed that rhetorical question to Randell, right after they left his house, Randell had suggested that they had all piled up in a mini-van to go to a very hot location. Logan had rolled his eyes, but decided to count his blessings either way.
Now, it was starting to bother him. He made sure that they kept to the shadows, sliding along the sides of buildings and walking through dark alleys, rather than traversing major thoroughfares. That was all much to the dismay of Randell, of course, but Logan wouldn’t risk it. He felt like they were pushing their luck as it was already. It was better to be safe than sorry.
“All I know,” Randell groaned, “is that they’re gone, and I’m hungry.”
Logan looked at Randell with his mouth agape. “Hungry? Again? How can you be hungry already?”
“Um, I have a stomach. We’re going on a cross country tour of the state.” Randell shrugged. “What other reasons do you need, exactly?”
“Where does the fact that you already ate half of what I packed for this entire trip factor into the equation?”
“Man, I woke up this morning and went straight to your house,” Randell said defensively. “Sue me for not stopping at Zombie Burger.”
“Ok,” Logan sighed, accepting defeat. He swung his backpack off of his arm and rummaged through it. “Let’s see… Would potato chips do?”
“Would they do?” Randell’s eyes lit up at the sight of them. “You’ve been holding out on me, man! Give ‘em here.”
He snatched the bag out of Logan’s hand. Logan recoiled at the rustling noise that Randell was making, and gestured for him to keep it down. He couldn’t even get his attention, however, before Randell scarfed down the chips in their entirety.
“That hit the spot,” he said, He threw the wrapper on the ground and patted his stomach, belching in the process.
“Yeah. It’s not like I wanted any of my food or anything.” Logan picked up the empty wrapper and folded it up, placing it neatly in his backpack.
“What are you doing?” Randell asked.
“Putting up the bag.”
“Okay, then. I always thought the end of the world would be the ideal opportunity for us to start showing concern for the environment,” he said sarcastically.
“Shut up.”
Randell froze. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even breath. A horrified look crossed his face.
“Um, I meant that figuratively,” Logan began to explain.
“Shhh!” Randell crouched down behind the bush until he was nearly invisible to the street, and gestured for Logan to do the same.
“What is it?” Logan whispered as he kneeled down beside him.
“I thought I heard a vehicle,” Randell said without taking his gaze away from the intersections that stretched out in front of him.
Logan joined him in scanning the street. He could see roughly five blocks ahead of them. Tall buildings blocked his view to the left, and he could just barely see through the buildings to the right, but a hill blocked the majority of his view in that direction. As he was looking, something caught his eyes. It was a person—no, an Infected. His clothes were in tatters and the red stain of blood laid claim to a history of violence on his otherwise grey and clammy skin. He was walking parallel to them, two blocks away.
“Over there!” he hissed, grabbing Randell’s face and directing him with his finger. Another Infected came into view, and another, and another. Soon Logan saw what looked like an army. “It’s like they’re walking in formation,” he said, bewildered.
Randell rose to his feet. He seemed to forget himself, to forget the situation that they were in, and became solely focused on the armada of Infected that were in front of them. “They are,” he said.
A high-pitched whistle came from their right. A few of the Infected groaned and clutched their ears as a drone skirted the tops of the buildings above them. A split second later, there was a deafening roar, and the Infected went up in a ball of fire. Windows for two blocks all around them were blown out, and Logan found himself being thrown to the ground on top of Randell.
He grunted, coughed, and rolled over onto his hands and knees. He looked to see what had happened to the Infected. They were all scattered around the intersection where the bomb had hit them, in various states of dismemberment.
In the middle of the group was what appeared to be a woman. She stood defiantly in the midst of the wreckage. Her clothes had been burned off to the point that there was nothing but a smoldering thread holding the remains of her shirt together on top of her shoulder. Surprisingly, though, she was completely unharmed. Her skin was perfectly smooth, and her hair was unburnt. She was completely unharmed by the blast, in spite of the fact that she didn’t show any of the symptoms of being Infected by InstaRegen.
Randell walked up beside him, standing right out in the open, and together, they watched the scene play out before them.
The last of the woman’s clothing fell to the ground, and she raised her hand up high, pointing at something in the distance. As she did, the Infected all around her rose to their feet, as if they hadn’t just been in the midst of a huge explosion either, and began charging. They snarled and growled as they went, tripping over regrowing feet and bones that hadn’t properly set themselves back together yet.
It almost seemed to Logan as if they were obeying the woman’s commands. Of course, that would have been ridiculous. It wouldn’t have made any sense. But she pointed, and they ran.
A gunshot echoed through the buildings. A hole tore itself through the naked woman’s chest, and a blackish liquid splattered behind her. A moment later, she was shot again, and again. Logan looked and spotted snipers on the tops of at least four different buildings.
Chaos erupted. Machine guns were being fired incessantly from the direction that the woman was commanding the Infected to go to.
In spite of the gun shots, the woman stood firmly in place in the middle of the street. She didn’t even flinch when she was shot, and each wound quickly began to heal itself. Dozens more Infected appeared from behind her and joined in the charge against the impending troops.
To the right, between the buildings, Logan could see soldiers, tanks, and Humvees with machine guns rolling over the hill, firing at will at the onslaught of Infected.
“That’s the army,” Logan exclaimed, standing up with renewed optimism as he saw them. “Maybe they could help us!”
Randell didn’t respond. He seemed to be simply transfixed by the scene that was taking place before him.
“Come on!” Logan tugged his arm, urging him to move. “If we could meet up with the rear guard, then maybe they could help us find my children!”
Randell didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. Logan grabbed him with both hands and shook him as hard as he could. Randell suddenly came back to his senses, his gaze refocusing on Logan. “Don’t,” he said simply.
“Don’t? What do you mean don’t?” Logan sneered.
“Can’t you see?” he said, seeming more cognizant of his surroundings than he was a moment before. “They’re shooting at everything that moves. What do you think they’re going to do if we jump out in the middle of the street and start wavin
g our arms around? And even if they didn’t shoot us on sight, you really think they’re interested in escorting civilians around cities full of Infected just on the slim hope that they could find their families? I’m sure everyone is on high alert right now. All they’re going to care about is isolating the Infection. Everything, and I mean everything, else will come after that.”
Logan took a moment to let the words sink in. He watched the forces converge on each other. Soldiers were dropping like flies while the Infected were being torn to shreds, regrowing thinner and thinner each time until they just didn’t rise again.
He nodded slowly. “So what do we do, then?”
Before Randell could respond, Logan saw the naked woman waving her arms around frantically, then running full speed towards the nearest army vehicle. A window on the building right above Logan shattered, and a half dozen Infected came swarming out of it. They tripped over each other on the way to join a couple hundred other Infected that were coming out of every building in on the block. None of them seemed to notice Logan or Randell.
“We have to get out of here,” Randell said, turning and running in the opposite direction.
Logan didn’t register his words until Randell was half way through the next yard. He turned and ran after him. In the distance, he heard more drones whizzing through the air. Logan jumped over a fence, then slammed into a couple Infected, knocking them to the ground. He got back on his feet and kept running, not even taking the time to look back.
Randell was running down the middle of the street, passing dozens of Infected. They all seemed to be joining the strange woman on her crusade.
Logan had nearly caught up with Randell when he heard a whistling sound in the air. A building to their left went up in flames. Glass and wood sprayed out in the street. An Infected was thrown from the yard and grazed past Logan.
There was another whistling sound. The street blew up right behind Logan and Randell. They were both thrown forward. Logan tumbled several times before landing on his back. He looked over and saw that Randell had slammed into the side of a car. The door was dented, and his head had shattered the window.
Logan huffed and rolled over. All he could hear was the hum of the explosion reverberating in his skull. All other noises were drowned out. The gunshots sounded like a distant memory. He crawled toward Randell, slowly, one arm-length at a time.
He found himself face-to-face with a pair of feet. He followed them up until he saw an Infected woman, looking at him as if she was just noticing him for the first time. Down the street, a couple Infected were staring at him. They weren’t attacking yet, so he swallowed his heart and kept crawling.
Randell was sitting against the car, massaging her temples.
“Randell,” Logan hissed, pulling himself up beside him.
He didn’t respond.
“We need to get out of here,” he said, grabbing his shoulder and propping himself up next to him. “Come on, Randell.”
Randell looked up and seemed shocked to see a dozen Infected closing in on them. “Oh, my God,” he groaned. He held his hand out as if to command them to stop.
They kept closing in. Logan tried to stand up, but he felt a stabbing pain in his stomach. The Infected were getting closer. They were starting to bare their teeth, snarling and hissing. Logan leaned back against the car and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and prepared for the inevitable.
Nothing happened. They didn’t attack. Logan’s breath ran out and he had to exhale. He took another deep breath and opened his eyes. All the Infected that had been circling them had turned to join the fray down the street.
Logan looked over and saw Randell wiping his eyes.
“Dude. Are you crying?” Logan couldn’t help but laugh at the situation they found themselves in.
“Crying?” he asked as he finished wiping his eyes. “I damn near crapped myself, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I mean, did you see their teeth? Jesus Christ.”
Randell got up fairly easily and offered his hand to Logan.
Logan took it reluctantly. His ribs ached again and he sat back down.
“Are you ok?” Randell asked, releasing his hand and giving him time to respond.
Logan felt around his stomach, then said, “I think I’ll be ok. I’m just bruised.”
“Good,” Randell said. “We need to get out of here. The army probably has a command post in that direction,” he pointed, “so if we want to get past them undetected, we’ll have to head west from here then circle around them to the south.” He offered his hand again.
“Dude,” Logan said, looking at his hand in disgust. “Your hands are covered in tar!” He looked up and saw that it was all smeared over his face as well.
“Well, I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to get a shower after that explosion. I’ll wash my hands when we’re not running for our lives.” He wrapped his fingers around Logan’s hand and helped yank him to his feet, then kneeled down and placed himself under Logan’s arm.
“We need to get off the street,” Logan groaned, clutching his stomach. “Eventually we’re going to come across Infected that aren’t being summoned to arms.”
Chapter IX
Randell supported Logan as they walked through a couple back yards and into a heavily wooded area. They could still hear the gunfire behind them, but it was getting more and more distant with every step.
“Man,” Logan groaned between steps. “What was that back there?”
“I have no idea,” Randell drug out each syllable for emphasis. “The crazy thing was that I just couldn’t help but stare at those Infected. It was like I could feel each one of them, in my own head or something, like some sort of weird-ass connection.”
“Don’t be coy,” Logan huffed. “There was only one thing you were staring at.” He stopped in place, then made an effort to hold a finger up in front of him. “Wait. Make that two things.”
“Yeah,” Randell chuckled, then resumed walking with Logan. “I guess that played, um, a pretty big role in the course of events, if I’m being honest.”
“You never forget your primal urges, do you, Randell?”
“Ha!” Randell shook his head, and together they walked on in silence. There was a clearing ahead. The trees were coming to an end.
“Speaking of which,” Randell said, breaking the silence, “It’s been over five years. When are you going to get yourself back out there, man?”
“What difference does it make to you?” Logan asked defensively.
Randell raised his eyebrows in shock. “Difference? Man, you know me. I can’t get any action while you’re still on the market.”
“What a bold-faced lie. Action is the only thing you ever get. What you can’t get is commitment.” Logan paused, then refined his statement. “Well, from yourself, anyway.”
“It’s true,” Randell spoke with an exaggerated English accent. “I’ve broken many a heart in my day.”
“Remind me. When was your day, again? Last week?”
Randell patted Logan on the back. They were standing right at the clearing, ready to venture out into the clearing. Randell spotted a fallen tree. He walked Logan over to it and helped him sit down for a breather.
“I don’t know why you want me to settle down so bad,” he said, sitting next to him. “I think there must be some ulterior motive involved.”
“I’m just thinking about my children. If they know it’s ok for ol’ Uncle Randy to be out there getting some action, then pretty soon they’re going to start thinking that’s normal.”
“And if they follow your example,” Randell said, poking him on the chest, “they’re going to think celibacy is normal.”
“Ouch!” Logan pretended to be pained by the comment, but he didn’t reply.
He noticed an ant hill near his foot. There was a line of ants marching out of it, walking off in the distance, under orders from the queen. They didn’t get to choose what they did and didn’t do. They were just servants to a higher power. If t
wo of them disappeared, would any of the other ants have the authority to go looking for them? Would they even realize they were missing?
“What’s wrong, dude?” Randell asked.
Logan wasn’t expecting to hear his voice, and it nearly caused him to jump off the ground. He quickly composed himself, however, and did his best to explain what he was feeling.
“It’s just… We’ve been walking all day. We’re not even on the outskirts of Minneapolis yet, and it’s going to be getting dark soon. There’s no way we can stay out after dark.”
“It’s time consuming to stay safe and out of sight on a trip like this.”
“I know. I know. But…” Logan paused. “My children are out there somewhere. They’re not at home. I don’t know where they are, but I know for sure that they’re not at home. And I’m here, at least a day’s walk away, about to call it a night and start fresh and relaxed in the morning.”
“Listen to yourself, Logan,” Randell said compassionately. “You got it right. Your kids do need you. Now what good would you be to them if you’re exhausted out of your wits? You might as well go infect yourself now. It would make things easier. They don’t seem to mess with each other, or get tired, and it would sure make the journey a whole lot less problematic. But what state would you be in when you finally got there?”
Logan didn’t know how to respond. It wasn’t like Randell to be eloquent. “I know, but—”
Randell held up a finger. “I’m not done. Do you just want to find your children, or do you want to help them?”
“I want to help them, obviously.”
“So start by doing what’s best for you, man. If you do that, it becomes what’s best for them, too.”
Logan shook his head in agreement, but remained silent. Randell shoved himself up off the tree and positioned himself to pull Logan up. When Logan was standing beside him, he bent his head down, as if in offer of his support, but Logan shook his head.
“I think I’ll be ok from here. It’s starting to feel better already.” Logan gave his ribs a quick thump to show the lack of pain he was experiencing. Even still, he scrunched up his face and gasped a little bit.
