by Q J Martin
“Now! Before they turn on us!”
A second ago Logan was ready to take his own life. He couldn’t imagine that whatever outcome awaited him now could be much worse than dying. He pried Randell’s jaw apart and shoved the entire bottle in his mouth, clamping it shut until he had drank the whole thing.
Randell’s arms began to feel weak in comparison to Logan’s. His grip was slipping. His limbs were going flaccid. Logan kept holding on until Randell collapsed in his grip.
A couple of the Infected stirred. They looked with what seemed like renewed curiosity at Logan.
“What was that?” Logan asked. He just knew that at any second the Infected would pounce, and it wasn’t like he could use Randell’s limp body as a hostage.
Jane took two steps over until she was shoulder to shoulder with him. “Just a little something I mixed up from what I found in the medicine cabinet while I was locked up. It’s enough to tranquilize a horse, but it’s not going to keep Randell out for long. We need to get him handcuffed and get out of here as quickly as we can.”
Logan jerked Randell’s hands behind his back and slapped the handcuffs on them. He wasn’t sure what good it would do them, or how they’d ever make it out alive.
Jane thrust out her hands in front of her towards the front door and made a sweeping gesture with them. The Infected split once again, providing them with a clear path to the outside.
Logan lifted Randell up and threw him over his shoulder. He wasn’t heavy, not anymore. In fact, he weighed less than Logan remembered him weighing even back in middle school when they used to wrestle.
Jane ran towards the door, but Logan was weary. “How are you controlling them?” he demanded. “Are you Infected like Randell?”
She turned around just long enough to say, “Look, I know exactly what you’re thinking. But this is your only shot to escape, so you either come with me or you and your friend die here.”
Logan wanted to shout obscenities into the air and put that trigger back up to his forehead, but he couldn’t. He had to keep going, no matter what the cost, no matter if he could trust this complete stranger of a woman that he had put his faith in just eight hours beforehand, or not.
Jane disappeared through the door, and Logan found himself running after her, screaming curses as he darted outside and was completely blinded by the early morning sun.
Chapter XIII
Logan kept running, not daring to wait for his eyes to adjust to the light. He nearly tripped over the curb, but managed to regain his balance. Finally, everything started to come into view.
It was sunny outside, and warm. Everything was so vibrant, so green, so beautiful, that Logan would have forgiven himself if he had momentarily thought of it as nothing more than a beautiful day.
Of course, it wasn’t a beautiful day. The city was decorated with emaciated corpses. There weren’t as many outside as there were inside. Apparently, Randell’s summon had brought the vast majority of the Infected in the area to the house all at once. But there were enough. They followed Jane and Logan with desperate, hungry eyes. There was an incredulous pause between when they met eyes and when the Infected registered the new pray in front of them.
Then they began the chase.
Randell was weighing Logan down to an extent, but he was still easily catching up with Jane. He was right behind her now.
There were countless Infected to their sides and to their back, but every time one came up in front of them, Jane would make a sweeping gesture with her hand, and the Infected would step to the side.
Logan felt like a quarterback. Which would make Randell a football. He certainly looked the part a week ago. Not anymore.
Jane was leaving a trail of black blood behind her. It seemed to be pouring out of her eyes now. If the Infected were any bit smart, they’d be able to chase that trail even if they lost them. Luckily, they weren’t smart. But how could they lose them?
More Infected came out and chased after them. They came running from inside buildings, from backyards, from side streets, anywhere where they could see and hear the commotion caused by Logan and Jane’s flight.
“Can you get them to stop?” Logan begged between deep, gasping breaths.
“I don’t know how! I don’t even know how I’m doing this,” she said, waving off another Infected.
Logan wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. He was a good runner, but with Randell on his back, and no end in sight, he knew he would collapse before he could ever hope to lose the Infected.
It didn’t help that they never seemed to tire out in the slightest. They weren’t slowing down. In fact, they were gaining on them.
If they didn’t find an escape soon, Logan and Jane would both be dead.
Logan looked around at his surroundings. He was desperate for anything that he might be able to use to his advantage. He saw a series of tall apartment complexes lining the street. They were all identical buildings located in quick succession to each other, and the first one was right in front of them.
“Follow me! I have a plan!” Logan shouted. He huffed and tried his best to pick up his speed as he made a beeline for the front door of the building. He grabbed the door handle and swung it open. He threw Randell with all his might, and he slammed against the bottom of the staircase. Logan held the door open until Jane had safely made it inside, then he slammed it shut.
He locked the door and took one tentative step back, waiting to see if it would hold against the oncoming Infected. They slammed against it. Logan flinched, but the door remained shut, for now at least.
“Son of a…” Logan gasped. If it hadn’t been for Jane, and her ability to control the Infected—Logan ran up to Jane and picked her up with one hand. He slammed her into the wall and pressed on her chest with his elbow.
“You’re Infected, too!”
She groaned. She had not even caught her breath from their run yet, and now he was shoving against her lungs.
“I’m not,” she finally managed to croak.
“You can control them, just like Randell could. Your blood is black, just like his is.” Logan shoved on Jane harder and harder until he heard a slight crunch. “Like all of theirs is.”
“How much—have I—eaten?” Jane asked, spitting up a glob of black blood.
Logan paused for a moment. What had Jane eaten the night before? He couldn’t even remember seeing her eat any food. All he remembered was her drinking. She couldn’t be Infected if she wasn’t hungry, could she?
The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He released her, and she fell to the ground. She started coughing and gasping for breath.
Logan stumbled into the wall behind him. He slid down it, and put his head in his hands. “What am I doing?” he asked himself again and again and again. He wasn’t looking for any response. He knew the answer to that question. He pulled out his bottle of pills and swallowed a couple. “I’m sorry,” he said, finally.
“Don’t be.” Jane wiped the blood from her mouth as she got back to her feet. “What did I tell you yesterday? For all I know, I could be a serial killer.”
Logan didn’t laugh. He just kept rubbing his temples. “How can you control the Infected?” he asked. “I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t get it either,” she sighed. “Of everything I read in that lab when I woke up, I couldn’t find a thing to explain that. That’s why I want to go back there, to Rochester. I want to find out more about what’s going on. Maybe then we could stop whatever this is from spreading, maybe even cure it.”
Logan nodded and swallowed another pill, then he put the bottle up in his bag.
Jane walked up and kneeled down to be eye level with Logan. She put her hand on his shoulder. “You’ve saved my life twice in the last twenty-four hours. You realize that counts for something, don’t you? No single action will ever change that.”
Logan wouldn’t—couldn’t meet her eyes. He heard a huff, and then a clank. Randell was coming to on the stairs. He s
tarted to struggle against his restraints, violently attempting to rip his arms apart. He snarled and howled, spit foaming on his mouth as chomped at the air.
All of his noises blended in with the sounds of the Infected outside, banging against the door and clawing at the glass. The door seemed to give for a second. It barely moved the tiniest bit, but it was enough to bring Logan back to their present situation.
He looked around the hallway for something that he could prop up against the door, but there was nothing big enough to make any difference.
“What are we going to do now?” Jane asked. There was a tinge of defeat in her voice already.
“I—I have a plan. Well,” Logan reconsidered, “I have part of a plan. It may or may not result in our deaths, but if we stay here, we’re absolutely going to die.”
“I’ll take those odds,” Jane smiled. “You’re our best bet right now.”
Logan nodded. He tore off a piece of his jacket and wrapped it around Randell’s mouth so that he couldn’t clamp his jaws shut. Then he threw him back over his shoulder. Logan thought that carrying his friend’s dead weight was enough to slow him down. It was nothing compared to a kicking, writhing, very much alive version of his friend.
Logan gestured for Jane to follow him as he ran up the stairs, going around and around until they reached the final floor. Luckily, the hallway was empty all the way up. They didn’t come across a single Infected save the one flung over his shoulder.
There was a door around the corner. It was a heavy metal door. It looked like it would be capable of taking a fair amount of abuse without breaking. That was Logan’s hope at least. He opened the door and saw that it led up to the roof.
Logan motioned for Jane to run up the stairs, then he closed the door behind them. It was placed on the hinges so that it swung outwards into the hallway, so the chances of the Infected simply shoving it open were minimal; or, at the very least, much less than they were for the front door.
“Great,” Jane said as Logan joined her on the roof. “You want us to jump off the ledge. I don’t necessarily want to die here, but that would be so much less painful than being eaten alive, so I’d give your plan a four out of ten.”
Logan knew she was being sarcastic. “Actually, that sort of is my plan,” he said hesitantly. He walked to the south edge of the building. “See that right there?” he asked Jane.
“The next apartment building?”
“A fire escape.” He pointed. “We’re going to jump over to it.”
“We’ll never be able to make that,” Jane said with certainty.
“Well, let’s find out,” Logan said smiling.
He threw Randell to the ground, then grabbed his pants leg tight with one hand and held on tightly to Randell’s handcuffs with the other. He reared his arms back, then swung them out in front of him, then reared them back again, then swung them out, again and again, until finally he took a deep breath, released it, then let Randell go.
Randell went flying across the space between the apartments. He fell much further than Logan was hoping, and he hit the fire escape with a clang. He remained still for a couple seconds, but then started to wiggle once more, attempting to break free of his restaurants.
“They’ll have heard that,” Jane said, concern obvious in her voice. “And if we jump across, they’ll hear us, too. We can’t lose them like that.”
The sound of hands scratching against the metal door echoed across the roof.
“I’m betting most of them are in that hallway,” Logan said. “And the rest, are going to be distracted, by…” He looked around until he spotted what he needed. “That!” he exclaimed. He ran across the roof and came to a grill. He began twisting nozzles, and soon he was carrying a propane tank to the north side of the building. “Get ready to run.”
“You’re going to shoot the propane tank.”
“Exactly.”
Jane nodded. “I’m putting a lot of faith in you right now. Let’s hope we don’t both plummet to our death.”
Logan threw the propane tank over the edge of the building. It landed with a dull thud next to a car. A few of the nearby Infected were attracted by the sound. They walked up to see what the commotion was.
“That’s it,” Logan whispered as he pointed his gun at the tank and shut one eye, aiming down the sight.
The Infected walked right over the propane tank and looked at it puzzledly.
Logan pulled the trigger of his gun. The gunshot echoed between the buildings, and it was soon joined by the large explosion of the propane tank. A puff of fire rose to the sky, and everything around where the tank had once been was engulfed in flames.
“Now!” Logan said, tugging on Jane’s arm.
They ran across the roof, past the door where all the Infected were clamoring for entry, all the way to the other side of the building. Logan worried for just a second that Jane seemed to be hesitating, but when they reached the ledge, they both jumped together.
Chapter XIV
Logan and Jane flew across the gap. Logan slammed onto the fire escape. He couldn’t have fallen more than a story from the roof, but Jane fell further.
His heart sank. No! was the only thing he had time to think, between realizing that Jane might fall to her death, and seeing the immediate result.
She smacked the fire escape three stories below him. She was clutching her foot tightly and groaning, trying her best not to cry out in pain.
“Are you ok? Are you ok?” Logan whispered as he ran down the stairs to where she was at. “I thought I had killed you.”
“I’m fine,” Jane replied. She released her foot and spun it around a couple times without crying out in pain. She reached out for Logan, and he helped her rise to her feet. She limped for one step, then straightened out. “Wouldn’t the Infected have heard that? How are we going to get out of here unnoticed.”
Just then, there was huge explosion from the other side of the apartment. It was far bigger than that of the propane tank, and the subsequent cloud of smoke swirled around the previous one, creating fascinating patterns in the air.
“Good,” Logan sighed in relief. “The car blew up. They won’t give us a second thought after that. At least I hope not for a while.”
Logan looked around until he found Randell. He spotted him further down the fire escape. The only good Randell’s wiggling did him was to fall down a couple flights of stairs. Logan ran after him, then came walking back up with him in tow over his shoulder.
“We have to see if we can find a window that’s open so we can slip inside,” he contemplated, looking inside the nearest apartment.
He tapped gently on the window frame, and an Infected slammed into it. It growled and hissed. Logan stumbled backwards. He desperately tried to regain his footing, but Randell’s constant squirming threw him off-balance. At the second before he fell off the edge, though, Jane was there, catching him by the shirt and yanking him and his load back to steady ground.
Logan was closer to Jane than he would have normally felt comfortable being. Their chests were pressed against each other. Logan swallowed hard, but remained silent.
“Maybe,” she offered, finally taking a step back, “we should try a different one.”
“I agree,” Logan said, laughing off what had nearly happened to him.
They climbed up another level of stairs, and tapped on the window. This time there was no response. Logan gave it a quick tug and found that it was unlocked. He opened it tentatively, ready to slam it shut at a moment’s notice, but nothing inside reacted to the sound of his presence. He tossed Randell onto the floor, then climbed in after him. Jane was right behind him.
Logan laid Randell out on the sofa in the living room. Together with Jane, he walked across the apartment. He was looking for anything that could be useful for them, anything that was left behind by the apartment’s inhabitants.
The kitchen, however, was nearly empty. There was no food, save some frozen pizza rolls and a quarter-full bag of p
otato chips. The garbage can was overflowing. There were all sorts of empty junk-food wrappers, but not much else.
Logan walked over to the bedroom. The door was shut. He wondered why they would close an inside door behind them if they had to abandon this place in a hurry, or even if they were Infected and never came back.
He unlatched the door softly and shoved it open. It swung inward. Then Logan saw it, the large, half-starved dog that was sitting in the middle of the bedroom floor. Logan could count the ribs on the side of its stomach, and he saw its backbone protruding from its skin.
He tried to reach for the door handle to pull it back shut, but the door was wide open now. He’d have to nearly step on the dog before he’d be able to get ahold of the handle again. He tried to back away, slowly, quietly, but he bumped into a shelf behind him, and a set of keys fell to the floor.
The dog’s eyes shot open,. They focused directly at him.
Logan was little more than subconsciously aware of Jane running up beside him. Before he knew it, the dog was darting out of the room, lunging right at him. Logan dodged to the side.
The dog’s jaws snapped in the air right where Logan’s arm had been just a moment earlier. The dog slammed into the floor and flipped onto its back, whimpering. It rolled over, got back up on its feet, and ran after Jane. It trapped her in the corner of the hallway and snarled, baring its teeth.
Logan pulled his backpack off of his shoulder and slung it in an arc, landing it square in the side of the dog’s stomach. The dog fell over, and while it was down, Logan opened his bag. He searched through it, desperately trying to find his hunting knife. He felt the handle. He wrapped his hands around it and dropped the bag.
Logan slid the knife out of its sheath and looked back up for the dog. It was charging him again. He jumped right before it reached him. He went over the dog’s head.
The dog tried to reach up and snap at his feet. It failed to break the skin, but did succeed in knocking his feet out from under him.
He dropped the knife on the ground. All he could think about in the following microseconds was not landing on his own blade. He reached out, trying to shove the knife out of the way, but instead it slid painfully through the bones of his hand. It felt as if he were wrapping his fingers around a white-hot poker as it busted out the back of his hand.
