by Morris, Jacy
Chapter 9: Burnside Bridge
Blake had felt Lou's command to go. He certainly hadn't heard it, though there were times when he could almost trick himself into thinking that he could hear noises. He accelerated down the street, weaving in and out of stalled cars. Behind him, in his side mirror, he saw the dead tumble to the ground as if they were a wave composed of legs arms and torsos. Blake spared them a single glance, and then he accelerated down the street in the direction of the river.
He had no idea what the plan was. He just knew that he was going to drive until they couldn't drive anymore or until they were safe, whichever came first. If he had to bet on it, he would bet more on the former. He focused his attention on the road. It was only a few blocks to the first bridge, the Broadway Bridge, a steel monstrosity that always reminded him of the opening credits of the TV show Taxi when he went across it. When Blake had pulled the truck to within sight of the red-orange bridge, he slowed the truck to stop.
He looked at the remains of the bridge. The middle portion was missing and broken spikes of steel and cracked asphalt jutted out a few feet over the water. In the river, the water swirled around the wreckage of the bridge. There would be no boat traffic in Portland for a long time, and no one would we be crossing the Broadway Bridge either.
Blake saw Lou's hand point to the south. He immediately saw what he was pointing at. The Burnside Bridge... that was their way out. It was still intact. After a quick nod to Lou, he managed to back the truck up and get it turned around. They cruised through the city streets, almost feeling free. One-way streets meant nothing to him. The wider the road, the better, as it meant more room to maneuver around the numerous wrecks and stalled vehicles that clogged the city's streets.
As he drove, he began to imagine what life would be like once they got out of the city. Would they always be on the run or was there a place out there that was safe? Would they grow to be a family? Or would they all go their own separate ways?
He swerved to miss one of the dead, clipping it with the corner of the semi-truck, and sending it flying through the air. Blake thought about what he would do if he were left on his own. Without hearing, he would be an easy mark. If one of those things should happen to stumble upon him while he was sleeping, then he would be a dead man. The prospect of being left alone filled him with fear. He didn't think Mort would ever ditch him, but if Mort were to die, God forbid, he would be all out of friends.
Ahead of him, he saw the Burnside Bridge curving upwards over the water. He had only a moment to recognize that the bridge was barricaded before he saw the muzzle flash of rifle fire, and then the truck was out of control, 14 wheels guided by two steel rims rolling over deflated rubber. The truck swerved to the side, and Blake tried to control it, but the truck jackknifed and skidded to a stop in front of the barricade, the trailer turned sideways and blocking the bridge.
He was about to hop out of the vehicle when Lou put a restraining hand on his chest. Blake looked at him, confused, and Lou nodded to the front of the truck. Standing in front of them was a soldier, dressed in fatigues, his camouflage cap backwards on his large brow. In his hand was a rifle. Blake didn't need to look twice to see that one false move would send a round of ammunition bouncing around his thoracic cavity. He raised his hands into the air, while in his head, he cursed his own stupidity.
****
They sat on the hot pavement of the Burnside Bridge. Around them, junked vehicles were arranged in a way to block off any approach to the clearing in the middle of the bridge. Clara looked around the circle. She looked at Rudy's unconscious body and wondered if he would ever wake up. She took in the shattered windows of all the cars around her, still painted in red blood, their owners most likely pulled from their own vehicles. She looked at Joan, noting the way she bit her lip as she too calculated the risk of this situation.
The one thing she tried not to look at were the soldiers that sat in the clearing, going through their goods and their bags. Clara wanted to say something to Katie, who openly glared at the soldiers. Clara didn't know what was going on in that twisted brain of hers, but she didn't want Katie to try and pull off another of her impulsive violent acts. Most of all, Clara just wanted to go. She wanted to run and jump over the side of the bridge, but that would most likely wind up in soldiers taking pot shots at her from the bridge with their high-powered rifles. She wasn't that great of a swimmer anyway.
Andy nudged her with his elbow and began to whisper in her ear.
"I said no talking over there. You talk when I say you talk and not before," a red-faced man yelled. The man had a neck like a bull. He was stocky, powerful, and his face was mean. His arms were brown like dried tobacco leaves, and his voice carried the threat of pain and punishment with it. This was a man who was used to being listened to. This was a man you didn't fuck with. They all sensed it.
The other soldiers walked around the man the way abused children tiptoed around a drunken stepfather. They didn't make eye contact. They didn't engage in idle chatter. They just listened and followed directions in the hopes that his wrath wouldn't befall them.
To the west, Clara saw clouds gather, dark clouds full of the promise of rain. The wind on the bridge was picking up, and it carried coolness and a hint of moisture.
She looked at the unconscious form of Rudy lying on the pavement. He hadn't awoken since he had fallen through the semi-truck. Joan thought he was badly concussed, but they wouldn't know the full extent of the damage the big man had taken until he woke up... if he woke up at all.
Clara jerked as the sound of a gunshot echoed across the river. It was one of the guards posted at the edge of the circle. They sat on top of paneled vans, RVs, anything that would give them a good view of the bridge.
She didn't know what to make of their situation. When the truck had ground to a stop on the bridge's concrete edge, they had been thrown from their feet. It seemed like it had taken an eternity for the doors of the semi-truck to open, and when they did, they had thrown their hands immediately in the air as five soldiers with rifles aimed at them. One by one, they had filed out of the truck, enduring the indignity of bodily searches and having their weapons taken away. When it was time to move Rudy, the soldiers sent in Mort and Andy to roll his body out. And now they were here, sitting in the middle of a bridge in the middle of Portland, a million dead things circling about them.
Clara lifted up the leg of her jeans and regarded her ankle. She had badly sprained it only a few weeks ago, and her leap from the third floor of the building had only made it worse. It throbbed and it looked like her foot was attached to her leg by a softball.
The soldiers, having gone through all of their gear now turned their attention to the group of survivors sitting in the circle. The red-faced man stalked up to them and looked them over. Clara knew in her heart that the first words out of this man's mouth weren't' going to be anything good.
"You are free to go," the man barked at them.
The group looked around at each other, confusion on their face. Clara couldn't believe what the man had just said. In every apocalyptic movie she had ever watched, the military had always turned into just another set of enemies that survivors had to watch out for, but here was a man who was going to let them go just like that.
"Can we have our weapons back?" Lou asked.
The red-faced man looked up at the sky and sucked on his teeth for a second, as if thinking. "No. I'm afraid we're going to have to keep those. We can give you some machetes and knives, but we're going to keep the guns. We need all the ammunition we can get."
Lou looked at the others and saw them looking back at him, waiting for him to take the lead. Clara didn't want to admit it, but he had become something of a de facto leader since the loss of Zeke. She waited to hear his reaction.
Lou wiped a hand across his face, unsure of what to say. "You can't just send us out there with sticks and stones."
The red-faced man laughed. "I'm not sending you anywhere, mister. The fact is those
guns will be put to good use by my men. You see, though the military has essentially disbanded..."
"Disbanded?" Clara breathed.
"That's right, disbanded. The President, or at least the man that used to be President, basically told us all to go home. But we don't want to go home. We want to fight."
The group looked at each other. Trying to figure out if the man was in fact crazy. "But there are thousands of those things out there. Hundreds of thousands! How can you and these men hope to defeat them?" Joan said.
The red-faced man looked down at her and smiled. "You know. That's a good question, but I'm not going to answer it. This country is our home. I was sworn to defend this land and so were my boys. The question isn't, 'How are we going to defeat them?' The question is 'Can we afford not to try?' You get me?" Various survivors nodded their assent to the question.
"The guns you have will be put to good use. Every single round of ammunition we can get will be used to put down one of those things. That's the way this war will be one, one dead Annie at a time." The red-faced man smiled at the group. Clara felt as if she were in the presence of either a saint or a madman; she couldn't decide which.
"Now, I'm not just kicking you out of here. If you want to stay here and take this city back with us, you are more than welcome to. But, if you go your own way, you go without the guns. That's just the way it is." The wind began to pick up. It ruffled the military man's salt-and-pepper hair.
He looked up at the sky and held out his hand as the first of the raindrops moved in. "Looks like a storm's moving in. Why don't you guys take the evening to sleep on it? Keep yourself out of the rain. There's plenty of vehicles around here to sleep in. In the morning, we can talk about it."
The red-faced man turned to bark some orders at his men, but Lou stopped him by asking, "What's your name?"
The man looked over his shoulder and smiled again, "Sergeant Tejada of the United States Army... whether it exists or not." Sergeant Tejada turned around again, giving orders to his men, pointing in the distance with his arms that were like steel cables covered in brown skin.
****
Clara felt relieved. They were safe. They were essentially without weapons, but for the time being they were safe. Of course, their time at the Coliseum had taught her just how flimsy the illusion of safety could be, but for now, they would catch their breath. Clara stood up and cracked her back, looking back the way they had come. One mile, maybe a mile and a half, and it had taken them all day. In the process, they had nearly died numerous times. They had fought their way through the dead outside the movie theater, escaped the horde that had trapped them in the streets, jumped out of a third story window, and been shot at by the military. She almost laughed at how crazy it all was. She thought about the Clara she was before the world had died and how insane the story of her day would seem to her were she to travel back in time and tell herself what was in store for her future. The only thing that kept her from laughing was the sight of the west bank of Portland. There was still an entire city to get through on the other side of the bridge.
But they had done it once already, and the west side of the city butted up against a set of hills that kept the population less dense. She looked at the hills rising over the city. The houses set into the side looked forlorn, lost. She wondered if anyone was up there and if they were safe. Was there someone in the hills, sitting in their grand mansion, looking down at her, piles of canned food spread out all around them? She doubted it. But she liked to think that there was someone; it made her feel as if they weren't the last dregs of Portland slogging through the dead, fighting the inevitable.
She watched as the sun began to set behind the hills, turning orange as it went. She supposed this was what entertainment was back when humans were without technology. She might as well be a cavewoman. All the advancements that humans had made had gone the way of the world. There were no more phones. There was no more government. Hell, even the Army didn't exist anymore, except for the fifteen or so crazy bastards who camped out on the Burnside Bridge, nestled down among wrecked and ruined cars, their ammunition dwindling with each shot. What would they do when they were out of bullets?
The thought sent shivers down her spine, and she watched them, a feeling of sadness creeping over her... the sort of feeling she used to get when she sat in her Mom's front yard watching ants. She would look down at them and feel guilty for how much power she had over them, walking about on their six legs, carrying bits of food back and forth to their anthill. Their lives were meaningless. At any moment she could step on them, and wipe them off of the face of the earth. The only thing keeping these soldiers from experiencing the same fate was time. Sooner or later, they would go down, crushed into the pavement of the bridge by the giant boot heel of the dead.
Did they know? Were the soldiers aware that their time as living members of the human race was coming to an end? She supposed they had to know, but they continued on anyway, like those ants, simply because that's what they did. They were soldiers. As long as there was an enemy to fight, they were going to keep plugging away like a punch-drunk prizefighter whose best days were in the past.
"Come on. Let's go pick a car to sleep in," Joan said, breaking Clara free from her morbid line of thought.
She looked at Joan, at her tired eyes, her dirty clothes, and smiled. "What makes you think I want to spend the evening locked in a car with you?"
Joan frowned, not picking up on Clara's joking tone. "I just thought that..."
Clara waved her hand dismissively, "I'm joking. Of course. Let's see what we can find." They wandered around the clearing on the bridge, looking into the vehicles. As they looked into a broken-windowed SUV, the sun went down behind the hills, plunging them into blue shadows. The windows of the vehicle had been broken out, but there was no blood or gore anywhere. Joan tried the door on her side, but it was locked. Clara reached out and pulled the door handle, expecting it to be locked as well, and it was. For a second, she felt like a fool, and then reached in through the broken window and unlocked the door. The power locks still worked.
She wondered how long that would be the case. How long would the battery in the car allow people to lock and unlock these doors? It was like many things in the world now, a ticking time bomb of extinction for the people and the things they had created to make their life easier. Even the canned food that sat unfound on the shelves of abandoned houses would go bad eventually. Every car in the world would need a jump start in another couple of months. She looked down at her shoes. How long would they last?
Inside the SUV, there was nothing, just a dirty interior and little squares of safety glass sprinkled over the seats. She wiped the glass off the seat, and then sat down inside. She looked at all of the dials and gadgets on the dashboard, and wondered if the car would come on. Some heat in the middle of the night would be good. On the windshield, drops of rain began to fall. Fat splats that spoke of a coming storm. It was mere seconds before they could see nothing out of the windshield.
"Just in time," Joan said.
Clara just nodded her head and tried to adjust the seat. No luck. Even that was electric. "Shit," she muttered, just as Joan discovered the problem herself. "You want to sleep in the back?"
"Sure. I just want to sleep. I'm exhausted," Joan said.
Clara looked over at her and knew exactly what she meant. She too was on the edge of consciousness. sliding in and out of awareness. They slid out of the SUV and waved over at Mort who was sitting inside a beat-up old sedan watching them. He just smiled through the rain.
They pulled the back of the SUV open and found nothing yet again. The soldiers had most likely looted every car that they had moved. They climbed into the back and pulled the door shut behind them. They lay on the scratchy gray carpeting of the vehicle's bed and tried to close their eyes.
The sound of the rain had never seemed so loud to her. Thousands of droplets fell from the sky to splatter the pavement and the roof over their heads. The tinny noise
pulled her off to sleep. Through the noise, she would occasionally hear the sound of a gun being fired. It was comforting to her, and though she felt that she should stay awake and stay alert, she was gone within five minutes of laying down.
****
Clara stood before a motorcycle, a basic model that was calling to her. The buildings around her shot up to the sky, blocking it out but for cracks here and there. Their fronts were windowless and plain. They didn't even have doors. She sat on the bike because she had to keep moving. To stop was to die. Once on the bike, she looked at the knobs and dials and wondered just how to start it. She had never ridden a motorcycle before, and the workings were all knew to her. She spotted the gas gauge, the speedometer, and a strange gauge that said life with the needle pointing at the top next to the word "full."
That was odd, she thought. Then she heard a noise behind her, the scraping of feet on concrete. It was him... Courtney. The name rang through her mind, sending alarm signals throughout her body. Courtney knew how to ride a motorcycle.
"Help me," she said.
But Courtney didn't acknowledge her. He just walked towards her, his hands clutching at the air, and his feet scraping across the ground. She looked down and saw that he wore no shoes and that the flesh of his feet was being scraped off with each step, leaving dark red smears as he moved.
Behind him, she noticed more shapes, faceless beings, their arms held before them, as if they all wanted her.
"Help me," she said again. But Courtney didn't hear her, or maybe he didn't care. He was closer now. And Clara could make out the wounds upon his face, scratches and bites. Maggots crawled from within and fell to the ground. His skinless feet ground them to a paste as he dragged his heels over them.
Panic began to build in her chest. She turned around, and began to fiddle with all of the levers and buttons on the motorcycle. There must have been hundreds of them. She looked at the life gauge, and with each second, she could see the needle drop a little lower, dipping towards the word at the bottom where it said, "Dead."
