by Henson, Lynn
“Uh… Bree? I don’t think that’s a good…” he started when suddenly the cover ripped free and she flew backward landing back first on the wobbly piece of shit table, which promptly collapsed, sending her tumbling to the floor. Luckily, one of the corpses cushioned her head from the fall.
Blake rushed to her side, “Are you alright?!”
Bree had the wind knocked out of her; she struggled to sit up and found that her left hand was now adorned with the vent cover. He helped it off her and flung it away to the side. She stared grumpily at Blake, who was clearly concerned but unclear how to proceed. “I’m alright,” she said as she got to her feet. She kicked aside the remains of the table in disgust and pushed a chair over to the now exposed vent.
“Boost me up,” Bree requested as she stood on the chair. He slid another chair next to hers and stood on top of it, laced his hands together and boosted her up. She thrust her arms through the vent opening and lifted herself inside.
“How does it look in there?”
“Dark,” came the muffled reply. “Just hang out for a second, I’m trying to figure out where this goes.”
He paced around nervously. Minutes went by. He heard something clatter to the floor in the security room. He rushed back to find that they’d finally started to penetrate the door. Wooden shards of door were now covering the desk where they’d fallen in. He could see hands covered with dark blood clawing out the holes in the door, trying to make them bigger. One Eye still leered at him as her vigil at the door window continued. He realized their hands were covered with wooden splinters, making them even more gruesome to look at. He rushed back and stood up on the chair and yelled up at the ceiling, “HURRY! THEY’RE BREAKING THROUGH THE DOOR!”
Bree’s face appeared out of the darkness and then she waved her hand at him to come up. He got another chair and stacked it on top of the two that were already there. Slowly, he climbed up to the vent and pulled himself inside.
When he was completely in he realized Bree had taken out a small flashlight which she shined back at him. “Got some bad news, I have no idea where to go in those vents. It’s dark, and they branch off in different directions. It could take us a while to find our way through them.”
“Better than getting eaten,” he decided, “There’s no going back. Better get moving.”
They started crawling in a direction. Ahead he could hear her progress as the vent popped and unpopped metallically under her weight. He crawled after her and the vent played its music for him as well. This went on for a minute when he bumped into something. He groped ahead and Bree squirmed uncontrollably as he brushed her shin. “Stop that! Ticklish!” she protested.
“Sorry. Why’d you stop?”
“We’re at a junction. I don’t know where to go.”
“Well, what are the choices?”
“Straight, right, or left.”
He thought a moment. “None of those sound right.”
She paused. And then said, “What?”
“Let me go past you to see.”
Another pause. “What? No!”
Blake wormed past her. As he squirmed past, she had to flatten herself against one side of the vent. It was a tight fit, but he managed to get by.
His foot came into contact with something. “Face. That’s my face.”
“Oops,” he apologized. He felt around ahead of him. By touching the vent with his hands, he did indeed feel that they branched off in the directions Bree had said. Despite that, he felt down to his very core that none of these was the way out.
“So? Which way?”
“Up,” he said determinedly. He stood up creating more metallic popping noises.
“Up?”
Blake grimaced in the darkness, feeling ahead of him. There was definitely an opening ahead of him going above the straight vent. “This way,” he replied confidently. He gripped the bottom of that vent and pulled himself into it and started crawling forward. He could hear Bree right behind him, vent pop, pop, popping along.
They came upon three more junctions after the first one and Blake felt again at each one that there was only one right way to go. The other vents felt dangerous, though he couldn’t say why. Trusting his instincts, he chose their way for them. Bree followed in silence save for the noise the vents made at their passing.
Finally, after Blake had decided crawling in dark cramped places sucked hard, he could make out slats of light ahead of him. “I think I see something!” he said excitedly, “We might be almost out of here!” He crawled as fast as he could and pressed his face at the slats in the vent cover so that he might see what lay beyond.
Through the slats, he was not disappointed to make out street lights, dumpsters, vehicles, all the sorts of things one finds outside. He felt Bree push up next to him, and he flattened himself up against the side so she could see out as well.
“Well,” she began, “I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t just see it. You really came through. How’d you know how to get out anyway?”
“I...” I don’t have any fucking clue. He shrugged, which caused a vent pop as well as nudging her. “I had a feeling. I know it doesn’t make sense, but here we are.”
She examined the sides of the vent cover and peered outside again. “Here we are,” she agreed. She worked at the corners of the vent cover then grabbed the slats and gave a small push. The cover popped free and she leaned her body out and placed it carefully down. When she pulled herself back in she said “Ok, if we see soldiers, we’re going to hide from them. After what happened in there, they can’t be trusted. Just follow me again, don’t make a sound.”
“Got it,” he agreed.
She poured herself out of the vent and disappeared from sight. He crawled to the edge and looked down. Bree was crouched by a dumpster, peeking around the side. Blake decided to turn himself around and lower himself out of the vent feet first, stomach on the vent floor. He landed quietly next to Bree which made him feel very ninja-y.
They moved to the corner of the building and looked around it. A pair of soldiers was walking around the convention center, one had his flashlight held out in front of him, the other had his rifle hanging on his shoulder. Beyond them, several of the school buses used to evacuate the civilians were parked in neat rows. The convention center itself was still fenced off, and soldiers could be seen at all the gates, visible from their flashlights. Beyond even them, Blake could barely make out shambling groups of people, slowly moving down the street. “That doesn’t look too good,” he observed.
“There’s an understatement,” she replied. She took a deep breath. “Ok... Go!” She took off quickly around the dumpster. Blake ran after her, trying to not to make any noise.
Bree wasn’t running all out as to minimize the noise from her shoes, and Blake mimicked her as much as he could. She gave the streetlights a wide berth and used whatever sparse cover there was to their advantage. He kept an eye on the soldiers, knowing that they would turn around at any second and start spewing bullets at them, but they continued with their patrol. It was not long before they were hidden from view amongst the school buses.
She opened the door of the one they were closest to and went inside. “The keys are in the ignition.” She looked down at him in disbelief. “Really? Who does that?” She came out and walked next to the buses towards the chain-link fence that marked the edge of the convention center parking, pausing at the gaps between vehicles to make sure they weren’t going to alert any patrolling guards. Gradually, they arrived close to the fence without any mishaps. The fence was tall and flimsy enough that attempting to scale it would probably make a huge racket. Plenty of time for the soldiers to shoot us off it. One of the parking exits wasn’t too far off, but temporary barriers had been placed there, and a pair of soldiers stood guard. A group of infected walked past them without any interest. Must be nice to not get chased around by those things. He saw that Bree was taking everything in as well. “Well, how do we get out of here without getting shot o
r eaten?” he asked.
“I want to say we need a distraction. But I still haven’t figured out what we could do that doesn’t get us killed,” she replied, eyes lowered in thought.
“We could hide in the back of one of the buses and when they drive them out of here, so will we.”
She shook her head, “There’s no guarantee they’ll even move the buses out of here at all. And come daylight we’ll be that much easier to spot.”
“Umm... right,” he conceded.
She chewed her lip in frustration. “We can’t just sit here... I’m sure if we’re caught, they’re going to just throw us back in there. I’m not going to wait around for that to happen.”
As she said that, Blake felt water drip on his head, then again. At his feet, small splotches appeared as the rain started to come down. “Rain? In LA? Let’s get on the bus.”
She nodded her assent, opened the doors of the nearest bus and they went inside. Blake checked out a window and decided it was prudent that they had sought shelter. It was really starting to come down now. He looked at the soldiers to see if the rain had scattered them, but they’d all packed ponchos and had donned them to better continue their vigil. Disappointed, he sat down and continued to think about how to escape.
They tossed some ideas back and forth, but nothing seemed feasible, so they waited. They watched nervously hoping for any opportunity to escape. About an hour had gone by when Bree got his attention.
“Something’s happening!” she whispered. Blake followed her out of the bus and went back towards the convention center. They hid out of sight next to one of the buses parked nearest to the center where they could get a good look.
There was a flurry of activity in front of the convention center. About a dozen soldiers had arrayed themselves in front of the building entrance and a limousine had pulled up in front. An officer dressed in a black uniform came out of the back followed by two people dressed in magenta monk robes, complete with great hooded cowls. The officer stood in front of the doors, while the two monks moved in front of him side by side. Their arms rose straight out to their sides in perfect unison, then up above their heads, finally curling behind them and then thrusting straight ahead of them. They stayed in that posture, completely motionless. It gave Blake chills. The front doors opened and people started filing out of the convention center. They all were moving slowly and deliberately. That’s everyone that was in there, they’re all infected now. They flowed out and around the two monks and the officer and started moving towards the exit out of the parking.
“Fuck this shit,” Bree announced. “We’re getting out of here. Now.” She turned around and started to walk back towards the fence and shrieked when a pair of soldiers came out from behind a bus. Their rifles came up and they started shooting. She hit the deck and rolled under a bus. Blake reacted and ran around the corner of the bus he was crouched by. The soldiers were yelling something else now, but he was completely focused on getting out of there. As he rounded the front of the bus he had just been hiding behind, he stole a glance at the front of the convention center. The soldiers there had their weapons ready and were running towards him now. The flow of the infected had also changed course and the whole mass of them was now moving towards him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not good. He ran all out down the aisle of buses and reached the fence. He heard more gunfire, threw himself on the floor in terror, and crawled close to one of the tires, pulling himself into the fetal position as bullets punched metallically into the bus. No! No! NO! What the fuck are you doing? MOVE! He rolled out from under the bus and looked wildly around. Infected mob still coming. No soldiers in view at the moment. He stood up and looked for some way out of this mess. He scrambled up on top of the hood of a school bus and almost slipped off the fender because of all the rain. Once he got his balance back, he climbed up on the roof. He crouched to keep a low profile and had a look around. Infected still coming this way. Soldiers were looking under buses. Think it’s safer up here. The bus rocked a bit and Blake’s hands shot to the roof in case the rocking got worse. Then the bus’s engine roared to life. He heard gears crunch and grind and the bus lurched forward throwing him on his belly. He dipped his head down where he could see into the windshield. Bree was in the driver’s seat, her face as serious as a heart attack. She looked up at his face, mouthed something that looked like “Hang on,” and furiously worked the shifter. He heard more grinding and the bus started moving backward slowly. He pulled himself back up when Bree gunned it and suddenly the bus was moving backward at an alarming rate. He splayed himself out on the roof as the bus backed over the chain-link fence and moments later the back tires dropped off the curb. He slid to the right as the bus turned and his hands and legs struggled to find traction. The bus’s right wheel dropped off the curb followed by the left, which threw him precariously close to the edge of the roof. It was still rolling backward and Blake heard more grinding. He used the momentary pause to get more centered on the roof when the bus jumped forward and started down the road. He looked ahead and four soldiers had arrayed themselves in the street in front of the bus, the infected trickled past them trying to reach the bus. They were yelling something and their assault rifles were up and pointed at the bus. Blake felt their ride shudder as it plowed into the first waves of the infected. To make matters worse, Bree had been accelerating the bus at the soldiers when she suddenly turned hard to the right causing the back wheels to lose traction. The bus was now drifting at the soldiers and Blake was holding on to the top of the bus for dear life. The soldiers unloaded into the bus and Blake could hear glass shattering. He could hear the wet thuds of the infected as the side of the bus slid into them. He saw the soldiers scatter out of the way, and the bus drifted past them heading towards a storefront at the top of a T-intersection.
There was more grinding, and the engine roared and Blake could feel the bus starting to accelerate towards the front. There was more gunfire and he could hear glass on the other side of the bus shattering as well as metal pings as bullets ventilated the side of the bus. The storefront was getting very close now and Bree wasn’t slowing down at all. They got close enough that Blake could read the shop’s normal hours of business when the sliding bled off and the bus started driving forward normally. The engine roared again as they accelerated crazily down the street. When they cleared the intersection, the gunfire stopped, though there was still the occasional splat as the bus drove over some hapless infected. Blake was still hanging on for dear life though as the roof was all wet and Bree still had to maneuver past abandoned cars in the middle of the streets. She was finally slowing down though, so he knocked on the roof to let her know he was still alive. When it seemed like they were out of danger, she pulled over at the next intersection. He slid himself down onto the hood of the bus then turned on his belly and slowly worked his way off the hood to collapse on the sidewalk. He lay on his back and noticed he was sitting next to a bench and a sign that proclaimed “Bus Stop”. No shit. The bus doors slid open and Bree hopped down the couple of steps to join him. He looked up at her wearily, “That was fucked up,” he informed her.
She crossed her arms, “Yeah, I wanted to do something that involved not getting shot at, but I had to improvise.”
“How’d you know I was on the roof of that bus?”
“I knew where you were. I wouldn’t have left without you.”
“Fucking A.” He grabbed the bench and tried to stand, but his legs were shaking and his arms felt dead. He fell back down and Bree moved to catch him. “Whoa... take it easy. Let me help you up because we gotta get out of here.” He gratefully accepted her help and they climbed into the bus. She sat him down in the seat that probably counted as “shotgun”, wheeled the door shut and got back in the driver’s seat.
“I didn’t know you could drive a bus,” he commented.
“It’s my first time,” she informed him.
“What? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It’s cool. I can drive anything that has t
hree pedals and a stick.”
He contemplated this and closed his eyes. His entire body was completely exhausted and he was starting to feel really cold. He took his shirt off and wrung it out into the aisle.
“What are we going to do Bree?”
“Back to my original plan,” she replied. “Hang on.”
He was about to say, “What?” when the bus slammed into what sounded like a car. There was shattered glass, metal crunching, and then the car alarm went off and was receding as the bus drove away from it.
He sat up and spluttered, “What the fuck?”
“Just a little stress relief. It was a BMW. And it was in the way,” she cheerily explained.
“What’s wrong with Beemers? I think they’re kind of cool.”
She just shook her head and kept driving.
twelve
He woke up when the bus engine cut out. He opened his eyes and closed them again when the sun shone brightly into them. “Where are we?”
“Your place,” she replied.
He heard the door open and she exited the bus. He sat up and tried opening his eyes again. He looked around and they were indeed back at his apartment building. He tried to stand and found his legs were still wobbly. He gripped the pole in front of him and discovered his arms felt like spaghetti. “What are we doing here?”
“Getting my car. I’m sick of driving that giant piece of shit. The gas mileage is probably terrible and in case you haven’t noticed, it could use some new windows and some body work.”
Blake couldn’t argue that. “But why your car? I mean can’t we just take any car?”
“I love my car. You still have your house keys, right?”
He dug in his pack for them and handed them to her. She started up to his apartment building and he called after her, “Can you not walk so fast?” She waited for him and together they went up the stairs that led to his unit. She unlocked the door and suddenly he was home. It felt like months since he’d been back even though only a day had gone by. Familiarity reassured him and he moved into his bedroom to strip away his wet clothes and hopped in the shower. The water didn’t work. Greatly disappointed, he dried himself off as best as he could and he wrapped a towel around himself and brushed his teeth. Bree opened the door to his bathroom and gaped at him. “What are you doing? she finally asked.
