by Maxey, Phil
Sam didn’t want to say anything. What was the point? The things, which were just blurs due to the speed the sedan was traveling were gone before they were anywhere near the car, and soon they would be free of the city. But then they started to appear ahead of them, moving like a wave towards the three-lane road.
“I know. I see them,” said Jess. Her boot was now entirely to the floor. Her eyes flicked briefly to the speedometer. The needle bounced around ninety-five and even if she could have gone faster, she wouldn’t have wanted to, due to needing to avoid the abandoned vehicles.
Sam’s head whipped around, tracking not one but groups of things, emerging from yards, gardens and side streets. She had the answer to where all the ‘things’ were. They were always there, lurking, waiting, and they had discovered the imposters in their midst.
The sedan sped through intersection after intersection. Jess didn’t want to admit it, but the wall of things was growing closer to the curb.
“How much further!” she said, trying to keep her desperation as subdued as possible.
Sam fumbled the pages. “Um, I dunno, maybe five more miles.”
Too far, thought Jess.
The things were almost within touching difference, definitely close enough to leap. The route ahead was becoming a mass of brown flinching things. As if a forest had uprooted and planted itself in the middle of the road.
“Hold on!” shouted Jess. The sedan rapidly slowed and seeing a gap within the creatures, she swung right, up a curb, over the sidewalk and across a parking lot. Despite the roar of the engine, the air was thick with screeches. A thing with solid brown limbs stormed towards them, trying to get to them before they escaped the lot.
“Mom, mom!”
Jess steered left, bumping down a muddy bank, landing heavily on the concrete of the road then kept on going right. The creature followed, staggering into the street behind them and continued its pursuit, but the sedan was already moving away, and Jess had also seen the other creatures massing a few hundred yards at the end of the south facing route. She hit the brakes and took a left, almost hitting a parked pickup, missing it by inches. A creature bounded across a faded lawn, knocking over trash cans, its bottom was almost human, containing thick legs wearing torn jeans, but its top was just tentacles, which waved and flailed and with a lunge smashed into the rear windows, shattering the glass. Sam screamed, but they were moving too fast for the thing to gain any purchase.
The road was narrow, two lanes and bordered by pleasant two-story homes, which creatures were bursting from, sprinting towards the vehicle. Jess swung the sedan left as they leaped at them, now driving on the sidewalk, but quickly saw the problem ahead. A swarm of things were running directly at them. As Sam’s cries and yells became lost in the engine noise and fury of the creatures outside, Jess turned the steering hard to the right, rejoining the road but kept on going, sliding between two things which grabbed and scraped along the side doors. Sam shouted in shock at the fence they were heading towards but Jess was now lost to panic. The sedan smashed through the planks, bumping over garden slabs, then down a slope, through bushes, another fence and across a front yard, before she slammed on the breaks, and did a turn to the left.
The road ahead looked clear, but the thunderous vibrations of thousands of indescribable things made itself felt through the road then seats of the sedan. Jess floored the gas and they took off again.
“We have to get out of this city!” she shouted. They quickly reached the end of the small street, turning right, joining a much larger four-lane road, which appeared empty of vehicles. She glanced at Sam, whose knees were up against her chest, her cheeks wet and red. “Hey, we’re okay. We’re alive. We’re going to get through—”
A loud bang came from her left, the car immediately slumping slightly on that side. Jess knew what it meant. She had something similar occur a year before on the way to Rocky Pine, but this time, in this situation, she didn’t want to admit that their front left tire had just blown. She eased back on the gas, the car’s speed falling to around forty and glanced in the rear-view mirror. A few hundred yards behind was constant movement of dark forms. A strange thought jumped in her mind.
They’re acting together… like one…
Sparks flew from below her side window, jolted her back to her surroundings. She reduced the speed further, now just topping thirty but the sparks continued. The rubber had completely gone, now just a metal wheel which was rapidly being melted away, until she would lose all control.
She looked in the mirror again. The wall of things was larger. They were gaining.
Sam looked behind. “They’re coming! Can’t we go any faster!”
“If we go faster, the axel could break!”
The road sloped down, past a parking lot. Jess’s mouth fell open while her daughter froze with fear.
Rather than be full of cars, it was full of things, pouring out from the building behind, a medical center. A sea of swirling limbs attached to impossible bodies, lumbering towards the road.
The car suddenly sunk lower on the left side, producing sparks from the entire front, the speed dropping to barely ten miles an hour, the screeching the vehicles own.
Jess scanned the surrounding roads and lots for the vehicles, but there weren’t any.
The sedan was now crawling, its engine chugging and smoke had joined the sparks. They moved across an intersection, then up a slight incline onto a bridge, which railway lines ran beneath.
“No, no, no!” Jess slammed her hands on the steering wheel as the car ground to a halt. “Come on! We have to…”
A brightly colored van was driving towards them.
“Run… Run to the van!” shouted Jess. They both pushed open their doors, grabbing their packs but Jess made the mistake of looking behind. A football stadium of beings filled every inch of space, all converging on them. An angry, seething mass of unnatural creatures with only one purpose, to obtain for themselves the pure organic material, almost within their grasp.
With her daughter in hand, she ran towards the other end of the bridge and the van which was almost upon them. It skidded to a stop, turning in one motion. Its rear side door slid back. A man wearing a military uniform waved them onward.
Jess and Sam, their lungs bursting, sprinted to the open door, scrambling inside as the door slid closed.
They both fell back against the metal wall. Jess gulped, trying to catch her breath as the engine roared.
The man looked to someone driving. “Better put the metal to the floor, Arlo. I ain’t never seen this many before.” He looked back at the woman and the kid. “They wanted you, real bad.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
10: 59 a.m. Southern outskirts of Kansas City.
Jess looked at the inside of the van which was a confused combination of motorhome and hoarder’s paradise. Newspapers and magazines sat in bundles next to cupboards, a small stove, fridge and containers, their see-through plastic hinting at items that belonged to someone who lived inside this small space. A small table sat up against the front cab wall, with a laptop on it. Its screen was bright within the gloomy interior, showing images of carnage.
“You have internet?” said Sam to whoever would answer.
“Er, no, that’s all gone down.” said the man driving, who she figured was in his forties. He pushed his glasses back up his nose, his dark mop of hair doing its best to interfere. “I’m Arlo. The soldier dude is Eugene.”
The ‘soldier dude’ flashed a sarcastic smile at the newcomers.
Arlo continued. “I just stored as much as I could before they turned off the network. I bet the military still have theirs up and going though!”
“There’s still a military?”
“Hell yes,” said Eugene. He looked back to the road, running a callused hand across his short cropped blonde hair. “They just busy protecting the president or something…”
“I’m Jess, this is my daughter Sam. Thank you for saving us. You’re both immune?”
Eugene nodded. “Reckon so. I was with my platoon, we were fighting back the mutants, when… well, things got real bad, real quick. Just luck that I got out alive… the only one not to change. I thought I was the only man left alive in the whole city, then I heard this van’s engine, and well, that was the start of a beautiful friendship.” He looked to the front. “Ain’t that so Arlo?”
“Whatever you say, soldier dude.”
“Where are you going?” said Jess.
“The hell out of this city.”
“I have to get to Jefferson.”
The light-haired man sneered. “We just came from there. It’s almost as bad as this City. We ain’t going back.”
“We’re leaving both,” said Arlo. “Heading south!”
She sat forward. “You don’t understand. I have to go there. There’s something I need to get.”
“Nothing’s worth dying for, lady,” came from the driver.
“Then drop me and my daughter off. We will find our own way.”
The van’s speed remained constant.
“Letting you out here, would be a death sentence,” said the younger man. “And I’m not about to kill—”
Time was running out and she was trapped in a van heading in the wrong direction. “There’s a vaccine!” The words spurted from her.
Eugene looked incredulous. “It came from another planet. How could there be a vaccine already?”
She shook her head, the effort was becoming tiring. “You just have to trust me, I’m a microbiologist. My company developed a vaccine, which stops the…” The soldier had already turned from her. She pulled her coat off and pulled up her sleeve, holding up her right arm. “Look!”
The soldier and her daughter both looked aghast. Jess’s forearm had the musculature of a weight lifter, but that wasn’t what both of them were looking at, for her skin was covered in what appeared to be a lattice of scales. It was the first time Jess had seen her arm as well and it scared her.
“I’m sorry about your deformed arm, lady, but what’s that got to do…”
He scrambled back, raising his M4 rifle at the same time. Jess automatically pulled Sam behind her.
“Arlo!” shouted Eugene, not daring to take his eyes from the woman just a few feet away. “She’s a mutant. Arlo!”
She shook her head. “I’m not a… mutant. I took the vaccine… twice actually. It stopped me from fully, changing.”
“Yeah, but your arm!”
“Well, I was a bit slow taking it. But apart from this, I’m no different.” She wasn’t sure if she believed that.
He nodded towards Sam. “She take it too?”
“Yes, and a few others whom I was traveling with. But it only lasts twenty-four hours. I know where more of the vaccine is. That’s where I was trying to get to.”
“Jefferson City?”
“Can you lower the rifle?” He did. “Around there. A friend of mine has a place. He told me he has more vaccine.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true,” said Arlo, not altering course. “We’re immune. We don’t need this vaccine, and it’s not going to stop you from being mashed up by those things if you bump into them!”
Jess leaned forward again, Eugene tried not to flinch, but did so anyway. “But it’s my daughter and I’s, only hope to survive this madness. We’re not immune. If we don’t get it soon, we’re going to change…”
Eugene let out a breath. Swiping a hand across his square unshaven jaw. “Well… shit.” He looked over his shoulder to the cab up front. “Arlo. Take the next left. We’re heading back to Jefferson.”
*****
11: 58 a.m. Highway 50, western outskirts of Jefferson City.
Landon glanced over his shoulder to Josh asleep in the back of the van. He was lying in the sleeping bag, Donnie sleeping on the lower part. A piece of plastic bag, hastily taped across the hole in the driver’s door window, flapped in the wind.
“He seems a good kid,” said the young woman.
Landon looked back to the highway and the browns and greens of the trees that bordered it. A white building sat on a hill to his left, which from a sign he saw a few miles back, was a hotel. He thought of all the people that must have been staying there, when the plague hit. “Umm… you got any of your own?”
“Kids?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
She looked to her right, out of the side window. “Some, haven’t seen them for ages. You really think you’re going to find your wife and daughter?”
They moved under an overpass then changed lane to move around a semi-truck, the rear of its trailer teetering on the edge of the embankment to their left.
“They’re alive and heading to the same location I am, so yeah I do.”
“You’re a cop, aren’t you?”
Landon resisted smiling but did so anyway. “Is it that obvious…”
“The way you ask questions, how you started the van… oh, you owe me for the window.”
“Why you driving this thing, anyway? You could have your pick of vehicles?”
She looked away again. “It was how I left home. I needed somewhere to call my own. Saw some videos online of people living in vans. So I bought this old van and traveled a bit…”
“And you were traveling with your boyfriend and the old guy?”
“Er… well, yeah, I guess, so this vaccine was made by your wife’s company?”
It was obvious to Landon she wanted to change the subject. His instincts were telling him most of what she had told him was a lie, but that was okay for now. “Yeah, looks that way.”
“But… they already had it?”
“Yup.”
She scrunched her face in confusion.
He glanced at her. “We don’t know how they had it. We’re just glad they do… You’re lucky that you were all immune… not being related and all…”
She remained silent as they passed a white spire and red brick of a church perched at the top of a slope. Below it, across a faded beige field were cars, some overturned. They all pointed away from the place of worship, towards the highway.
They both looked away from the scene of a failed escape.
“You seen the things up close?” she said.
“Yeah. Too close. I leaned quickly to stay as far away as possible.”
“They’re… crazy looking up close. Like melted people.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her elbows.
Landon steered to the right, moving onto the exit.
She looked shocked. “What are you doing? You don’t want to go into the middle of the city! Those things are everywhere!”
“I got no choice. Jess and I agreed that we would find the most obvious landmark in Jefferson, and wait for each other there, if we got separated. We did, so that’s where I’m heading.”
She shook her head. “No offence, I’m sorry for your loss and all, but if your wife went to the center then she’s gone, and we will be too if you take us there!”
“What’s going on?” said a sleepy Josh, appearing between the seats.
Landon continued following the exit, quickly arriving at an intersection. An abandoned brown pickup sat in the center. He steered around it and headed south down a hill, but then slowed. A single story building, a few hundred yards lower down caught his eye. A flag with insignia sat outside, next to a plinth that proudly stated ‘Jefferson country highway patrol.’ He sped up then steered suddenly left into one of the five empty parking slots.
“There are no police!” said Tracey. “They gone! Like the military!” She nervously looked at the buildings opposite. A restaurant, fast food joint and what looked like a dentist sat innocently.
“If we can get into the armory, they’ll have weapons. And if it’s as bad as you say it is a few miles further on. We’re going to need them. You stay with Josh and watch the road. If you see anything, hit the horn.”
“Um, the horn don’t work.”<
br />
“Shout, whatever you need to do.”
She let out a breath and nodded.
He looked back at his son. “I won’t be long, maybe ten minutes. Okay?” Josh remained glum but nodded.
“Hey maybe you should take your dog?” said Tracey. “Might warn you or something?”
Landon quickly dismissed the idea. “Better he warns you both, being out there. Right then.” He looked at the same buildings she had and on not seeing any movement from them or at either ends of the street which continued down into a valley, pushed the door open and listened. The silence reflected the stillness. He then jumped down, closed it, ran across the muddy grass, past the plinth and flag pole to the main entrance of dark glass double doors and pressed his face up against the cold glass, trying to make out what was inside. Only hints of seats and a counter could be seen.
He glanced back to the road then the van and leaned on the heavy door, pushing it inwards. The interior was clean and undamaged. A good sign, he thought. A small foyer with a counter and glass shielding was behind a small seating area. A rack of leaflets sat against a wall, with a peg-board behind which was covered in news of local events. He sniffed the air, which smelled… normal. Also good. He made his way to the only other door and listened against the wood and not hearing anything on the other side, pushed it open to reveal a small corridor with two doors. One leading to the area behind the counter, the other to the rest of the station. He had a good idea of where the armory would be and quickly moved down the corridor, not hesitating to push the other door open.
The air was thick with an odor which he instantly recognized as rotting flesh. The kind of death which belonged in the ground, not available to the elements. The room he had entered was large and open plan. An office with desks, computers and potted plants, which were quickly becoming dried and brown. Another wave of the smell hit him, giving away its location in the room, which was towards the back corner, exactly where he needed to go, for on the back wall was the door marked ‘Armory.’ He also knew there was no point trying to get into it without having a keycard. Sometimes he would keep it in his desk drawer while working, and he was hoping others did the same.
