by Maxey, Phil
Joyce started backtracking. “I can’t do this… we have to get out of here.”
“We came this far,” said Sheryl. “We might as well see if we can get this thing done. Is there another way downstairs?”
He sighed then nodded. “Yeah, follow me.”
They quickly returned to the stairwell and kept descending. For a moment Jess was back in Denver, lowering herself into hell. She paused on the steps as the others arrived at the ground floor.
“Hey! You coming?” said Sheryl, pointing the light up at her.
She nodded then walked down the remaining steps. The door looked normal. No strings of tissue or flesh. Sheryl turned the handle and pushed it open, thrusting her gun and light into the space beyond. Cubicles containing pots of brown mush, sat on desks with framed photos and damp piles of paper. “Looks clear. Now where?”
Joyce pushed past her. “The room at the—” Something crashed within the building making the floor shudder.
Jess ran forward, dragging the young man by his arm, his protests falling on deaf ears. “Where?” They both quickly arrived at another large glass window, this one lying in pieces across an audio console. Joyce peered over it to the room on the other side while Sheryl pointed the light in the same direction. A glow came from the side of a computer monitor. He pushed open the door to gain access and ran to the computer, shaking the mouse. The screen promptly lit up.
“It’s this one! It’s broadcasting…” He swirled around, finding a set of headphones and put them on. “An emergency message. It’s playing on a constant loop.”
Jess ran to his side, trying to make sense of what was on the digital display. “What do I do? Tell me?”
He looked at the large mike. “Get ready to talk into that microphone.” He clicked away a few of the digital boxes, then changed some of the options from a top-down menu, finally hovering over a button for recording. “Ready?”
“Yes!”
He clicked then pointed at her.
“I am Jessica Keller. I’m looking for my children Sam and Josh and my husband, Landon. Are you out there? Can you hear this? I’m broadcasting from the radio—”
A screech so loud it made them all duck, came from somewhere near. Sheryl swung her light back the way they came. “I think it’s in the stairwell. Keep going!” She moved off in that direction with Karl.
“— Station in Rockston. Sam, Josh, Landon if you hear this I’m at a school in southern Rockston, on a hill, it’s called…”
“Heavercroft,” blurted Joyce.
“Heavercroft school and—”
A boom rattled the fragments of glass, together with shouts.
Joyce’s hand was a blur sliding across the screen while clicking options. “It’s done! It’s broadcasting on a loop.” He didn’t wait for Jess to respond and ran outside, she following. Flashes accompanied more gunshots and Sheryl ran back into the main room, Karl the same, then fired off another blast towards the stairwell.
“How do we—”
“This way!” shouted Joyce running to the only remaining door, not hesitating to throw it open and move through it. Jess followed the others then closed the door behind them. Sheryl shone her light across the glass cabinets, framed pictures and vending machines of the foyer, settling on another door, with the word ‘Exit’ stenciled above it. She held her radio to her mouth. “Daryl? Daryl?”
“I’m here. Over.”
“Can you get to north side? Over.”
Engine noise came from Sheryl’s radio’s speaker. “Not sure. About to find out. Over.”
Jess turned, hearing the thundering footsteps move towards the door behind her and threw herself against it, just as something heavy slammed into the other side. She groaned as pain flowed through her shoulder. Karl ran to her side, lending his shoulder to the effort as a guttural growl came from just a few feet away. The barrier shook again, this time knocking both of them back a few inches as they leaned against it once again.
“This thing’s gonna get through, Sheryl!” shouted Karl.
“Daryl? Where are you? Are you—”
A horn blasted from the street.
Without hesitation Joyce pulled the external door open before Sheryl shouted for him to wait. Screeches and roars flooded in from outside.
“Go!” shouted Jess to the remaining two. Karl nodded, running through the exit, while Sheryl hesitated. “I’ll be okay, just—”
An impact split the wood as a claw appeared through the door.
“Stand back!” shouted Sheryl raising her shotgun.
Jess jumped back as Sheryl fired, the door disintegrating while something squealed in the void. Both women ran through the exit, not looking back and sprinted towards the pickup parked just feet away, then bundled into the bed at the back.
The pickup surged forward, immediately veering sharply to the right then weaved again, Jess and Joyce getting fleeting glimpses of decay and rotting things lunging at them as they sped past…
The sounds of anger started to subside as they drove north, into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
5: 30 p.m. Highway 63.
Landon left the diner with a partially eaten bread roll in his good hand. The other he could hardly move despite his words to the contrary.
The snow had stopped but enough had fallen for him to sink a few inches with each step. He looked towards the small house and the glows within and smiled. His kids were safe. Finally.
“I found them, Jess,” he said under his breath which became white mist. Not only had he somehow located them, but he had gotten them the vaccine in time and had just enough left to last the next few days. Rufus seemed to think he and his family were special. He wasn’t about to argue otherwise. There had to be some reason why they were still alive, and mostly together.
He trekked across the ice covered path, towards the front deck then stopped. He wasn’t ready for another round of twenty questions with the old pastor. And anyway, he needed to make a decision on what to do next. He turned away from the front door and made his way towards his new favorite car, opening the door and got in. The interior was ice cold, but he didn’t plan on staying there too long. Just a few minutes to think. He placed the key in the ignition, turning it halfway, then turned on the interior light and sat back.
“What am I going to do, Jess…”
He couldn’t see through the snow covering the windshield, but he knew the general direction Sam and Josh were and that was enough. He imagined his daughter asleep on the sofa and Josh laughing with the other kids in the kitchen. Emotion welled up within his throat, his eyes moistening.
“I…” He swallowed. “I don’t even know if you’re in Denver… What if they have you somewhere else? And I go all the way and…” He knew he had no choice but to stay.
Tears ran from his eyes. “I can’t leave them again, Jess…”
He looked down at his dysfunctional hand and tried moving the fingers again, but as with his last attempt they remained motionless, worse he had hardly any feeling beyond the wrist…
Doesn’t matter… I just need to get through the next few days. Deal with the other shit, afterwards…
He thought about the bottles that he had placed back in the blue box. He wasn’t sure there were going to be enough but he had already decided to forgo his own dose, if it meant Sam and Josh would get there’s. He leaned over, tapped the outside of the glove-department and reached in, pulling out the metal box. He placed it in his lap, then flicked open the lid…
Two…
Two small glass bottles looked back at him.
No… there were more…
He leaned over again and rummaged around the interior space of where he got the box from, but just found maps and candy wrappers. Placing the box on the other seat he looked in the footwell, then down the side of the seats, then swiveled around and looked in the back. After a few moments he faced forward again in the driver’s seat. Two bottles were missing.
Could one of the others have taken them? No
w that it was known that immunes… weren’t. Maybe Brad, Arlo or… one of the two they rescued earlier?
Anger bubbled up within his gut. If they had been taken there would be no getting them back. They were probably digested in the seat he was sitting in. He let out a sigh, shaking his head then took the remaining bottles out and placed them in his pockets. If whoever took them wanted more they were going to have to pry them from his dead hands.
He pushed open the door and got out, closing it and walked to Rufus’s house. He could already hear most of the kids’ laughter as he opened the front door. Josh though was standing in the entrance to the living room. Concern on his face.
“What’s wrong?” said Landon.
“Do you know where Sam is? I thought she was sleeping in here. I wanted to ask if she wanted to play cards with us.”
Landon moved past him, moving into the dimly lit small room. There was no doubt, she wasn’t in there. The sheets on the sofa were also still neatly piled. He turned and walked through the hallway into the kitchen, where Meg and Rufus were seated. “Did Sam go out again?”
Meg shook her head. “No… well I didn’t hear if she did. Why?”
A feeling began to creep into his mind. One that he wasn’t fully ready to accept. He quickly moved back into the hallway, this time opening the bedroom door. Rufus and Meg got up from their chairs. Landon reappeared back in the kitchen. “She’s not in there. She’s not in this house.”
“She’s probably in the diner… maybe with that Lachlan boy,” said Meg.
“Hmm, I don’t trust him,” said Rufus, then regretted the comment on seeing a flash of anger from the woman next to him. “I mean, he’s just quiet is all…”
Landon didn’t hear the last few words as he was already through the front door and jogging across the snow towards the larger building. Half way to the entrance he stopped, then slowly turned his head to his car and in that moment a thought hit him, that weakened his legs. Glancing at the vehicle, he ran to the double doors of the diner, and pushed them open. Brad, Arlo and Tracey were seated around a candle-lit table, Arlo eating.
“What’s up?” said Brad.
“Have you seen Sam?”
He shook his head. “Can’t say I have. I thought she was in the house?”
Landon scanned the shadows at the back of the room. “Sam?” he shouted. Meg and Rufus appeared at the entrance, the former with a flashlight. “Sam?” Landon shouted again, this time from the kitchen then quickly reappeared in the eating area. He stood, shaking his head. “She’s gone.”
*****
6: 03 p.m. Highway 63.
Two lonely figures traipsed over the crunchy white concrete. Lost within an expanse of absolute darkness.
“We must be far enough away by now,” said Lachlan, his arms folded around himself. He glanced back the way they had come.
Sam walked by his side. The cold was beginning to hurt. She was sure if she had been her old self, it would have hit her muscles and bones a long time before, but even her new, improved self was starting to feel the below zero temperature. “Yeah. There should be a car along here, somewhere which we can take.” She looked at her fellow escapee. “So what did happen to you when everything went to hell?”
He let out a breath of white mist.
She looked back to the road. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s fine.”
“Nah… it’s… it’s still, fresh… the plague took ma and pa and… well it took everyone… but… it left me, for a while at least.”
“But you’re like me? You changed a bit? I had a vaccine—”
He stopped. “What vaccine? Was that what was in those bottles which your pa gave you, when he saw you earlier? How d’you get it?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter how we got it. Point is, you didn’t take it. It was the only thing that stopped me from completely changing. Why didn’t you completely change?”
His expression turned to one of indifference and he started walking again. “I don’t know. Guess we’re not the same then.”
Sam let out her own sigh and followed. “I’m not saying that. It’s—” She shivered. “— Just weird. There must be some reason why you didn’t go full mutant. My mom would know.”
There was an awkward pause from Lachlan. “You sure she’s in Denver? What if we go all that way, and she’s not even—”
Now it was Sam’s turn to halt her progress. “She’s there! I just know!”
“Okay, okay! Sorry.”
Sam sighed then they both started walking again.
“Your dad seem’s a good type.”
Sam swallowed her sadness. “He is, that’s why he wasn’t going to leave us. I’m the only chance, mom has…”
“That Rufus is as crazy as a mongoose!”
She giggled and he joined her but she was the first to hear the car engine and spun around. A glow was just above the dark silhouette of a hill they had walked over a mile away.
“Shit. It’s my father. They are searching for us. Got to be.” She scanned the nearby shadows. To her left was a bank, but the right, across the other three lanes, appeared darker. “Over there!” They both ran through the snow, quickly getting to the guardrail and climbed over, carefully feeling for the ground on the other side which fell away. They moved a few feet lower then waited. Sam lifted her head a little to see the highway. “They’re coming this way…”
She watched a silver SUV slow, then stop just twenty-feet from where they were. As the driver’s door opened she ducked and both listened to boots crunching the frozen surface.
“Sam! Lachlan!”
Sam looked at Lachlan. “Joan?”
“I know you’re hiding behind the rail! I saw you run across the highway! Get up here, I’m freezing my ass off!”
Sam stood as the teen next to her tried to keep her crouched. She brushed him off and climbed over the metal fence, folding her arms defiantly. “I’m not going back and you can’t make me!”
Joan smiled. “Young lady. Your dad doesn’t know I’m out here!”
Confusion washed across Sam’s face. “Then why…”
Joan walked to the car, opening the passenger’s door then turned back. “Why don’t we go find your mom?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
6: 29 p.m. Heavercroft School.
Jess sat in a plastic bucket seat on the top row in the school gym. To the others, many feet below in the basement the pervading darkness of the cavernous space would be impenetrable, but Jess’s eyes could make out the lines on the court, the two hoops and all the seats opposite. It was easy for her to imagine what the scene must have been just a week before…
They will hear the message… They have to…
She had made her way from Denver with the sure-fire conviction of finding her kids without a clear idea of how that would happen. If it needed her to search every home across a hundred miles she was going to do that. It was only meeting others that the futility of that plan really hit home.
It’s too late… they might have changed… How do I know if it wasn’t them in the streets in Rockston…
A wave of nausea swept over her, bringing with it vertigo. She gripped the side of the seat and waited for it to pass.
They will hear the message… Soon, they will come here and I will give them the vaccine… Please… they have to be safe…
She looked upwards, her pleas aimed beyond the ceiling to whoever would listen. Despite her parents being believers, she never bought into it. Instead looking for answers in the books and knowledge of science. Everything else was make-believe. But as she sat there, in the cold dark room she knew it was going to take more than algorithms or chemical formulae, for her to see her children again. She needed help and she hoped the universe was listening.
She picked up the sound of a door opening then the footsteps before Daryl pushed open the door to the gym. She started to get excited. Maybe he had come to tell her that Meg or Sam, or Landon had arrived, or sent them a message on the rad
ios. But his heart rate was disappointingly stable.
“Jess?” he said, trying to make anything out in the pitch black. “You in here?”
“I’m—”
“Ohh,” he said, jumping back against the doorframe. “Hell woman, you trying to kill me?”
“Sorry…”
A knock sound was accompanied with an expletive as he made his haphazard way up the steps and then along the row, finally sitting next to her. “So… how you feeling?”
“Head’s better.”
“Good.”
“It’s only a matter of time, before they hear the message.”
“I…” The door from the basement opened again, this time someone was running. By the time the gym door flew open, Jess was standing.
“Anyone…” Joyce was out of breath. “In… here”
“Yes, we’re up here,” said Jess.
“Radio… on the radio… People… coming… here…”
She swiftly stepped over the seats in front to avoid moving past Daryl, and ran along the row. “Sam? Meg?”
“No… no not them. Others. People heard the message. They’re coming. Lots are coming!”
*****
6: 45 p.m. Highway 63.
You did this… She ran because of you… She knew you wouldn’t go find Jess…
Landon shook his head, trying to rid it of unproductive thoughts. The snow was falling again. Heavy flakes hit then melted on the windshield of his old car. Arlo was driving, both men trying and failing to see any detail in the darkness off the side of the road. He knew the routine. Had followed the procedure many times over the years. Work out how long they have been gone, then go to the furthest point the missing person could have traveled to, and work inwards. But that was when you had a few dozen officers and access to street cameras, not to mention the friends and family and even in those situations it was fifty-fifty whether you ever found someone if they didn’t want to be found.
